A car’s handling and tire wear, as is well known, depend primarily on the condition of the front suspension — the caster angles of the steering axes, as well as the camber and toe angles of the wheels. As a rule, all of these parameters are adjusted on special stands at service stations; however, even Read more…
In “M-K” No. 8, 1984, we wrote about an arched cold frame built by schoolchildren. Its main load-bearing elements — the half-arches — were made from gymnastic hoops. That circumstance strictly determined the size of the cold frame. Yet it is very tempting to build, on the same principle, a more spacious and easier-to-maintain structure Read more…
Over the past decade, motor all-terrain vehicles on light wheels with pneumatic inner tubes have become especially popular among amateur designers. The remarkable cross-country ability of such machines prompted sailing sports enthusiasts to use the unique properties of the pneumatic wheel when creating all-season sail craft. This publication introduces readers to such a vehicle. So, Read more…
Of the family of micro-tractors developed by students at the Kharkiv Institute of Mechanization and Electrification of Agriculture, the simplest and most accessible for DIY construction is the walk-behind tractor “Malysh” (KHIMESKh-2): it makes maximum use of units and parts from industrially produced machinery. This is a compact two-wheeled machine controlled by an operator walking Read more…
In “M-K” No. 4 for 1982, an article was published about the young technicians club at housing management office No. 8 in the city of Vitebsk, and about the amusing and useful machines created by its members. Among the most original devices mentioned was the mechanical sweeper MPM-1. It was conceived as a means of Read more…
At first glance, these are just trifles that mean nothing. In fact, much in our lives (if not everything) is decided by them — though in different ways, depending on what kind of trifles they are. Some, for example, may affect no more than a person’s mood, while others can even change the fate of Read more…
Building homemade cars is a unique phenomenon. Apart from the USSR, nowhere else did this movement become widespread. People of the most varied professions took up amateur car design: doctors, artists, musicians, workers and engineers. It is known that the space conqueror A.A. Serebrov had a homemade car, and cosmonaut V.A. Aksyonov took part as Read more…
Vessels of this class can be found in all major ports of virtually every country in the world. These are rescue craft built to assist those in distress, fight fires, patch hull damage, pump water out of flooded compartments, refloat grounded ships, and tow them. They differ in displacement, speed, and technical capabilities. A large Read more…
This very “flyable” radio-controlled powered hang-glider model was designed specifically for beginners: it is not difficult to build, and it is practically impossible to wreck on landing. A wide variety of materials can be used to make the model — from balsa to basswood (linden). For the formers, even ordinary packaging foam will do, for Read more…
Isn’t it a striking contrast: while the fields of collective and state farms are cultivated today by powerful “Kirovets” tractors, the household plots of rural workers are still plowed the old way — in the best case with a horse-drawn plow, and in the worst simply dug up with a shovel. This work is unproductive, Read more…
