Frost tests the tires

Winter Tire Studs: Bozhko & Zakrevsky DIY Designs

Winter has arrived, and the flow of motor vehicles on the highways of our country has noticeably thinned. The fleet of cars and motorcycles belonging to individual owners is almost completely put away for the winter. There are many reasons for this, but one of the main ones is the mismatch between automotive “footwear” — Read more…

“Economical” bicycle drive

Economical bicycle drive with inertial mechanism — no dead points

Almost all bicycle drive designs share a common drawback that reduces their efficiency. This drawback is the uneconomical expenditure of muscular energy when shifting effort from one leg to the other as the pedals pass through the “dead points” (vertical position of the cranks). Most of the muscular effort at that moment is directed toward Read more…

Kursk kart

Fig. 1. General view (layout drawing of the kart)

The kart design (Fig. 1) has no complex units requiring high qualifications of performers and can be replicated in technical clubs of schools or at young technicians’ stations that have a lathe and gas welding. The kart construction must be carried out in a certain sequence. First, the front and rear axles are manufactured, and Read more…

Pneumatic vehicle “Losharik”

DIY Air-Cushion Vehicle Losharik: Build Guide

Once upon a time, there was a popular TV show “You Can Do It” where craftsmen talked about the designs they had created. Perhaps it was there that information about air-cushion vehicles first appeared. And publications in the “Modelist-Konstruktor” magazine pushed many enthusiasts, including ours from Angarsk (mainly amateur fishermen), to build such machines with Read more…

Skis or a catamaran?

Design of a self-propelled float

The watercraft we would like to introduce to readers can quite rightly be classed as a small vessel. After all, what else would you call a pair of versatile self-propelled floats that can easily be used both as water skis and as a two-seater pleasure catamaran. As can be seen from the drawings, each float Read more…

Opposed engine — beyond competition!

DD-700/40: Two-Cylinder Engine for Ultralight Aircraft

This two-cylinder engine, designated DD-700/40, was designed and built by Georgy Dorfman, head of the public design bureau “Aerosam”. The motor turned out to be exceptionally successful: reliable, relatively simple, and quite lightweight. The motor was exhibited at the IV All-Union Review-Competition SLA-87 and was approved by the technical commission of the rally. To date, Read more…

A copy? Not only!..

DIY Gasoline-Powered Soil Tiller Guide

The prototype of the gasoline-powered tiller built by students of the Moscow region school of the “Gorki Leninskie” state farm was based on a machine of the same purpose produced by one of the Latvian factories. It is designed for soil preparation for sowing and planting and for tilling soil in the inter-rows of forest Read more…

Motor block built by a youth technical club

DIY Motor Block "Kirpi": Compact Agricultural Machinery

In gardens and vegetable plots, at dachas and school grounds — everywhere where there is a need to cultivate small areas of land, universal walk-behind tractors (UWT) are widely used. Including homemade ones, often created with maximum use of standard units and parts. One such design was developed and successfully tested by young technicians at Read more…