Magic hammer

Hammer-forming a car body: practical DIY guide

From my own experience I know that after publishing a homemade car in the magazine “Modelist-Konstruktor” (as with mine in the January 1971 issue), authors receive letters from many cities asking them to share their own experience. Now, during the crisis, when the opportunities of amateur builders are as limited as possible, I want to Read more…

Folding workbench

Folding universal workbench for the home workshop

I arrived at the design of this universal (as I believe) workbench — an essential work table for a home craftsman — after several years of technical creativity. I designed it based on my own needs. But I think that most other home handymen have roughly the same requirements for similar workshop equipment. The workbench Read more…

The backpack isn’t a foreigner

School rucksack DIY: materials, pattern and assembly

Students use all kinds of “containers” for textbooks on their way to school — from fashionable backpacks and briefcases to canvas sacks and plastic bags. But while older students are allowed to do this without any restrictions, young children still have clear recommendations from pediatricians: only a rucksack! Because when worn on the back, it Read more…

It lights and “warms”

DIY wooden wall sconce: build guide and charts

In a modern home interior, factory-made and homemade furniture items or other products can blend organically. Moreover, a few unconventional crafts can change the look of a typical apartment, give it individuality, create coziness, and even bring a sense of “warmth.” Moreover, these simple things can serve a utilitarian (practical) purpose, a decorative one, or Read more…

Not a spring, but gravity

Gravity wicket gate that closes itself with no extra parts

The finishing touch of any dacha fence is, as everyone knows, a wicket gate. Country homeowners often equip them with simple devices that automatically close the gate after someone passes through — steel springs, rubber tension cords, counterweight weights… However, all these “automatic” mechanisms have drawbacks, and the main one is that they all require Read more…

Vase made from an old light bulb

Light bulb vase DIY: step-by-step tutorial

You know what’s most annoying about a burnt-out light bulb? It stops shining — and immediately goes in the trash, even though its shape is already perfect. Round, neat, almost like a mini vase, only empty for now. I once caught myself thinking: why throw away something that literally begs to become décor? That’s how Read more…

Support will correct the mistakes

Foundation embed supports: wedge transition rings

When carrying out installation work related to mounting structures on embedded bearing parts of foundations, difficulties may arise due to unevenness of the bearing surfaces (local tilts, depressions, etc., exceeding allowable limits) as a result of violations of the technological process or due to its imperfection. Such situations often occur when installing industrial equipment, but Read more…

Steam bather’s dream

Sauna stove «Bather's Dream» for a bathhouse

The sauna stove described below is not the first one I have designed and built. Before that, there were designs for a portable sauna “badger hollow” with a simple “samovar”-type stove, and also country saunas with a fairly successful stove-and-steam room unit that served as the prototype for this one, which I called “the bather’s Read more…