The proverb usually mentions a fifth wheel. However, some car designers use a formula reflected in the title of our article. They really do consider the fourth wheel on a car redundant. Judge for yourself: unlike a four-legged stool, a three-legged one does not rock even on uneven ground (remember from school: through three points Read more…
Building and tuning an airboat hydroglider is much easier (and cheaper) than building a racing boat model with a propeller, gearbox, and liquid-cooled engine. At the same time, if properly designed, it is practically not inferior to the “classic” setup in either speed or maneuverability. The proposed radio-controlled model with an air propulsor is based Read more…
When I bought a used passenger car and started repairing it, my first helper in the garage became… a hoist I built under the ceiling. Without it I would hardly have managed, for example, such a difficult operation to do alone as replacing the engine. Figure 1 shows the hoist placement in the garage — Read more…
The mast is the foundation of the rig of any sailing tourist or sports craft, its most important unit. Its design and position determine sail area, configuration and aerodynamics, the ability to adjust sail thrust, and the design of the centerboard and the “ship” as a whole. When building a small sailboat, you have to Read more…
When designing and building the “Shmel,” the creative team “Vzlet” took as a basis the micro autogyro designed by V. Barkovsky, V. Vinitsky, and Yu. Rysyuk, described in detail in “M-K” (see: 1969, No. 6; 1970, Nos. 3 and 10; and 1971, No. 6). This very well-made machine, the first in our country of its Read more…
I decided to make this boat specifically for fishing in quiet lake backwaters — small and maneuverable. And, of course, lightweight, so I could handle it alone. The right material was already available: for several years, under the garage roof, there had been a large duralumin sheet 2700x1800x2 mm stored there, and cutting it into Read more…
The 12th–9th centuries BC are referred to by historians as the “dark ages”. During this period, the tribes living on the northern and eastern coasts of the Mediterranean Sea, meeting face to face, sparked numerous clashes between peoples. Some states dissolved into the mass of others; in free lands, new colonies arose. Art and knowledge Read more…
I suggest motorists equip themselves with a shallow inspection pit that lets you repair a car while seated. It takes far less effort and material than building any “full-depth” equivalent — and it is comfortable to work in. The mini pit has two parts: a ramp pit with a sloped end (you slide under the Read more…
This mini-tractor was built in the Pavlov family’s amateur design bureau: under the head of the family, Valery Vasilyevich, it was assembled by his sons Sergey and Andrei. All three are long-time regular readers of «Modelist-Konstruktor» magazine. The compact tractor, named SAP (S. and A. Pavlov) by its makers, was developed as a universal agricultural Read more…
This is not about dancing in the garden beds, but about an original garden-and-vegetable tool that makes labor-intensive work—performed for ages with a spade (at best—with special forks)—possible even for elderly people (the author and test person of this design is already over seventy). Despite the “tortured” “formula of invention” by the patent office—“A device Read more…
