HOW YOUR WORLD WORKS

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Learn how to The news of the

ice fish! week—behind the
scenes
Be a smarter
consumer! Interviews with
experts who can
bring the world to
And be a lot less your earbuds
bored the next
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makes complicated
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F R E E !)
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Ei TU N E
AT TH
 FEBRUARY • 2017

55
4 From the Editor
5 The Reader Page
6 PM Everywhere
8 Calendar

HOW YOUR WORLD WORKS

11 The Capitol Dome restoration
14 How your heart can talk to your
doctor THE
16 The Norwegian drink that thrives
in Montana POPU L A R
18 Things Come Apart: Telescope
M ECH A N ICS
KNOW-HOW
GU I DE
T O SEL F-
21 The home coffee revolution
CO VE R
26 Tool Test: Circular saws, spray ST OR Y
deicers, and ultra-short-throw
projectors SUFFICIENCY
29 Shop Notes
31 Getting Started In: Furniture
building
36 Ask Roy

DRIVING
Learn the tools and skills you need to live, eat, drink,
38 The new Porsche 718 Boxster S
has only four cylinders. Shall we and entertain yourself without outside help.
weep?
40 Parts & Service: Should you
trust the dealer or your local
mechanic? PLUS: A novelist gets a lesson in survival from his dad.
42 Reviews: New rides from Kia, BY SMITH HENDERSON
Mazda, and Subaru
44 The sunroof—and other options
you should never get for your car
45

75
The New Vintage: Keeping an ’83
VW Rabbit GTi in the family
46 A motorcycle made for a
superhero

THE LIFE

72
49 Fresh Cuts, Old Bikes,
Good Coffee
You can find all three at Greasy
Hands barbershop in Florence,
Alabama
TH E I N CR E D I B LY
PROJECT H OW IT S PECIAL E FFEC TS
85 Home Hydroponics WO R KS : AWAR DS
Forget soil—all you need for a NA SA’ S
winter harvest is water.
By Daniel Kluko
VE N US The actors may get all the glory, but it’s the people behind
MACHINE the scenes who make movies come to life. Our annual look
POPULAR MECHANICS FOR KIDS at the best technology from Hollywood, including:
The rig that re-
90 A night-light powered by the sun! A car chase Crashing a A corpse you
creates any place
in the cosmos, down the Las plane in the can ride like a
THE TOOLS THEY USE Vegas Strip Hudson River Jet Ski
here on Earth.
96 A big, green ski-making machine

ON THE COVER: Photograph for Popular Mechanics by Morgan Levy.

@ P o p u l a r M e c h a n i c s _ FEBRUARY 2017 3
From the Editor

THE NEW
SELF-SUFFICIENCY
LO O O OTTA TA L K A B O U T self-sufficiency
out of a barrel, and I think he’s getting into
these days. Donald Trump pretty much won
brewing beer. This is all on less than an acre.
the election by preaching the wisdom of not
Popular Mechanics has always taught
relying on nobody for nothing. This of course
self-sufficiency—in a 1903 issue, when cars
has its risks as a foreign policy, and I hope the
had barely been invented, we were already
pros outweigh the cons. But as an individual
telling readers how to make one themselves.
policy? I love it. If the meteor hits or the grid
(The headline read, “ ‘Home-Made’ Auto-
goes down or America gets sold to Russia, it
mobiles the Raging Fad—Not Hard to Build.
would be nice to know that you could get on
All Parts Can be Bought Separately, and the
without leaving your homestead—a clean
Enjoyments in Its Possession are Tenfold.”)
water supply, a way to charge your phone,
In our special 16-page package that begins
plenty of Swiss chard out in the garden, that
on page 55, we give you all kinds of practi-
kind of thing. cal advice on the subject, culminating in a
I’m nowhere near self-sufficient yet, but we
beautiful story about a man who lives a self-
do compost. And the boys have enough Nerf
sufficient life in Montana, written by his son.
guns to at least wound a squirrel. Of course,
Our motivation here is not that we’re wor-
there’s my friend Andy up the street—we
ried about the meteor hitting or being sold to
could always hide out at his place. Andy keeps
Russia. It’s articulated best in that father-son
bees. He makes wine in his basement, taps his
story, “The Art of Staying Alive,” in which
maple trees for sap that he boils into syrup,
writer Smith Henderson concludes that his
raises chickens for eggs, grows corn, makes
father lives independently not because he
strawberry jam each summer, built a smoker
wants to withdraw from the world but because
it inspires him to engage
If the meteor hits or the grid goes down or and interact with his sur-
America gets sold to Russia, it would be roundings even more than
he would otherwise.
nice to know that you could get on without It’s a good, counter-
leaving your homestead. intuitive lesson for these
times. I hope you enjoy
the story—and the rest of the issue. And if
RYAN D’AGOSTINO
you don’t, you can burn it in your woodstove Editor in Chief
when the grid goes down. @rhdagostino

Editor in Chief Ryan D’Agostino • Design Director Michael Wilson • Executive Editor Peter Martin • Managing Editor Helene F. Rubinstein •
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4 FEBRUARY 2017 _ P O P U L A R M E C H A N I C S . C O M
 The Reader Page

PROJECT
OF THE
MONTH

A HOMEMADE CRIB THAT AMERICA’S BEST

HARDWARE STORES
TURNS INTO A BED
THE PEOPLE’S
W CHOICES
hen Rob Jablonsky learned his wife sourcing local red oak from a small mill near
was pregnant with their first child, his hometown of Columbia, Missouri, the civil
he used the news to exercise the fine engineer built a few more years of use into his
woodworking skills he’d picked up in design. With the removal of a few wooden pegs Our first annual list of the greatest
high school shop class but hadn’t used he could take out the crib’s crossbeams, lower hardware emporiums in the coun-
since. He was going to build a crib. Jablonsky the mattress, and convert the crib into a small try (November) spurred some
of you to write in with your own
found rough plans online and adapted them to bed when his infant grew into a toddler. Jablon-
nominees. Keep them coming.
meet the safety standards of production cribs. sky finished just two weeks before they brought
Borrowing a drill press from a neighbor and their new daughter home. Elwood Adams Hardware
(Worcester, Massachusetts)
BE IN POPULAR MECHANICS! It’s the oldest operating hardware
Got a great project you’ve been working on, or a solid tip you’ve picked up in the workshop? Tell us about store in the country, opened in
it, and you could be featured right here in the magazine. For projects, send photos, a description, and your 1782—America’s original “If we
contact info to editor@popularmechanics.com. If your submission is published, we’ll give you $100 for a don’t have it, you don’t need it.”
project or $50 for your tip. —Joe Petkiewicz, Cherry Valley,
Massachusetts

Deck’s Hardware
LETTERS (Ambler, Pennsylvania)
My brother and I are third-
A COWBOY HAT FOR BETSY
generation owners of Deck’s, which
I was born in the 1950s and grew
has been serving our neighborhood
up watching TV shows about
just outside of Philadelphia since
cowboys. I always wanted to be
1908. Sometimes our customers
like Maggie Schmidt, featured in
just want to come in, browse, and
your November issue (The Life),
take in the sights and smells.
but life, gender norms, choices, —Tyler Deck, Ambler, Pennsylvania
and circumstances never worked
in my favor. Now I am past the age McLendon Hardware
of pursuing childhood dreams, but (Renton, Washington)
doggone it, I can still wear the hat. McLendon’s has hardware
Can you tell me where to find of every kind imaginable and
the one Schmidt wears? replacement parts for almost
Betsy Shanley all of it. Need a drip pan for a
Vienna, Virginia 30-year-old air conditioner?
That’s aisle 27. A replacement tire
Editor’s Note: Betsy (and for the push mower your grand-
other aspiring cowboys) can daddy bought when he got back
find Schmidt’s SunBody Reata from World War II? Aisle 13.
hat ($59) at sunbody.com. —Sam Nash, Renton, Washington

CO W B OY S : M AT T K I E DA I S C H @ P o p u l a r M e c h a n i c s _ FEBRUARY 2017 5
 EVE RYWHE RE What We’re Up To Beyond These Pages

ONLINE! I N STA G R A M ! T H E P O D C A ST S!

Assistant online editor

Here’s what to listen for on our
Jay Bennett takes you Popular Mechanics podcasts
behind the scenes of the Air this month:

Force’s Special Operations

Command training facili- On The Most Useful Podcast
Ever, host Jacqueline Detwiler
ties. He even jumped out of brings you even more tips for liv-
an airplane while report- ing off the grid. She’ll speak with
Lehman’s, an Ohio-based farm
ing. Be glad he survived, store, about the most useful tools
because now you can read and nonelectric machines used
by the Amish. Plus, technology
his story and watch the editor Alex George teaches you
video exclusively at popular- how to build the ultimate enter-
tainment system to take along
mechanics.com/AFSOC. when you abscond from society.

Meanwhile, on the How Your

World Works podcast, host
Kevin Dupzyk sits down with a
lead game producer and a game
director from Fox’s NFL broad-
casts just in time for the playoffs.

@offermanwoodshop: “#tbt to a
lovely afternoon spent making
Subscribe and download
redwood planter boxes with the students of
both for free on iTunes.
Augustus F Hawkins high school and
@popularmechanics”

Y O U C O U L D W I N A M O V I E S C R E E N I NG!

• Grand prize: Screening of The Lego Batman Movie for 50 people

at a theater near you, complete with free popcorn and soda.
• 25 runner-up winners: A pair of Fandango movie
tickets to see the film in theaters February 10.
• For rules, see page 94. For details and to enter for a
chance to win, visit popularmechanics.com/legobatman

WHERE ELSE TO FIND US

INSTAGRAM TWITTER SNAPCHAT FACEBOOK

@popularmechanics @PopMech PopMech /PopularMechanics

And get our attention with #PopularMechanics

6 FEBRUARY 2017 _ P O P U L A R M E C H A N I C S . C O M
 Presents

The ultimate winter weekend clubhouse

In December, more than 300 Popular Mechanics readers
experienced the ultimate winter clubhouse at the Popular
Mechanics Lodge in Brooklyn, New York. The event took
place at Kinfolk 94—an event space and bar partially formed
by a huge geodesic dome of laminated plywood. The open
bar featured Blue Moon and our signature Gold Rush cocktail
(bourbon, lemon juice, and honey), and The Cannibal Beer and
Butcher provided homemade cured meats. Guests learned
how to cut and varnish their own wood coasters with DIY
editor Timothy Dahl, and sew their own leather wallets with
Slightly Alabama’s Dana Glaeser. Pop-up shops showcased
some of our favorite brands, including Kit and Ace technical
clothing and Camp Chef outdoor cooking gear. The evening
closed with a performance from Jeff Conley, a musician who
makes his own guitars out of old suitcases and other found
objects. (Look for a story on him in the April issue.)
Calendar FEBRUARY How to get the most
out of your month.

SUNDAY MONDAY TUESDAY WEDNESDAY THURSDAY FRIDAY SATURDAY

29 30 31 1 2 3 4
Groundhog Day. Calcium chloride
Punxsutawney ice melt works
Phil has a down to −25
39 percent degrees F, while
accuracy rate. rock salt only
Make a weather works down to
station instead. 15. Save money
(See page 60.) by mixing them.

5 6 7 8 9
Super Bowl Author and The weather
Sunday. Come comic-book cre- is not getting
for the football, ator Neil Gaiman better anytime
stay for reimagines soon. Equip
24: Legacy Viking myths yourself with
after the game. in Norse Myth­ some proper
ology, out today. snow boots.

12 13 14 15 16 17 18
The 59th Annual Valentine’s Day. Keep an eye on Idris Elba and It’s the NBA
Grammy Awards. Or our annual the Chicago Auto Matthew All-Star week-
argument for Show this week. McConaughey end. The Slam
woodwork- Automakers star as a gun- Dunk Contest
ing as an tend to roll out slinger and a is tonight on
expression of new trucks and sorcerer in the TNT. Game’s
affection. SUVs here. big screen tomorrow.
adaptation of
Stephen King’s
The Dark Tower.

20 21 22 23 24 25
President’s Day. If your heat’s been Tired of the win-
Plus, the day running since ter gloom? Bring
John Glenn November, now some greenery
became the is a good time to indoors with
first Ameri- change your fur- a hydroponic
can to orbit nace filter. Do it station, page 85.
Earth. every three months.

26 27 28 1 2 3 4
The Super The Mobile
Bowl of stock World Congress
car racing, the starts today
Daytona 500, with new smart-
is on today. No phone releases
episodes of expected Mardi Gras.
24: Legacy throughout the Celebrate Louisi-
after, this time. week. Save the ana-style with
headphone jack! a local drink.

THURSDAY 2/9 MONDAY 2/20 TUESDAY 2/28

A (BRIEF) BOOT ROUNDUP THIS MONTH IN HOW TO DRINK LIKE A

Whatever any groundhog tells you,
the weather will still be rough for a
while. Two boot upgrades if your pair
hasn’t fared well this winter:
Forsake Duck Boot
An all-weather duck boot you can
keep on in the office. ($140)
North Face ThermoBall
Versa Boot
Clean black on the outside.
Puffy insulation on the inside.
($130)
MECHANICAL HISTORY
On this day 55 years ago, John Glenn
became the first American to orbit
Earth, in a spacecraft called Friend-
ship 7. Before Glenn, two Soviets
had successfully made orbit, a sore
spot for NASA. Glenn orbited Earth
three times, reaching speeds over
17,000 miles per hour. After almost
five hours looping the planet, he
returned home to a hero’s welcome.
NEW ORLEANIAN
Invented in 1838, the Sazerac is the
first American cocktail and the official
cocktail of New Orleans. To make it,
roll a small amount of absinthe around
a chilled rocks glass to coat. Discard
the extra. In a separate glass, muddle
a sugar cube with three dashes of
bitters. Add one and a half ounces
Sazerac rye. Pour into the rocks glass
and garnish with a lemon peel.

8 FEBRUARY 2017 _ P O P U L A R M E C H A N I C S . C O M
 The other guy.

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GEICO is a registered service mark of Government Employees Insurance Company, Washington, D.C. 20076; a Berkshire Hathaway Inc. subsidiary. © 2016 GEICO
AQUAVIT | CARDIOLOGY | A TELESCOPE

PRESERVATION

How to Fix
Congress
Literally. When the
Capitol Dome was
in need of repair, its
stewards recruited
some of the country’s
best makers to fix it.
Just in time for
Donald Trump’s big day.

@ P o p u l a r M e c h a n i c s _ FEBRUARY 2017 11
A
braham Lincoln’s first inauguration, in 1861, was staged on the
steps of the United States Capitol as its dome was still a work in
progress. A few years later, Lincoln insisted that the construc-
tion of the dome continue through the Civil War. “If people see
the Capitol going on,” he said, “it is a sign we intend the Union
shall go on.” In 1866, less than a year after Lincoln had been assassinated, at the
dawn of Reconstruction, the dome was completed: nine million pounds of cast
iron covered in Dome White paint, capped with a bronze statue called Freedom
Triumphant in War and Peace.
But the work goes on. Since the dome’s last complete restoration, from 1959 to
1960, decades of abuse by rain, snow, and slow leaks degraded the cast iron, caus-
ing more than 1,000 feet of cracking to spiderweb across it. So in January 2014,
under the direction of the Architect of the Capitol, the federal agency in charge of
the maintenance and restoration of the Capitol complex, a team of companies and
craftsmen from around the country began repairs. By Inauguration Day they will
be complete, and the American people will gather on the steps of a proud symbol of
American government restored to its original glory. Donald Trump will recite the
oath of office in front of the dome that rose above Lincoln, above our 39th Congress,
and endures at the start of the 115th. Here are a few of the companies that worked
behind a veil of more than one million pounds of scaffolding to ensure it goes on.

THE MAKERS
Historical Allen
C O MPAN Y Lock-N- Bullseye Arts and Architectural American
Stitch Glass Casting Metals F.D. Thomas Iron Works
L O C ATI O N Turlock, Portland, West Jordan, Talladega, Central Point, Hyattsville,
California Oregon Utah Alabama Oregon Maryland

FOU N D E D 1990 1974 1973 1995 1979 1948

WO RK O N Designed a water- Used traditional Restored and cast Implemented the Removed the Installed the more
D O ME tight system to fill processes to more than 100 Lock-N-Stitch many coats of than two miles of
cracks: Threaded- replace unstable pieces of cast technology to lead paint on the metal scaffolding
metal pins pull the or badly damaged iron including repair the dome’s dome and con- that surrounded
two pieces of cast cupola windows ornamentation thousands of tained the site to the dome during
iron together, then with handmade like rosettes and cracks. avoid spreading restoration.
metal “locks” lay glass that repli- scrolls, and gut- hazardous lead
perpendicular to cated the wavy ters. If they throughout the
the repair to com- surface texture of couldn’t repair an Capitol.
plete the “stitch.” the originals. original piece, they
melted it down
and reused the
iron.

P RE VI OU S Jay Leno recently Bullseye devel- Historical Arts Built the steel
P ROJ E C T S implemented its oped a new type of added decora- staircases,
system to fix the fusible glass that tive pieces to the handrails, and
engine block on solved a common Mormon temples pedestrian bridges
his 1913 Christie problem in art in Philadelphia at the Food and
fire engine. and architecture and Payson, Utah. Re-created the Drug Administra-
involving complex cast bronze and Installed chemical- tion Building in
glasswork: When gold candelabra as resistant coating Maryland.
joined, different well as the bronze in clean rooms for
types of glass fountain spire at tech companies
often shatter or City Hall Park in like Hewlett Pack-
crack as they cool. Manhattan. ard and Motorola.

AD D I TI O NAL In 2013 the When the com- Worked with During restoration Long before The company’s
C RE D E N TI AL S Architect of the pany was getting the Frank Lloyd work at the United work began on workforce for the
Capitol nominated off the ground, it Wright Foun- Nations headquar- the chambers dome restora-
Lock-N-Stitch for sold its handmade dation to cast ters in New York of Congress, tion was highly
a construction glass out of its reproduction City, Allen employ- F.D. Thomas was diverse, employing
innovation award Portland offices— vases, urns, and ees transported founded by Dan immigrants from
for its repair a VW microbus. candlesticks by the ornamental Thomas as “Dan’s Morocco, Syria,
technology. the designer. doors to their Quality Paint- Armenia, Jamaica,
shop in Alabama in ing”—he painted and Haiti.
the bed of a pickup residential homes.
truck.

12 FEBRUARY 2017 _ P O P U L A R M E C H A N I C S . C O M

5 via cell network.
4
CARDIOLOGY
The
Connected
Heart
A clinical trial heralds the
wireless future of personalized
medicine. B Y K I R A P E I K O F F
About five million Americans suffer from
atrial fibrillation, a quivering heartbeat
that can lead to blood clots and increase
the risk of a stroke by 500 percent. The condi-
tion is currently treated with a lifetime course of
continuous blood thinners, which are effective
at preventing blood clots but raise the chances of
serious bleeding. Dr. Rod Passman, a cardiology
professor at Northwestern University, recently con-
ducted a study with a radically different approach:
Cardiac monitors the size of a paper clip were
inserted under the skin to measure the electrical
output of patients’ hearts in real time. They alerted
Dr. Passman with a text message if they detected
signs of A-fib. When that happened, he’d initiate
a course of next-generation blood thinners that
would act just long enough to normalize patients’
rhythms. Without inventing a new device or discov-
ering a new drug, Dr. Passman’s novel integration of
the two into an on-demand system stands to trans-
form the way we treat the sick.
14 FEBRUARY 2017 _ P O P U L A R M E C H A N I C S . C O M
1
2 monitor tracks
3 there, but we’re using them in a
Popular Mechanics: So how does
this device work?
Rod Passman: Your heart sends out
electrical signals, and they can be
recorded from anywhere in the body.
This implantable cardiac monitor, so
small it’s actually injected underneath
the skin with a special tool, reads the
electrical activity and feeds it to a web-
site. When you develop A-fib, the heart
rate becomes very erratic. The device
sees the irregularity, and via the web-
site alerts me with a text.
PM: What led to this new approach?
RP: One piece of the puzzle was the
development of drugs that could rap-
idly thin the blood, and the other
piece was that we had to have tech-
nology that could provide long-term
cardiac monitoring with remote
transmission. If we were able to mon-
itor you and let you know quickly, we
could potentially thin your blood early
and prevent a blood clot from form-
ing—providing the benefits of a blood
thinner, with minimal risks.
PM: What did the study show?
RP: In a small group of 59 patients,
we reduced time on the blood thinner
by 94 percent. But to show that this
is safe, we need a very large study, so
we’re planning a 6,000-patient trial.
PM: Has this remote monitoring
approach been used before to guide
clinical decisions?
RP: My study is the first example of
using these devices for patient man-
R E A L -T I M E
CARDIAC CARE
1. The cardiac
heart signals.
2. A second device
uploads the data
3. Patient condition
reports are
available online.
4. If A-fib is
detected, the
doctor gets a
notification.
5. The patient is
given fast-acting
blood thinners
until the heart is
back to normal.
agement rather than
diagnosis. The device
and drug are already out
way they weren’t intended to be used.
I would say I didn’t invent chocolate,
I didn’t invent peanut butter, but I
invented Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups.
PM: My favorite candy. As wireless
technology improves, what’s next?
RP: The device will communicate
directly with a patient’s phone. My
vision is, just like a diabetic checks
their blood sugar and treats them-
selves, in the future the patient with
atrial fibrillation might take blood
thinners on their own in response to
data from this chip inside their body.
Ultimately, these devices will
not just see the rhythm of the heart.
Maybe they could see things like
blood pressure or glucose levels. Tell
you whether you’ve been mobile or
not. The potential usefulness of these
devices is really quite remarkable.
PM: One day, will we all end up
wearing one to monitor us before
something goes wrong? Is this
basically a Fitbit on steroids?
RP (laughing): A Fitbit is a toy com-
pared with this. One can envision it
as a long-term health-management
tool. The concept of waiting until
you’ve fallen off the cliff to come to
the doctor or to recognize a disease
after it’s gotten out of control could be
obsolete. Think of the efficiency—we
could monitor thousands of patients
from their homes. We see problems
before the patients see problems.
PM: Sounds like a new paradigm
that’s still far away.
RP: It’s a lot closer now than ever.
I L LU S T R AT I O N BY G R A H A M M U R D O C H

AQUAVIT
Drink Like a
Scandinavian
How a spirit from 16th-century Norway made its
way to Montana. And why it should be in your glass.
BY FRANCI N E MAROU KIAN
A
Viking boat may not
have b een able to
make it to Montana,
but that doesn’t mean
the Scandinavians
couldn’t. Along with the Homestead
Act of 1862, which gave settlers 160
acres of land for a small fee and a com-
mitment to live there for five years,
the extension of the transcontinental
railroad across the U.S. helped Scan-
dinavians migrate to the agricultural
frontier of Montana. Today their Nor-
dic heritage remains embedded in the
folkways of the Northern Great Plains,
so much that it demanded a familiar
and hard-to-find drink: “We started
making aquavit on request from the
local fraternal order of the Sons of
Norway,” says Ryan Montgomery,
cofounder of Montgomery Distillery
in Missoula. “And we continue mak-
ing it not only because we sell out, but
because aquavit has significant ties to
the culture and climate of the region.”
16 FEBRUARY 2017 _ P O P U L A R M E C H A N I C S . C O M
Montana’s nutrient-rich volcanic
earth and abundant snowmelt provide
the exceptional grain and water qual-
ity that aquavit relies on.
Aquavit is a traditional spirit dis-
tilled from potato or grain mash that
has the predominant flavor of cara-
way (the taste you think of when you
think of rye bread), a botanical related
to parsley and cilantro. It’s finished
with aromatics like lemon, fennel,
and cardamom, resulting in a drink
that is savory and yet fresh, almost
minty—a counterbalance to the salty
preservation methods (fermentation,
smoking, curing) necessitated by Nor-
dic winters. The aquavit process is a
straightforward double distillation.
Montgomery uses a 100 percent non-
GMO hard red winter wheat strain
called War Horse, grown on his grand-
father’s farm, which is now tended by
his parents. The wheat is mashed with
hot water and fermented at a tempera-
ture that allows the yeast to digest the
Montgomery’s barrel-finished
aquavit is rested in oak barrels
previously used to age rye. This
smooths the flavor and adds spice.
sugar. If the temperature gets too hot,
THE
cool water is run into the fermenter’s
SPIRITS
exterior stainless-steel jacket. “When
the yeast has eaten all the sugar, what
you essentially have is beer,” Mont-
gomery says. “The first distillation is a
stripping run, not a flavor-determining
run. It is just about getting the alcohol
out of the beer as fast as we can.” The
result, called low wines, is about 25 per-
cent alcohol by volume.
The second fractional distillation,
done in a 21-plate copper column still, Skadi
cuts the spirit to a specific proof and aquavit
creates a very clean canvas—basi- Predominantly
caraway, with
cally like vodka—for the addition of fennel, dill, and
the botanicals. “We return the spirit a hint of citrus.
$30
to the pot still and give it a last run
to create vapor infusion,” Montgom-
ery says. As the vapor rises, it passes
through a cheesecloth bag of aromat-
ics suspended on a metal grate before
being recondensed as flavored aqua-
vit, cut with filtered water, and bottled
at 80 proof.
“Making aquavit is our chance to
introduce something with great history
that is still new to most Americans,”
Montgomery says. The traditional way Barrel-
finished
of drinking aquavit is straight and ice
Skadi
cold in small glasses—and never with- aquavit
out first toasting your tablemates by Muted caraway
and dill plus
saying, “Skoal.” Additionally, Mont- caramel and
gomery says, “we substitute it for vodka toffee notes.
in our Bloody Marys and other craft A slight spice
from the rye
cocktails.” It tastes good with a little barrel. $33
curaçao in a daiquiri, too.
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 T H I N G S C O M E A PA R T A P H O T O G R A P H B Y TODD MCLELLAN

D I S A S S E M B LY R E P O R T

TELESCOPE
MODEL: CELESTRON TIME TO
NEXSTAR EVOLUTION 8 HD DISASSEMBLE: NUMBER OF PARTS:

PRODUCED: NANTONG, CHINA

6 HOURS,
25 MINUTES,
58 SECONDS
588
NOTES: This is how vision works: Light is gathered through a hole,
shaped, and presented—converged into focus—for viewing. In the
case of our eyes, the equipment involved is the pupil, the cornea and
lens, and the retina, respectively. This standard equipment is remark-
able but limiting: Our pupils are small. The distance between the
retina and the lens is minuscule. So it would not be inaccurate to say
that a telescope is an enlarged and elongated version of our eyes. The
big front opening replaces the pupil. Lenses and mirrors guide light
through a long tube rather than a tiny eyeball. The result: a tool that
peers across the city, over the horizon, into the heavens.

AIMING THE TELESCOPE
The telescope is mounted on a complicated
system of supports that keep it stable but
allow it to find and track a star or other celes-
tial body. Its tripod (16) is stabilized with an
accessory tray (15) and topped with a head-
piece that provides a mounting location for
the base (13). The base contains the azimuth
motor (11) and attaches to the fork arm (14),
which houses the altitude motor (17). Then
the telescope’s optical tube (5) attaches to
the top of the fork arm with a dovetail (4)
and thumbscrews (2) so that when the azi-
muth motor rotates the base, the telescope
moves left and right, and when the altitude
motor pivots its mount, the telescope moves
up and down.
You can aim the telescope in two ways. If
you’re old-school, you find your chosen star
yourself: Using the hand control (12) or
phone app, you rotate the telescope into the
vicinity of the star, then look through the
StarPointer Pro finderscope (3)—which
is essentially a lower-powered scope with a
larger field of view—to align the main tube.
Alternatively, the NexStar Evolution HD has
its own databank of astronomically interest-
ing objects it can automatically point to after
a quick orientation process.
GATHERING LIGHT
Once it’s aimed at an object of interest, light
from that object enters the telescope through
the corrector (1), a slightly curved sheet of
glass that bends the light’s path just enough
to funnel it toward the primary mirror (6),
which sits at the back of the telescope. The
light reflects, now converging toward the
secondary mirror (18) at the front. This mir-
ror sends the light into a jet-black baffle tube
(8) that funnels it unencumbered to the rear
of the telescope, where it converges to the
focal plane in front of the eyepiece. The pur-
pose of all this redirection? By using a series
of mirrors, the telescope is able to collect and
focus more light rays in a shorter tube—in
fact, the Evolution’s focal length is five times
its optical tube length of 16 inches.
VIEWING THE IMAGE
This telescope is designed to be used with a
digital camera for astrophotography. So as
it reaches the focal plane at the back of the
telescope, the light that’s been carefully col-
lected by the mirrors goes through a pair of
sub-aperture correctors that reduce distor-
tion that wouldn’t show up to the naked eye
but would trouble any photographer with a
high-quality camera.
Of course, you can also use it the old-
fashioned way, in which case you need to
attach an eyepiece (10). The eyepiece con-
tains another set of lenses—typically, three
or four—that provides magnification and
again corrects optical artifacts to create a
pristine image. (If it’s out of focus, the focus
knob [7] moves the primary mirror to fine-
tune.) Putting a star diagonal (9)—an elbow,
basically—between the tube and the eyepiece
will make viewing a little more comfortable.
The diagonal also contains a mirror to flip the
image. Thanks to the primary and secondary
mirrors, when light reaches the focal point,
it’s both inverted and reversed—which might
bother a peeping tom, but is essentially unno-
ticeable to an astronomer, whose subject is a
black sky, pinpricks of light, and wonder.
—Kevin Dupzyk

18 FEBRUARY 2017 _ P O P U L A R M E C H A N I C S . C O M
 1 2 3 4 5 6

8
18

17

16

10

11

15 14 13 12

@ P o p u l a r M e c h a n i c s _ FEBRUARY 2017 19
 ADVERTISEMENT

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 CIRCULAR SAWS | ULTRA-SHORT-THROW PROJECTORS | FURNITURE

Birch Coffee owners

Jeremy Lyman (left) and Paul
Schlader roasted more than
150,000 pounds of coffee
beans last year.

The Home Coffee Revolution

An influx of new equipment—high-tech and low—will help you brew better joe.

IT’S EASY TO take your coffee for granted. Mix hot water with grounds,
and within minutes you’re warmed and awake. But there’s science in
that process—science that can be tweaked and perfected. Chang-
ing your beans, grind size, filter, brew time, and water temperature
all shape how your coffee tastes and feels, says Paul Schlader, Birch
Coffee co-owner and certified Q Grader—the coffee equivalent of a
sommelier. For example, choose a finer grind to create more surface
area, which lets more water into the bean to release more flavor. With
the help of Schlader and his crew at Birch, over three weeks we tested
every grinder, brewer, and pour-over contraption we could find. We
consulted baristas across the country. And we really drank a lot of cof-
fee. We’re excited to show you the results. Maybe even a little jittery.

P H OTO G R A P H BY S T E P H A N I E D I A N I @ P o p u l a r M e c h a n i c s _ FEBRUARY 2017 21

➽
Coffee

Preparing the Beans

Crafting a better pot of coffee begins before you start brewing.

eliminate the smoke. Five

preset roasts will help you

Roast Grınd
get your bearings before you
start to truly customize. You
can buy green, unroasted
You don’t need to roast your beans online. (We like Roast-
own coffee. But you also masters.com.) For your first
don’t need to fix up that old batches, try beans from
truck yourself, or build your Central America. They have
own deck. Roasting at home consistent size, quality, and a
puts you in the driver’s seat wide range of flavors, which
to make the perfect bean for makes them especially for-
your household. Unlike other giving if roasted too long or
home roasters, the too little.
smoke-suppressed
Behmor 1600 Plus
($370) can be used
indoors. As moisture
and oils leave the
beans, metal coils
on the ceiling of
the countertop unit
reheat and virtually

To keep beans fresh longer,

store your coffee in a dark,

Store
temperature-stable environ-
ment (like your cupboard),
with minimal exposure to air,
says Todd Goldsworthy, the
2014 and 2016 U.S. Brewers
Cup champion. With an inner
lid and valve that forces air
out of the canister, AirScape
containers (starting at $24)
create a nearly oxygen-free
environment. Goldsworthy
also urges you to stop storing
beans in your freezer. They
won’t last longer but will
absorb unpleasant flavors.
There are two types of
grinders, blade and burr,
but you’ll never find a blade
grinder in a barista’s kitchen.
The whirling blade operates
like a blender, but heats up
the grounds and burns off
flavors. It also produces a
wildly variable grind, which
can be even worse. The mix
of too-fine and oversize
particles leads to inconsis-
tent steeping—since the
bigger the grounds are, the
more quickly water passes
through them—and weak
coffee. Burr grinders crush
beans between rotating
plates for uniform, uncooked
grains. The Baratza Encore
($130), above left, is a work-
horse with 40 grind settings
and an ideal choice for your
first big grinder upgrade.
For a little more money, the
Breville Smart Grinder
Pro ($200) offers 60 set-
tings for enthusiasts seeking
the perfect grind for
every brew method
and type of
bean.

THE BEST HAND

GRINDER

Weıgh
To brew a consistently delicious
cup, you need to be consistent
in your dosage and how long
you let the coffee brew. Which
means you can’t just trust your
instincts. You need a scale. Unlike
the average kitchen scale, the
Bonavita Auto Tare ($60) mea-
sures to a more precise tenth of
a gram. For brewing a pour-over
on the scale, a timer senses the
weight change from the water
and automatically starts once
you begin dousing the grounds.
The hand-cranked Hario
Ceramic Coffee Mill
($50) offers an afford-
able and portable option
if you don’t mind using a
little muscle in the morn-
ing. The grind adjusts
in seconds from fine to
French press coarse.

22 FEBRUARY 2017 _ P O P U L A R M E C H A N I C S . C O M
 You’re Ready to Make Coffee
DRIP COFFEE REINVENTED

THESE GRAVIT Y BREW ERS operate using—you guessed it!—gravity, delivering hot
water to grounds and slowly straining out the coffee. It’s like your old Mr. Coffee,
although these brewers are finely tuned to deliver water at the perfect temperature: hot
enough to release maximum flavor, but not so hot as to extract bitterness from the bean.

A C

FOR THE LAB TECH FOR THE AESTHETICALLY INCLINED FOR THE CASUAL BARISTA

A / BEHMOR BRAZEN PLUS B / CHEMEX OTTOMATIC C / BONAVITA BV1900TS 8-CUP

With the Behmor Brazen Plus, you can
program a pre-soak, brew temperature
and an automatic start. If you like sweeter
flavors, set the temperature between 197
and 200 to dial back the coffee extraction.
Set it between 202 and 207 for a brighter,
more acidic cup. You can also replace the
kettle and basket with a pour-over brewer
to make it an automatic. ($200)
Even if you never use it, the Chemex
is pretty enough just to put on your
countertop. And it’s available with an
automatic pour-over, in case you’re feeling
lazy. A showerhead evenly pulses 197- to
205-degree Fahrenheit water onto the
grounds to mimic the slow dispersal of
a barista’s kettle, while a hot plate keeps
your next cup of coffee warm. ($350)
Instead of the typical cone-shaped filter,
which unevenly funnels water through
the grounds, the Bonavita uses a flat-
bottomed filter basket to extract coffee
more evenly from the beans. A 1500-watt
heater holds the brewing water at that
ideal flavor-extraction temperature of
195 to 205 degrees. The insulated pitcher
keeps the coffee hot. ($190)

P H OTO G R A P H S BY J A R R E N V I N K
➽
Coffee

THE NEW IMMERSION BREWERS

NOT SURPRISINGLY, the immersion process immerses (or steeps) grounds, typically for three to five minutes
before filtering out the coffee. Submerging the grounds extracts flavorful oils and acids from the beans over time,
producing coffee with a heavier body than drip brewers produce. Just don’t leave grounds in the water too long. After
more than five minutes, the contact time between the coffee and water tends to release the bitter flavors of the bean.

D
B

FOR THE FOR THE FOR THE FOR THE

COFFEE HACKER TRAVELER BREAKING BAD FAN FRENCH-PRESS DEVOTEE

A / FELLOW B / AEROBIE C / YAMA SIPHON D / KITCHENAID

PRODUCTS DUO
This combination brewer and
carafe creates the full-bodied
coffee of a French press with-
out the over-extraction and
resulting bitterness. With a
twist of the lid, the stainless-
steel Duo separates the liquid
from the grounds, so your
extra coffee doesn’t keep
brewing between cups. ($100)
AEROPRESS
It’s cheap, fast, simple, and per-
fect for travel, if you’re the kind
of person who packs your own
coffeemaker when you leave
town for the weekend. Just
mix grounds and hot water in
the chamber for a minute, then
press out your coffee through
the filter. ($30)
This hand-blown coffee chem-
istry set heats water in the
lower globe until the building
vapor pressure sends boil-
ing water to the upper globe
where it cools slightly and
mixes with grounds. Cut the
heat after a minute and your
coffee descends back down
through a filter, ready to
be enjoyed. ($67)
PRECISION PRESS
French presses don’t have to
make a bitter cup. Just pour all
the coffee after it’s brewed so it
doesn’t steep longer on the
grounds. This insulated,
double-walled brewer has a
built-in scale to measure your
grounds and water, and a timer
to tell you when your coffee
is ready. ($150)
Shop Notes: Coffee How I Brew
By Ben Jones, 2016 U.S.
AeroPress Champion

The Coffee-Brewing I think of brewers like

Tank for Any Worksite cars. A Kalita or Chemex
The OXX Coffeeboxx ($230) is built is like a Toyota Camry: not
to travel and simple to use: Fill the flashy, but will always get
tank with water, insert a K-cup you from A to B. These all
Tip! Never Buy have a restricted flow rate,
Pre-Ground Coffee. pod, select a size serving,
Unless It’s This One and then wait for it to brew. which reduces the barista’s
Oxygen is the biggest Its 2.5-liter removable water impact. Hario’s V60 ($25) is
enemy of freshness. tank can make ten cups of more like a Porsche or 427
When beans are ground, coffee, and its watertight AC Cobra. It has aggres-
flavor escapes in as little design prevents spills on sive channels and a large
as three minutes. But rough rides. The Coffeeboxx drip hole, which lets water
for when you require has a rubberized handle, a flow through very quickly.
pre-ground, Blue Bottle three-foot retractable power The unrestricted flow can
Coffee created Per- cord to make it mobile, and create a wider range of cup
fectly Ground (starting a chassis rated to withstand profiles. Faster pours make
at $18 for a five-pack) a 1,500-pound load. That a bright, light-bodied cof-
ground coffee pack- makes it the only coffee- fee. Slow your pour and the
aged in an oxygen-free maker you can sit on body increases while the
environment. or, in a pinch, prop up a flavor tones down.
grand piano with.

The Easiest Way to Buy whole, fresh beans. Fresh means within three weeks of roasting, says Shawn Steiman of
Make Better Coffee Coffea Consulting (which is not a typo), who holds a Ph.D. in coffee science, which is a real thing.

THE COFFEE
QUALITY
MATRIX
Blue Bottle
Paying more
for a bag of
beans won’t Stumptown
automatically
produce Starbucks
QUALITY

better coffee.
So where’s
the smart
money go? Lavazza
Here, we chart Maxwell An Insert That
eight popular Peet’s
brands
House Heats—and Cools—
on quality Folgers Your Coffee
(flavor minus
bitterness) Double-walled stainless
and Keurig travel mugs keep your cof-
accessibility Green Mountain
fee piping hot for hours, but
(availability what good is scalding cof-
minus cost). ACCESSIBILITY fee that’s too hot to drink?
The Stanley QuickSip
insert ($15) slides into your
mug or bottle and absorbs
excess heat—as much as
PAPER VS. METAL FILTERS Your choice of filter carries an outsize impact on what you end
47 degrees. In the ensu-
up sipping. Because of their holes, metal filters allow more oils and fine particles into your ing hours, it re-releases the
cup, giving your coffee more body. Paper filters, however, keep those tiny bits of grounds and energy to keep the coffee
oils out of your mug. That might mean less body, but it also means more distinct flavors. It’s up hot and drinkable.
to you. Just avoid brown paper filters. They have a weird taste.

P H OTO G R A P H S BY J A R R E N V I N K @ P o p u l a r M e c h a n i c s _ FEBRUARY 2017 25

 TOOL TEST
THE PROVING GROUND FOR EVERY THING YOU NEED

Circular
Saws
Because everybody’s elbow
could use a little more rest, we
gathered the lightest new circular
saws on the market. Then we
crosscut, ripped, beveled, and cut
compound miters with each.
BY RICHARD ROMANSKI

DeWalt DWE575

WEIGHT: 10.4 lb
AMPERAGE: 15
LIKES: Professional-grade with unstoppable
power and a heavy-duty rubber cord that’s
robustly mounted to the motor, so you don’t have
to worry about snags leading to a loose connec-
tion. All control points and grip surfaces are well
engineered and comfortable.
DISLIKES: None.

$119

26 FEBRUARY 2017 _ P O P U L A R M E C H A N I C S . C O M P H OTO G R A P H S BY J A R R E N V I N K

 A

Spray Deicers
Unless you’d prefer
to spend your
morning scraping
Makita HS7600
WEIGHT
Craftsman 320.46123
WEIGHT the windshield.
9.0 lb 7.4 lb
A / Rain-X Windshield
AMPERAGE: 10.5 AMPERAGE: 12 De-Icer
LIKES: A compact and spunky saw that’s easy LIKES: Still a consumer saw at an accessible
to handle. It has outstanding balance and vis- price, but its midrange power is much closer
ibility to the cut line. to the professional end of the scale. ESTIMATED SPRAY RANGE: 2 ft
DISLIKES: Relatively low amperage does DISLIKES: Could use a sturdier shoe, and The least aggressive ice melter
cost the Makita some performance during moving the spindle-lock button higher would we tested, but it also had the
long, deep rips. Plus, the blade wrench likes to make it easier to reach. least intense odor. After melting
come loose from its holder. the ice, it leaves behind a residue
$50 of classic Rain-X to help keep
$100 glass clean. Since it’s more of a
mist, the Rain-X would be tough
to apply in any real wind.

$3

B / Prestone
Windshield
De-Icer

ESTIMATED SPRAY RANGE: 8 ft

The densely focused stream and
aggressive propellant make this a
good choice for tall or broad
windshields. Melts ice aggres-
sively and keeps on melting.
There’s even a somewhat-
effective scraper built into the
can for particularly tough ice.

Ridgid R3204 Skilsaw SPT67WM $12

WEIGHT WEIGHT
8.8 lb 10.6 lb

AMPERAGE: 12 AMPERAGE: 15 C / CRC Ice-Off

LIKES: This feisty little saw was the only tool
in our test with a 6 1/2-inch blade. For a framing
saw, the Ridgid is extremely compact, which
makes it easy to handle.
DISLIKES: The blade bevel support obscures
the view of the cut line on the shoe. Would be
nice if the shoe were a little longer.
$89
LIKES: A lot of saw and a lot of performance
for the money. The Skilsaw is smooth-
running with professional power and
dead-on accuracy. The price makes it a good
fit for anyone who wants to move up in accu-
racy and power without spending a lot.
DISLIKES: None.
$100
ESTIMATED SPRAY RANGE: 6 ft
Medium-dense spray pattern.
The high methanol content melts
ice readily, and the reasonably
powerful propellant means you
can spray under windy conditions.
$2.50
 TOOL TEST
THE PROVING GROUND FOR EVERY THING YOU NEED
A / ASUS
ZenBeam E1
MAX IMAGE SIZE:
120 in.
PORTABLE BATTERY:
Yes, 5 hours
LIKES: Despite weigh-
ing less than two
pounds and having a
footprint the size of a
smartphone, the E1 is
bright enough to use
even in some ambient
light. The speakers
can also get quite
loud. Adjustments
are intuitive, and the
metal shell looks
more elegant than the
plastic on many other
projectors.
DISLIKES: Doesn’t
project in HD. The
keystone correction
sometimes inexpli-
cably and annoyingly
readjusts the image.
$249
C / LG PH450U
MAX IMAGE SIZE:
80 in.
PORTABLE BATTERY:
Yes, 2.5 hours
LIKES: Although the
built-in speaker is
tinny, you can con-
nect a UE Boom or
other Bluetooth
speaker for better
sound, with a lag so
small you won’t really
notice it. Good color,
and the room doesn’t
have to be com-
pletely dark to see
the picture.
DISLIKES: Wireless
connection works
only with Android or
Windows machines.
$650
28 FEBRUARY 2017 _ P O P U L A R M E C H A N I C S . C O M
A
B / Sony LSPX-P1
B
MAX IMAGE SIZE:
80 in.
PORTABLE BATTERY:
Yes, 2 hours
LIKES: Beautiful
design, good color,
and passable built-in
sound. We really liked
the wireless aspect:
Plug the hub into a
source—your cable
box or computer—
or connect via Wi-Fi
and stream from
your phone or tablet,
and you can place
the projector nearly
anywhere.
DISLIKES: At 720p, the
image starts to soften C
when you project
larger than 60 inches.
The bulb isn’t strong
enough for the picture
to be seen in anything
but a dark room.
D
$999
D / CASIO
XJ-UT-
310WN
MAX IMAGE
SIZE: 110 in.
PORTABLE
BATTERY: No
LIKES: At 3100
lumens, the Casio
provided the bright-
est picture of our test,
with a built-in speaker
that sounds as good as
any. Focus is controlled
with an easy slide lever.
DISLIKES: The combi-
nation laser/LED
light source is sup-
posed to hold its
brightness over time
Ultra-Short-Throw
better than a tradi-
tional bulb, but it made
for a slightly grainy
Projectors
picture. Set one up as little as 12 inches from the wall
for a picture that fills the room. Just in time
$1,800 for the Super Bowl.
P H OTO G R A P H BY J A R R E N V I N K
 SHOP NOTES E A S Y WAYS TO D O H A R D T H I N G S

Better
Measure
of Cell
Reception

If the cruel vicissitudes of cellular

service have you suspecting the five
bars at the top of your screen are not
what they seem, prepare to be vindi-
cated. Phones measure reception in
decibel-milliwatts (dBm) on a scale
from, roughly, minus 140 (no service)
to minus 40. But there’s no standard.
Four bars on one phone may be equiv-
alent in dBm to two bars on another.
Luckily, most handsets allow you to
display reception in dBm instead.
➼ ON AN IPHONE, call *3001#123
45#* to go into Field Test mode. The
bars are replaced with a dBm read-
ing. Hold the power button until
“Slide to power off” appears, then
hold the home button until Field Test
quits. Now tapping the reception
indicator switches from bars to dBm.
➼ ON MOST ANDROID PHONES, you
can view dBm reception through the Rubber Tub Captures Sawdust
“About Phone” menu. THERE ARE PLENTY of ready-made and DIY solutions for sawdust collection from a contrac-
tor’s saw, but none as simple and cheap as that devised by reader Wayne Germain of San Tan
Valley, Arizona. He purchased a plastic bin with a clamping lid, cut a hole in the lid to accom-
modate the saw’s motor, then screwed it to the enclosure. When it’s time to saw, he clamps the
bin in place. Afterward he simply removes it and dumps the dust. Germain estimates he traps
80 percent of the sawdust, and could easily capture more by adding some weather stripping.

M
Know Your Drill Bits
FRO E—
— T H ES
HIV
ARC 68!)
(19
Kettle Grill Makes
Perfect Turntable
for Spray Painting
When you’ve got something to spray
paint from all sides, consider a ket-
TWIST BRAD AUGER SPADE HOLESAW COUN- MASONRY GLASS STEP
tle grill for your work surface. It’s just General POINT Efficiently Makes fast Bores TERSINK Often AND TILE Pyramid
the right height, and on many mod- purpose Pointed removes and rough large Creates a used with Carbide shape cre-
for wood, tip cre- wood holes in holes; pilot hole a ham- tip allows ates holes
els the grill can be turned by hand. metal, and ates clean, shavings framing centering for a screw mer drill; it to cut of many
Just be sure to cover the grill with plastic accurate from deep lumber bit guides and space fluting without diam-
holes in bores entry to fasten it off-loads causing eters in
newspaper or drop cloths, lest your wood into the flush debris cracks thin steel,
burgers taste like Rust-Oleum. surface aluminum

I L LU S T R AT I O N BY M O R N I N G B R E AT H @ P o p u l a r M e c h a n i c s _ FEBRUARY 2017 29
 PRO M OT I O N

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 Getting
Started FURNITURE BUILDING
In... It’s going to be tough. Your first couple chairs might be a little wobbly, and your
bookshelves may crumble under anything more than a few paperbacks. But
you’ll get better. Eventually, what was a liability will become a money-saving
source of pride. B Y R O Y B E R E N D S O H N

B U I L D I N G Y O U R O W N F U R N I T U R E is a lot like growing
your own vegetables or working on your car. On the one hand,
you might ask yourself, Why bother? On the other, you might
ask, Why not? On any given day, depending on how much time you
have to spare, it’s hard to say which answer will have the upper hand.
But there’s nothing like building something and putting it to work
in your life and in the lives of people around you. I’ve built very little
that qualifies as fine furniture. Most of what I’ve built is utilitarian—
sawhorses, simple bookcases and shelves, that sort of thing. But there’s
a mahogany blanket chest from years ago, with dovetailed corners and
a finish of countless layers of tung oil. I built it with hand tools and
intended it to be a good fake of an antique. Guests at our home some-
times say, “Oh, what a lovely old chest.” I get a kick out of that. When
someone compliments a nice piece of furniture, and you’re the guy
who made it? That’s a feeling you don’t get many times in life. Unless
you’re a full-time furniture maker. Then you probably hear it a lot.

@ P o p u l a r M e c h a n i c s _ FEBRUARY 2017 31
Getting Started In FURNITURE BUILDING

Find Something
to Build
While you may eventually become skilled enough to design your
own furniture, when you’re starting out, you should always
work from a model. One good way to learn is to find a piece of
furniture you like and try to copy it. Otherwise, here
are a few good places to look:

At popularmechanics.com/ Buildsomething.com offers a

furniture you’ll find projects
to hone your skills, including a
Shaker cabinet, a bookshelf,
a kid’s storage bench, a farm-
house table (right), and a
simple bench (below).
collection of user-generated
designs for everything from
workbenches to a TIE-fighter
bookshelf. Nothing is vetted, but
most of the projects we’ve seen
look solid. And they’ll definitely
inspire you.

THE BEST BOOK

ON FURNITURE
BUILDING
If you buy only one
book on the subject,
make it Andy Rae’s
Complete Illustrated
Guide to Furniture &
Cabinet Construc-
tion. There are tool
tips and techniques,
and more plans than
you’ll ever be able to
work through.

Essential MITER ¾" WOOD KREG POCKET- MARKING

Tools SAW CHISEL HOLE JIG KNIFE

32 FEBRUARY 2017 _ P O P U L A R M E C H A N I C S . C O M I L LU S T R AT I O N S BY S T E V E S A N F O R D
 Basic Tips

DESIGNATE THE SCRAP SIDE
After you measure and mark your cut line,
place a small X on the scrap side. Always
cut on that side of the line, otherwise
you’re liable to cut a piece too short by
the width of the saw blade.
EXTEND YOUR MITER SAW
You can greatly enlarge the capacity of your
saw by building a base—essentially a plat-
form with a gap in its center for the saw. This
enables you to more reliably and safely cut
long pieces and to attach stop blocks.
WORK FROM A RELIABLE FACE
Lumber doesn’t always come square from
the factory, so you’ll need to check it with
your square tool and cut it square, if it’s not
already, to create a reference face. Measure
all dimensions from that edge or face.

CUT PARTS EXACTLY THE SAME
Ensure that multiple parts are the same
dimension by clamping and cutting all pieces
at one time, or by using a fixed power tool,
like a miter saw with a stop block.
GUIDE YOUR CUTS
Use a rip fence (a bar that runs
parallel to the saw blade) or a
square to direct your saw to ensure
a completely straight cut.
ALWAYS CHECK FOR SQUARE
Pressing a square into the corner of an
assembly is a good way to check, obviously,
but on larger projects you need to check
diagonal measurements. The two measures
from corner to corner should be the same.

A FEW PEOPLE TO INSPIRE YOU

BOB CLAGETT MATTHIAS ALEX HARRIS

Learn to make: WANDEL Learn to make:
floating desk, end Learn to make: work- pedestal table,
table, and foldable bench on wheels, burl table, and
shop stool. daybed, and book- sled. youtube.com/
youtube.com/ case. youtube.com/ teenwoodworker
iliketomakestuff matthiaswandel

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ASK ROY
POPULAR MECHANICS’ SENIOR HOME EDITOR
S O LV E S YO U R M O S T P R E S S I N G P R O B L E M S .
BY R OY B E R E N D S O H N
I broke two bits drilling
holes in my garage
floor with a rented hammer
drill. What did I do wrong?
DAVID D., BOISE, IDAHO
The most obvious possibility is that
you hit a piece of rebar, or reinforcing
steel. Or maybe you found a cast-iron
drainpipe. If you see a pipe exiting the floor
at any point, assume that that’s what you’re
hitting and drill elsewhere.
You might think that a bit strong enough
to drill through concrete could also handle
steel, but a masonry bit’s tip and flute geom-
etry are completely different—thicker and
blunter, meant to pulverize. Also, the ham-
mer drill was probably in percussion mode,
which simultaneously pounds and drills
through concrete, stone, or asphalt. That
percussive action broke the bit when you hit
steel. Even if you’d switched to rotary mode,
it wouldn’t have helped. The bit may not have
broken, but it wouldn’t have made any real
progress through the steel.
First, determine whether you can move
the hole to another location or drill a shal-
lower hole. If neither is practical, switch
to the next heavier rental drill, called a
rotary hammer. Get a masonry bit and a
rebar-cutting bit. When you hit steel, back
out the masonry bit and install the rebar
cutter. Switch the drill off hammer mode
and into drilling mode, and drill through
the rebar before backing the bit out and
switching back to the masonry bit and
hammer mode.
The other issue I didn’t mention is age.
Not yours—the concrete’s. Concrete hard-
ens as it ages. Take your time and let the
drill do the work with as little muscle as
possible on your part.
36 FEBRUARY 2017 _ P O P U L A R M E C H A N I C S . C O M
We’re remodeling
our old house and have
found a lot of disconnected
old wiring in the walls. Is it
better to remove it or leave
it alone?
STAN C., FORT MILL, SOUTH CAROLINA
Old, disconnected wiring is a common
sight when you open the walls, floors,
and ceilings in an old house. It’s a good idea
to remove it for several reasons, but before I
get into that, the most important thing to be
sure of is that the wiring is truly dead. If you
can’t plainly see that the wiring is not con-
nected to anything, you’ll need an electri-
cian to evaluate it. Even then, double-check
all wiring with a non-contact voltage
detector before you start messing with it.
Let’s assume an electrician checks the
old wiring and finds that it’s kaput and safe
to handle. Removing it is relatively easy. If
it’s knob-and-tube type wiring (easily rec-
ognized by the white porcelain fittings to
which the wire is mounted), you’ll first need
to pry out the knobs, which are nailed into
the framing. This loosens the wires, and
you can simply pull them through. For mod-
ern stapled-up wiring, grip the staples with
the tip of a pair of diagonal pliers, then lever
downward to remove them. You can also use
a tack puller, a small tool that looks like a
forked screwdriver with a bend in its shaft.
Next, use a fire-blocking foam to seal any
holes where it traveled through the fram-
ing. Both the old wiring and its holes serve
as a conduit for rodents. Those holes can
also lead to cold drafts. More important, the
holes form a ready path for hot combustion
gases in the event of a fire. Which is why you
filled them up with fire-blocking foam.
Is there a good way
to make speaker holes
in my ceiling? I’ve tried a
cordless jigsaw and a
drywall jab saw, but both
look sloppy.
HARRY M., SANTA ANA, CALIFORNIA
Your best bet is to invest in an
inexpensive adjustable hole cutter
from Klein Tools. Klein’s Model 53731 cuts
holes from two to seven inches in diameter
and should cost you less than $30. It con-
sists of two adjustable knife-like cutters
affixed to a bar. These blades orbit a central
pilot drill and the entire assembly is housed
in a clear plastic dome that looks, surpris-
ingly, like something you’d place over a
cake. Chuck the drive end of the cutter into
a cordless drill and you’re in business.
Almost. Don’t forget to clamp on the drill’s
auxiliary handle. You’re going to need that
handle for extra support since you’re
working overhead, which requires more
exertion. The handle helps offset some of
the back force on your wrist.
Lay out the center of each speaker hole,
and poke the pilot drill bit into the mark.
Ease into the cut. Instead of getting all over
you, most of the dust and debris falls down
into the plastic dome, including the circle
of drywall. A light touch and a firm grip on
the drill is really all it takes.
Email your home and yard questions
to askroy@popularmechanics.com
and watch for Roy’s answer in an
upcoming column.
I L LU S T R AT I O N S BY T. M . D E T W I L E R
 The Bed Loved by
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 WITH
The New Heathen Porsche
IS THE NEW 718 BOXSTER S WORTHY OF ITS STUTTGART BADGE?
WE BROUGHT ONE TO A PORSCHE-ONLY TRACK DAY TO FIND OUT.
T
he car I’ve brought
to Carolina Motor­
sports Park deserves
the skepticism it’s get­
ting. Gathered here
are members of the Porsche Club of
America. Like many of the Porsche­
loyal (see Seinfeld, J.), they see the
rear­engine 911 and, more impor­
tantly, its flat six to be the essential
expression of its manufacturer’s illus­
trious history. It’s the setup that has
powered every 911, the legendary 959,
and some of the greatest race cars in
the history of motor sport. Porsche
hasn’t built a four­cylinder since the
1990s­era 968.
Like the preceding six­cylinder
Boxster and Cayman, the 718 is
38 FEBRUARY 2017 _ P O P U L A R M E C H A N I C S . C O M
EZRA DYER
the entry­level flyweight to the big­
boy 911. Previously, both had the
iconic flat six. Sure, Porsche would
dial down the horsepower on the
Boxster and Cayman to keep them
from overshadowing the 911. But all
sang the same beautiful song. Not
anymore. The new 718 has lost two
cylinders to make a flat four, and, in
the S model I’ve brought, gained a
sophisticated turbocharger. In this
sense, the 718 Boxster is emblem­
atic of the challenges facing every
car company: Keep upping the power,
ideally while reducing emissions and
fuel consumption. Smaller engines
and turbos—that’s how you do it. So I
asked the Porsche Club congregants:
The flat six is gone, now exclusive to
SPECS
BASE PRICE
$69,450 (Boxster S)
ZERO TO 60
4.3 seconds
ENGINE
Horizontally opposed
four-cylinder
the $90,000 911. Shall we weep?
The PCA crowd is pretty hard­
core. Local chapter director Marty
Barrett is representative, towing his
Porsche behind his Porsche (911 GT3
and Cayenne, respectively). Another
member, Marvin Jennings, owns
three 911s and brought his 1969 racer.
The grass parking area next to the
track is crowded with more tasty 911s,
Caymans, and Boxsters, with a Macan
or two thrown in. These are the people

Porsche needs to convert to the four-
cylinder philosophy.
Not being a Porsche traditionalist
myself, I warmed to the flat four the
first time I passed a dawdler on the
rural two-lanes leading to the track.
Boxsters have always had great grip
and midengine balance, but you felt
P H OTO G R A P H S BY P E T E R TAY LO R
like you could do your taxes on the
straightaways. The 718 S, however,
kicks out 350 horsepower and 309
lb-ft of torque, and its distinctly 911-
like acceleration comes from that
special turbocharger. Most turbos
are like a one-speed transmission—
quick response or big, powerful boost,
but not both. But the 718’s can change
the angle of the turbo’s vanes, adjust-
ing boost so smoothly that it mimics
a naturally aspirated engine’s torque
curve. This is a revelation: a Boxster
with torque.
I want to know what Jennings
thinks, so I climb into the passenger
seat and we head out onto the track.
We’re chasing a Cayman GT4, the
385-hp zenith of the six-cylinder era.
“If you didn’t tell me this was a four,
I would’ve thought it was a six,” Jen-
nings says. “It pulls all the way to the
redline with no turbo lag.” While I’m
sure a GT4 sets quicker lap times, our
718 stays on its tail without seeming
to exert itself—the car ahead of us has
35 more horses when it’s near the red-
line, but the 718 is stronger low down
in the rev range, where you’re actually
driving most of the time.
Jennings professes respect for the
718, but allows that his definition of a
Porsche begins and ends with the 911.
So we head into the pits to recruit a
midengine acolyte. I find one in Bill
Ainsley, who drives a Boxster RS 60 on
the street and a Cayman on the track.
We’re barely past turn one when he
dips into the throttle and declares,
“Wow...that’s a lot of torque!” These
are words that have never before
been spoken from behind the wheel
of a Boxster. “Not the same sound,
though,” he says, his voice tinged with
ENTHUSIASTS
Seinfeld, J.
McQueen, S.
By adjusting the tilt of the blades, the
Porsche turbocharger can vary its
boost for smooth, torquey acceleration,
despite a two-cylinder deficiency.
OTH ER C ARS THAT WENT FO U R- CYLI N D ER : Volvo XC90, Land Rover LR2 (a.k.a. Discovery Sport), BMW 328i, Ford Mustang, Porsche Le Mans Prototype Racers (RS Spyder to 919 Hybrid).
disappointment. With the top down,
you hear its belligerent woofle. It’s the
whumpa-whumpa-whumpa drum-
beat of a flat four, a sound like the
Red Baron swooping down to strafe a
trench. But at speed, the noise disap-
pears in the slipstream.
Such is the price of progress. A nat-
urally aspirated flat six sings with a
hard-edged rasp, an unfiltered crackle
that’s increasingly rare as even the
mighty 911 moves to an all-turbo-
charged lineup. These cars are faster
and still get decent mileage. You can’t
really argue with that. But driving one
FAMOUS is like your favorite band’s new album.
It takes a few listens before you dig the
PORSCHE
new material.
Eventually, the four-cylinder Box-
ster will seem like it’s been around
forever. Which, in a way, it has. The
original 718 from the late 1950s had
a flat four. So did James Dean’s 550
Spyder. Embrace these new 718s, peo-
ple. Because at some point, whether
in ten years or 20 or 30, the techno-
logical noose will draw tight, and the
homogeneity of electrics will render
moot all the age-old barroom debates
on cylinder count and turbos. But for
now, Porsche has a new engine, one
Lohan, L. that renews the relevance of its most
attainable sports car. You’ve got to like
the sound of that.
@ P o p u l a r M e c h a n i c s _ FEBRUARY 2017 39
 WITH EZRA DYER

Dealer
vs.
Mechanic
Showdown
WHO SHOULD WORK
ON YOUR CAR?

Car owners might not love

dealer service departments,
but independent mechanics do.
Why? Because dealers’ stiff rates
and by-the-book approach can drive
customers straight to a local inde-
pendent specialist. Alan Prosser,
owner of Alan Auto Volvo Service in
Portland, Maine, can attest. “When
a dealer changes out a common EVAP
hose in the rear of a post-2001 V70,
they need to remove the exhaust sys-
tem and rear suspension,” he says.
“That’s six to eight hours of labor.”
Instead of deliberately protracting
the job to rack up the bill, Prosser
takes a holesaw and 30 minutes to
do the same fix. “We independents
haven’t sold out our imaginations,”
he says. And yet, that same impro-
visation can make a dealership’s
accountability appealing. “Volvo
always sends us the software updates,
and we’re the first to know about a
new way to do things,” says Mike
Profenno, service manager at Herb
Chambers Volvo, a dealership in Nor-
wood, Massachusetts. “There are
handicaps when you don’t have man-
ufacturer support.” So who do you go
to? We asked Prosser and Profenno
some questions to help us decide.
PROBLEM You’re on a tight schedule.
DEALER MECHANIC
The dealership is bigger and, because it’s usual-
ly more expensive, less in demand. It can churn
jobs quickly, whereas an independent shop
will prioritize emergencies, while you wait for
parts. But the good ones, like dealerships, have
loaner vehicles and plan service around their
availability. “After the flat-rate system, rushed
jobs are perhaps the greatest contributor to
crappy work in our industry, so we set it up so
we can take our time,” Prosser says. “We keep
at least five loaners available for customers.”
PROBLEM Your unusual car has an esoteric
mechanical issue, like a BMW E36 power
convertible top that stopped working.
DEALER MECHANIC
Some problems are so complex and discour-
aging—in this case, a synchronized dance
between motors, sensors, and bodywork—that
an independent will know to walk away. “Good
mechanics know when they are out of their
league and will give you alternatives,” Prosser
says. Dealers and mechanics consult with each
other, so you might end up with a referral to the
best expert for that particular problem.
PROBLEM Your late-model car has an
electronics gremlin.
DEALER MECHANIC
Modern vehicles require expensive diagnostic
equipment that dealerships already have.
“We install software updates on every car,”
Profenno says. “When you pick it up, maybe
the Bluetooth works better.” Independents
who focus on a particular manufacturer will be
similarly outfitted, but, Prosser says, “General-
service shops don’t cut it. You’re paying them
to learn about your car.” If you can’t find a
specialist in area, off to the dealer.
PROBLEM When you sell your car, you
worry that buyers will balk at non-dealer
service records.
DEALER MECHANIC
“If your car is new and under warranty,” Prosser
says, “go to the dealer.” After that period ends,
usually around 50,000 miles, go independent.
It’s cheaper, and you avoid the pitch for a new
car. But check if your manufacturer has an
exceptional warranty policy. “Here, dealer-
installed Volvo parts have a lifetime warranty,”
Profenno says. “You’re not going to get that
with an independent.”

• Join an online forum • Approach strang- • Check if candidate • On your first visit, give
HOW TO for your make and, ide- ers who also have an shops are Automotive the shop a small job, such

FIND A ally, specific model

and ask for shop
old Volvo or Bronco or
Amphicar.
Service Excellence (ASE)
and Better Business
as balancing the tires,
and compare its price
MECHANIC recommendations. Bureau certified. against NAPA AutoCare’s
repair estimator.

40 FEBRUARY 2017 _ P O P U L A R M E C H A N I C S . C O M

1 2
Base price: $36,800
Virtual-engine-sound
system: Below 12 mph,
the Soul emits a space-
ship noise to warn
pedestrians.
1 2
2016 KIA SOUL EV+
The Soul EV isn’t much different now
than it was in 2014 when it first arrived,
which means it’s been superseded by the sec-
ond generation of EVs. The latest electric Soul
has roughly half the horsepower and less
than half the battery capacity of the simi-
larly priced Chevy Bolt—EPA-rated range
is 93 miles to the Bolt’s 238. Welcome to the
car as an electronic device. Your two-year-old
vehicle is as outdated as an iPhone 4.
Still, the 2016 EV Plus has all the goodness
of an electric car. It’s eerily smooth and quiet,
a Maybach dressed as a pugnacious Korean
wagon. Its 210 lb-ft of torque makes it quick
around town. Leave the regenerative brak-
ing on all the time and your brake pads will
probably last until the Singularity renders us
all servants to the omniscient digital ether-
brain. And if you can plug in every night, the
93 miles of range is probably sufficient. But
even against the updated Nissan Leaf, Kia
can’t compete on specs.
Which means that the Soul is likely to be
a bargain. We’ve seen Kia offer $3,000 cash
on top of the $7,500 federal EV credit, and
sub-$200 lease deals are the norm. Hey, if
the price is right, you might conclude that an
iPhone 4 still works just fine.
GENESIS G80
Posh and quick.
Huge trunk.
REVIEWS
42 FEBRUARY 2017 _ P O P U L A R M E C H A N I C S . C O M
Base price: $32,390
Included accessory
for first 1,000
Launch Edition
Miatas: 42-mm
Tourneau watch
2017 MAZDA MX-5 MIATA RF
The last hardtop Miata was almost
identical to the ragtop: same silhou-
ette, just with better soundproofing and
metal instead of cloth. The new RF (retract-
able fastback) goes for a completely different
roofline. When the top is down, the buttresses
behind the seats remain, sort of like a minia-
ture Porsche 911 Targa.
Like the Targa, the RF is fascinating to
behold as the entire rear deck pops up and
swallows the roof. When the roof panels
descend, they slide behind the front seats and
apparently into a wormhole. Inexplicably,
the trunk capacity is the same as the soft-top
model, even with the top down. You can open
and close at up to 6 mph, which might sound
slow, but you can at least begin creeping out
of the way if the light turns green while you’re
mid-stow.
All of this clever engineering has a prac-
tical goal, namely making the Miata a more
pleasant machine with which to dispatch
long-distance drives. The soft-top is always
loud, even with the top up. The RF acts like a
grand-touring coupe with the roof raised, and
an open-air corner-carver with it retracted.
If you dig the Targa look, then it’s a best-of-
both-worlds scenario.
VOLVO V60 CROSS COUNTRY
T5 PLATINUM Volvo, 2017:
rugged yet voluptuous.
3
Base price:
$26,315
Performance
package features:
Brembo brakes
and Sachs perfor-
mance shocks, the
better to use the
stability-control
system’s new
Track setting.
3
2017 SUBARU BRZ
For 2017, Subaru gave the BRZ a new
intake manifold, exhaust manifolds,
camshafts, cylinder heads, and valves, a con-
siderable overhaul that brings the 2.0-liter
boxer four from 200 horsepower all the way
up to...205 horsepower. Unless you get the
automatic transmission. Then it’s still 200
horsepower.
Well, the BRZ has never been about the
numbers. Like the Miata, this is a car that
delivers an experience, not a killer quarter-
mile time. It’s lightweight, free-revving, and
rear-wheel-drive. You’re constantly shifting
gears to keep the flat four singing. And that’s
okay, because the stubby shifter is delightful.
Yes, Subaru could have turbocharged
the BRZ and given it 300 horsepower. And
perhaps it still might. But to what end?
More expensive, with less accessible limits?
Perhaps Subaru remembers the Japanese-
performance-car battles of the ’90s, when
the Mitsubishi 3000GT VR4 and Toyota
Supra imploded under the weight of their own
overcomplicated, overpowered ambitions.
Whatever the motive, this BRZ reminds you
that when you’re on the Tail of the Dragon,
tires howling, tach flirting with 7,000 rpm,
nobody’s keeping score.
MERCEDES-AMG
SL63 Heaters work
until 90 mph.

THE
ROBOT
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HERE.
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 WITH EZRA DYER

the Jaguar F-Pace’s wheels are

available in four sizes, from 18
inches to 22 inches—go with

The Guide to the middle ground. Your car

will look right, and you won’t get
body-slammed at every highway
Car Options expansion joint.
Aesthetics and ride quality
are, of course, subjective. Other
A PRIMER ON SELF-RESTRAINT.
decisions aren’t. Like the sun-

I
roof, any navigation system is a
f I can convince just one person to avoid the sunroof, waste. One former Apple engi-
then my career has had some value. Because the sun- neer told me that, unlike swift
roof is nonsense. Let me give you the sales pitch: We, tech companies, auto manufac-
the manufacturer, will cut a hole in your car’s roof and turers can take up to five years to
install a glass panel. When closed, solar gain will make develop and finally deploy a new
your interior into a sweat lodge. When open, a low-pressure zone system in a car that should be on
will attempt to vacuum your otic ganglion out through your ears. the road for a decade. “Imagine
Oh, and at some point, this thing is definitely going to leak. For that in phone terms,” he said.
all this, we’ll charge you $1,000. Maybe more. Ready to sign up? “Would you buy a new phone that
As a man whose overhead map lights fill up like miniature was designed five years ago and
aquariums every time it rains, I’ve learned that there are options then keep it for ten years after
you should always buy, and others you should always decline. that?” No, you wouldn’t. Which
Choose wisely and your car will have everything you need for the is why I use the Waze app, lest
lowest possible price. Go awry with extras and you’ll saddle your- my car’s useless navigation sys-
self with years of heartbreak and regret, all while undermining tem—part of a $4,000 package
your car’s resale value. when I bought it—attempts to
Let’s start with fundamentals: color and wheels. Yes, it’s tempt- use its outdated maps to take me
ing to pay $700 extra for the Austin Yellow Metallic on your new west via the Oregon Trail.
BMW M4. You may want the 20-inch wheels, the primary draw of This applies a thousandfold
the $4,750 Competition Package. And you may wish to swaddle to DVD players. The rear-seat
yourself with the Sakhir Orange leather seats ($950). BMW will be Blu-Ray entertainment system
delighted. But you’ll wind up rocking a color scheme reminiscent in a 2017 Toyota Sequoia costs OPTIONS
of bad pea soup, riding on 30-profile tires that will do precious lit- $1,920. Buy two 32-GB iPad Air
tle to shield those beautiful wheels from even the shortest of curbs. 2s, hang them off the back of the YOU
When it comes to color, it’s hard to go wrong with the no-cost seats, and save $1,122. DO WANT
choices. I assure you, your vehicle will include paint regardless of Finally, there’s the mat-
whether you pay extra, and it’s unlikely that the next owner will ter of performance. I’ll never
have a qualm with Alpine White. And for wheels, remember that talk anybody out of buying the ELECTRONIC
each extra inch of diameter means a corresponding reduction most powerful engine. But I SAFETY
in tire sidewall height. If you have several to choose from— might try to talk you out of all- Lane-keeping assist,
automatic braking, adap-
wheel drive. A 2017 Mercedes
tive cruise—these things
C300 costs $2,000 more with will make your life easier.
all-wheel drive and loses three And possibly save it.
miles per gallon on the high-
way. And for what? So you can THE BIG STEREO
drive up the side of the moun- Digital source mate-
tain in a snowstorm? You can rial is finally respectable
enough to make a
do that anyway with the right
booming system worth
set of winter tires, which have
it. Bluetooth Apple
the added benefit of helping you Music sounds legit on a
steer and stop. Besides, making Bose, Bowers, Bang, or
your car lighter almost always Burmester.
costs money (a set of titanium
Ferrari lug nuts can easily run KEYLESS START
more than $1,000), so think of Not for the starting,
but for the automatic
your non-all-wheel-drive car as
unlocking.
a bargain superleggera. Speak-
ing of which, you know what THE HEATED
else saves weight? Skipping the STEERING WHEEL
sunroof. The greatest option ever.

44 FEBRUARY 2017 _ P O P U L A R M E C H A N I C S . C O M I L LU S T R AT I O N BY DA N I LO AG U TO L I
1983 Volkswagen
Rabbit GTi
OWNER:
Christopher Dick
SELLER:
Dan Sather, friend since high school
L O C AT I O N : PURCHASE
Minneapolis PRICE:
$8,000
D A N WA S L I V I N G
with me, working in the
garage of the first house
I bought. He had spent
20 years and $20,000
turning a rusted-out
Volkswagen into this
brand-new car from
1983. It was the kind
of project I could never
justify doing myself.
But watching him work,
I was jealous. We had
been into Volkswa-
gens since high school,
reading about them in
European car maga-
zines, thinking about
P H OTO G R A P H S BY J M U C K L E
YEARS
OWNED:
Two
how to make enough
money to buy one.
He moved out, got
married, had kids, and
put the Rabbit up for
sale. I explained to my
wife that it was an
investment. That it
would never be worth
less than what I was pay-
ing for it. That ’80s cars
don’t have the failure
rates like the ’60s or ’70s.
That I wanted to rescue
it from some 19-year-
old wrapping it around
a telephone pole. She
grew up with a dad who
made her push-start his
Porsche 356 in a Chicago
alleyway every spring. She
understands what cars
mean to people.
I don’t really care
about going to a parking
lot and having guys tell
you how beautiful it is. I
love cars because I love
driving, and the Rabbit
has brought me friends
who are the same way.
It’s 150 horsepower for
1,700 pounds. The roll
cage and racing suspen-
sion make it extremely
rigid, with low-profile,
barely road-legal tires.
You know how you feel
when you get off a roller
coaster? That’s what
it’s like when I drive it to
work. You’re tired and
know you’ve experienced
some adrenaline.
I felt bad about the
labor and money that Dan
had put into it until he said
that he was happy to sell
it to me. Every time he
and his wife see me, they
say, “It’s still in the family!”
He’s happy knowing it’s
still around.
@ P o p u l a r M e c h a n i c s _ FEBRUARY 2017 45
 SPECS
BASE PRICE
$21,990
WEIGHT
752 pounds
ENGINE
96-hp 1400-cc V-twin

A Cruiser for a Superhero

THE MOTO GUZZI FLYING FORTRESS LOOKS TOUGH ENOUGH TO FIGHT CRIME.
BUT ONLY IN NICE WEATHER. B Y D A V I D C U R C U R I T O

T
here’s an evolution to riding that I always thought lay back and do a sudoku puzzle, listen to some music on the sound
went something like this: street bike to dual-sport, system, and make some sandwiches, all while taking in the scenery.
sport bike to sport cruiser, touring cruiser to some Wrong. The first day of the two-day trip was the worst weather—a
sort of silly trike, then perhaps you go back to a sport hard rain with thick fog. The MGX-21, equipped with multiple driv-
when you’re in heaven. It’s like the reverse ascent of ing modes—veloce (fast), turismo (touring), pioggia (rain), and venti
man. Your riding position starts upright then eventually turns to cappuccino—handled the roads well, but with a basically nonexistent
the same slouch when you’re watching Dancing With windshield, no lower fairing to protect my legs, and
the Stars in your comfy chair. But I’ve never been a I figured I nothing but pegs protecting my feet, the elements
cruiser kind of guy. I can’t see myself trading in my could lay really beat me up. In strong winds the bat-wing han-
sport cruiser for a tugboat blaring Fleetwood Mac dlebar fairing and semi-enclosed carbon-fiber front
from its stereo, no matter what stage of life I’m in.
back and do a wheel tossed me around like a kitten in a dryer. Ever
I’ve been riding a lot lately, having clocked more sudoku puzzle, had rain seep into a full-face helmet before? How
than 4,000 miles in two weeks, and, believe me, my listen to some about having the water go through your rain gear and
shoulders and hips and butt are feeling a new kind of straight up your leg to form a puddle in your crotch?
twinge. Suddenly the sloth-like cruisers that I cursed music, and make It’s a sick, sick form of torture.
along the Blue Ridge Parkway a month ago looked sandwiches. Then the weather cleared up. The next day the
like Swedish masseuses, so I thought a cruiser would Guzzi cornered through some beautiful stretches of
provide a comfortable break. When you first see it, the Moto Guzzi the White Mountain National Forest with ease. The 96-hp, 1400-cc
MGX-21 Flying Fortress ($21,990) looks like something custom- V-twin has 89 lb-ft of massive torque that’s ballsy and responsive.
made for Batman. It’s black—blacker than black actually, with a Even though the bike weighs 752 pounds and can be hard work
matte-black exhaust, rims, and a bat-like front fairing. The only color maneuvering around the parking lot, once you get it up to speed, it
on this eight-foot-four-inch-long bike is the brilliant red on the head- scribes an arc like a compass. Solid and confident, the torque pulls
ers and Brembo brakes. Its gas tank and enormous tapered hard cases you onto the straights with a heady surge of acceleration. It’s a joy to
are, no surprise, carbon fiber. drive, just check the weather first. I always used to wonder why guys
I couldn’t wait to get the Fortress on the road. I decided to take it for had more than one bike. It seemed like a way to show people that you
a 650-mile ride to the Kancamagus Highway, stop for lunch in North had too much money. But now I realize it was just a way to be able to
Conway, New Hampshire, and head back. On a cruiser, I figured I could ride whenever you want. No matter how many clouds are in the sky.

46 FEBRUARY 2017 _ P O P U L A R M E C H A N I C S . C O M P H OTO G R A P H BY N I G E L PA R R Y

 Health

Chicago Doctor Invents Affordable Hearing Aid

New nearly invisible digital hearing aid breaks price barrier
Reported by J. Page
Chicago: Board-certified physician Dr. S. Cherukuri has
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grade, ALL-DIGITAL, affordable hearing aid.
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people with hearing loss are able to enjoy crystal clear,
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background noise.
Digital Hearing Aid Outperforms
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This sleek, fully programmed, light-weight, hearing aid is the
outgrowth of the digital revolution that is changing our
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originally sold for thousands of dollars and today can be
purchased for less), the cost of a digital medical-grade
hearing aid remains out of reach.
Dr. Cherukuri knew that many of his patients would
benefit but couldn’t afford the expense of these new
digital hearing aids. Generally they are not covered by
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Three great rituals—working on motorcycles, making coffee, and getting
haircuts—happen in one old building in Florence, Alabama.

Photographs by C A RY N O RT O N

@ P o p u l a r M e c h a n i c s _ FEBRUARY 2017 49

O M A J O R H I G H W AY will take you to
Florence, Alabama. You fly down a
sparse two-lane to get there, averaging
fifteen over, the dust of dry farm fields
catching the last stretches of the south-
ern sun. It’s still 68 degrees at dusk, so
you keep the windows down.
You pass an old, warehouse-looking building on Tennessee Street.
Turbo Coffee, it says out front. Next door, same building: a genu-
ine barber pole. You could use a trim. You go in. Greasy Hands, it’s
called. It looks transplanted from some hipper neighborhood in a
hipper city—Brooklyn, Austin, the Mission. But nope, here you are
in Florence, Alabama.
It works here because it works anywhere: good people doing good
work that makes you feel good when you walk in and better when you
leave. It doesn’t cost much—maybe a little more than a barbershop
where the guy’s half asleep, but not much. What do you get for it?
An escape from the drudgery of the everyday. A clean cut. Friendly
50 FEBRUARY 2017 _ P O P U L A R M E C H A N I C S . C O M
A
conversation. A free coffee next door. It’s an every-three-or-four-
weeks gift to yourself.
You sit. Maybe Austin Shirey, the owner, takes care of you. Or
Daniel. Or Austin’s brother Garrett. Or Sanford. Those are the guys.
Austin’s other brother, Reese, runs Turbo. You, freshly shorn—the
guys are wizards with scissors and a razor—get your coffee. In those
three or four weeks between your visits, the guys are there. They’re
doing for your neighbors, your doctor, the students at nearby Univer-
sity of North Alabama the same thing they did for you. This is their
modern-day version of the old downtown gathering spot—the village
hall, the general store. The barbershop. The coffee shop. It’s great.
They hang out in front of the coffee shop before they start cutting
in the morning. They find breaks during the day to take their vin-
tage motorcycles for a spin around town or futz with the engines in
the garage. But mostly they work. They craft cup after perfect cup
of coffee, and every clean neck gets a final heavy drag of a steamed
towel. When you leave, refreshed, there’s someone else waiting.
Always someone else.
B
PAGE 49:
THE WARM-UP
The guys don’t start
cutting hair until 10 in
the morning, so they’ll
soak up every last min-
ute beforehand hanging
out front of Turbo.

From left, on Garrett

Shirey: Wilson & Willy’s
shirt ($155). On Daniel
Crisler: Schott jacket (his
own), Criquet shirt ($95).
On Sanford Rodriguez:
Shinola sweatshirt
($150), Levi’s jeans (his
own), Converse sneak-
ers ($75). On Austin
Shirey: Todd Snyder
shirt ($158), Levi’s jeans
(his own).

A / THE SHOP
Shirey and his brothers
did a lot of the work on
the shop themselves,
pulling down the ’50s-
era drop ceiling to
expose the raw beams
underneath and paint-
ing the space.

B / BIKES FOR BENCHES

In the garage that
separates Greasy
Hands from Turbo Cof-
fee, Shirey keeps two
vintage Hondas and
a BMW he and Reese
have been working on.

Levi’s jeans (his own);

Red Wing boots (his own).

@ P o p u l a r M e c h a n i c s _ FEBRUARY 2017 51
C / THE RIDE
The Univer-
sity of North
Alabama is
just down the
road out of
town from
Greasy Hands,
perfect for
an afternoon
ride.

Billy Reid
jacket ($395).

D / UPSTAIRS
The raw
motor-oil-
soaked floor
of the space
above the
shop used to
function as
a showroom
for an auto
dealer.

On Rodriguez:
Billy Reid
jacket ($295).
On Austin
Shirey: Tail-
gate Clothing
T-shirt ($32).
On Reese
Shirey: Apolis
jacket ($278),
Levi’s Made &
Crafted jeans
($198), Wol-
verine boots
($400).

52 FEBRUARY 2017 _ P O P U L A R M E C H A N I C S . C O M
C

@ P o p u l a r M e c h a n i c s _ FEBRUARY 2017 53
 limb to the highest
point on your land, in
your house, even in
your apartment sit-
uation—just get up
high—and look down
at your life as a kind
of map. The perspective is military; the
distance makes your attachment to your
possessions dispassionate. From your
promontory, the edges are clear. This is
the world you created. How’d you do? Can
what you’ve made provide beyond the next
grocery run? Sure it’s a place you can live,
but is it a place where you could survive?
I live in Indiana, at a great remove. On
the far end of an empty country road, in a
little house on a broad creek. I don’t grow
any food. I don’t own any livestock. I used
up all my firewood last year and haven’t
replaced it. But I feel I can make it out
here. Even though my best tool for survival
is the epic snarling of my nasty-loyal yard
dog. When I first went up high on this
property for my look around, I paused
in the loft of my barn, which stands on
a hill. A house, two cabins, a barn, and
a garage. I thought: It’s a compound.
Surely, this was all we needed.
But the list of structures turned out
to be only the shell. Self-sufficiency
takes trade-offs and lessons years in
the making. You have to buy a goat,
the right kind at the right time of
year. You have to take a weekend
and rewire the barn. You have to
find a way to store water, kindling,
rain gear, beans. You gotta get a
freezer. You gotta get a generator.
You need flares. You have to mas-
ter the small-scale solar install.
You have to learn, to really mas-
ter, sharpening a chainsaw and
an axe, rigging a pulley system.
You’ll learn how to make repairs
on refrigeration units, shed
roofs, and forgotten tractors.
When all of this stuff starts
to fall together for you, in your
head and on your shelves, you’ll
be able to stand at the highest
point on your property and
know what each building car-
ries for you, each and every
inventory of all the corners
of your land and yourself.
You’ll see that you have built
survival into the place and
into yourself. Only then can
you lift your eyes above your own stuff,
look to the horizon, and watch for what-
ever trouble you might have to survive.
—Tom Chiarella

@ P o p u l a r M e c h a n i c s _ FEBRUARY 2017 55

Shop Like the
Amish!
Lehman’s opened in 1955 as a hard-
ware store in Kidron, Ohio, selling
equipment to northeast Ohio’s Amish
community. Today, Lehman’s has
expanded to sell products through,
uncharacteristically, the internet.
Here are a few to pick up for your
off-grid kitchen.
Cast-Iron Cor n Sheller
→ Use this to remove the kernels from
dried corn so they can be fed to livestock.
You can use the cobs as frewood
(frecorn?). $299
56 FEBRUARY 2017 _ P O P U L A R M E C H A N I C S . C O M
Learn to grow and preserve
your own food. There’s no take-
out in the middle of the woods.
Ov en/Sun Food-Dry ing R ack
→ These solid oak and fberglass drying
screens separate fruit and vegetable
slices so they (the slices) can be dried.
$90
Di a m a nt Gr a in Mill
→ A cast-iron flywheel turns
iron and steel burrs to grind
grains into flour or cereal.
Use with the corn sheller to
make cornmeal. $1,000
Sta rter Fruit Pr ess
→ Not only will it instantly turn any
kitchen table into a tableau of American
farmhouse charm, it can press eight
quarts of soft fruits, such as grapes,
into juice. $200
P H OTO G R A P H BY DY L A N G R I F F I N
 A
If You Bring Only

One Pan
B

C D

The problem with being a cook and also a

gearhead who believes in having the right
tool for the job is that somehow I’ve ended
up with 47 pots and pans. I could justify
E F each of them, but when I start home-
steading, I’m going to pack just one: my
Le Creuset enameled cast-iron 11.75-inch
The Grow-Forever skillet. Unlike traditional cast-iron pans,

Garden
this one has shallow, slightly sloped sides,
making it more like a sauté pan. Once the
thing heats up (this takes a while—it’s a Btu
hog), the cast iron holds a consistent tem-
perature, which allows for uniform cook-
ing. I’ve used it to make pancakes, fry eggs,
and even roast whole chickens. I have half
a mind to throw it on top of our fire pit and
sear some steaks when
Connor Stedman, an agroforestry specialist and ecologist at garden the weather improves,
design firm AppleSeed Permaculture, uses a farming practice because I know the pan
called permaculture that exploits natural relationships between can take the heat. Best
plants to create a long-lasting garden that of all, it comes in 12
colors, which makes it
will grow without fertilizer. Here’s how to do it at home. a piece of equipment
everyone in the family
can get behind.
A) Tr ees D) Bet w een-bush pl a nts —Wylie Dufresne
→ Place trees on the northern side of → In between the bushes, plant aspar-
your garden, then try to arrange agus, which grows when the berries
the rest of the plants in a descend- aren’t ripe, and yarrow, which is
ing order from north to south. This medicinal for colds. You Need
ensures that no tall plants are block-
ing the sun from shorter crops. E) Thr ee Sisters Rather than a
→ Try planting pear (rose family), cor- → Plant corn on the eastern and west- compressor, a
nelian cherry (dogwood family), and ern edges of the garden, where it won’t tiny propane
flame drives the
pawpaw (custard apple family) trees block the sun from other vegetables.
refrigeration
together. All three produce edible Then plant pole beans and squash in cycle, using reac-
fruit, but won’t spread disease to each the same bed, as American Indians tions between
other. did. The crops, known as the three ammonia and
sisters, are complementary. hydrogen gas to
B) Understory A Propane remove heat from
→ Directly underneath the trees, cre- F) Beds Fridge the interior. And
ate a functional support system. Wild → Rule-of-thumb plants to keep together though they can
be expensive—a
senna adds nitrogen to the soil and and apart: vegetables in the cabbage
21-cubic-foot model might run as much
attracts beneficial insects, comfrey family (cabbage, broccoli, brussels as $2,500—they’re incredibly efficient:
brings up nutrients from deep soil sprouts) like leafy greens and beets, A propane fridge requires a bit more
and is medicinal for burns, and anise but won’t do well with strawberries. than a pound of propane a day under
hyssop can be used for tea. Peas don’t get along with garlic. Corn, normal operation, and can use even
tomatoes, and potatoes shouldn’t be less if your kids don’t stand in front of it
C) Bushes planted together because they don’t looking for snacks with the door open.
→ Try highbush blueberries, gooseber- make sense geometrically. Try to
ries, and Nanking cherry. rotate your vegetables each year.

I L LU S T R AT I O N BY J O N AT H A N C A R L S O N @ P o p u l a r M e c h a n i c s _ FEBRUARY 2017 57
 We can teach you how to procure
water for your family.
For whiskey, you’re on your own.

Cap

The How and

Where of
Wells
Ground level

Forget Wi-Fi. Modern home-

steader BEN HEWITT faced Pitless adapter
the greatest obstacle to living
far from utility lines:

Casing
How do you get water?
Water to house
(below frost line)
hen I was one, my fam-
ily moved from a large
farmhouse in north-
western Vermont into a Static level
small cabin my parents of H2O
had built at the edge
of a nearby hardwood forest. The cabin
featured neither electricity nor indoor Bedrock
plumbing. It was lit by smoky kerosene
lanterns, and we bathed in a metal wash-
tub filled with water heated atop an old
wood-fired cookstove.
At first, my parents hauled totes of
water to the cabin in the backseat of their
rust-bitten Volkswagen Beetle. When they
tired of this, my father rigged up a hand
pump and managed to pull water from
a stream nearly a half-mile distant and
at least a hundred vertical feet below the
cabin site. He was understandably proud.
Though I was too young to grasp the
implications, that pump was my first expe-
rience with water that hadn’t come from a
municipal authority. My next would come
twenty-five years later, after my wife,
Penny, and I closed on forty remote acres
of our own. Seeking a more permanent Pump
solution than my father’s stream-fed hand (generally
pump, we chose to drill a well. installed 10 to 15
It has been another two decades since feet from the bot-
then, but I remember clearly the day the tom of the well)
rig arrived to set its bit. At the time, Penny
and I had $1,500 to our names, and like
all drillers, ours charged by the foot. If
memory serves, the late-nineties price
was $8 per foot. If we didn’t strike water by
150 feet or so (we needed a small reserve
Water source
to pay for the steel casing that would line
the well from surface to bedrock), we’d

58 FEBRUARY 2017 _ P O P U L A R M E C H A N I C S . C O M I L LU S T R AT I O N BY J O N AT H A N C A R L S O N
have to pull the plug.
At a hundred feet, the bit struck a vein of water that produced thirty
gallons per minute. According to the EPA, the average American fam-
ily of four uses four hundred gallons of water a day. We’d have plenty
to spare. Better yet, the total bill, including the casing and well cap,
came to around $1,000. That night, we ate steak.
Last summer, Penny and I drilled yet another rural well, to serve a
house we are building on a hundred acres in Vermont’s remote North-
east Kingdom. Again we faced the obstacle that all property owners
do when they drill for water: There is no way to know with certainty
how deep the water lies, or how much water there is to be found. If the
four hundred gallons a day statistic is correct, a mere third of a gal-
lon per minute is all that’s necessary to supply the average family of
four, but that leaves little wiggle room for times of heavy use or vari-
ations in flow. Besides, we keep livestock, including a small herd of
cattle, thirsty beasts capable of drinking thirty gallons a day apiece.
I wish I could report that this time
around money was not an issue. Alas, my
career as freelance writer and small-scale
farmer has ensured that I cannot. Com- Despite the
pounding the problem was the fact that
many of the neighboring wells ran to four
modern tech-
hundred feet, and delivered only three or nology, the rig
looked pre-
four gallons a minute, barely sufficient for
our needs. Worse yet, according to the well
maps provided by the state, one nearby
property owner had drilled six hundred historic, like
feet without hitting water. Nor had drill-
ing costs magically defied the one-way
a dinosaur
rule of inflation: In rural Vermont, it now
costs approximately $12 per foot to drill,
ready to chew
and the six-inch steel casing is $17 a foot. up my yard.
At those rates, assuming a hundred feet
of casing, a four-hundred-foot well would
cost us $6,500 before we installed a pump.
So we hired a dowser, a sort of water psychic who locates ideal drill-
ing locations by watching the movement of copper rods. This despite
numerous studies clearly demonstrating that the practice is no bet-
ter than a coin toss.
The dowser arrived on a late-summer morning. I don’t know what
I’d expected, exactly—flowing robes? a flower crown?—but I was none-
theless pleased that he arrived in a commonplace Toyota Tacoma and
wore the utilitarian garb of a rural working person.
“I’m going to have you find the water. I want your energy in it,” he
said to Penny and me, before handing us each a pair of foot-long cop-
per L-rods fashioned out of wire. Sleeves installed over the short end
of the L allowed the rods to rotate freely in our hands, ostensibly in
response to the presence of potable water.
My confidence increased when my L-rods crossed mere minutes
after I started off on my walk around the property. It felt almost as if
I could not have stopped them from crossing if I’d tried. Penny got the
You Need
A Sand-Point
Well
A sand-point is basically a
spear tip with a metal screen
behind it. If you have a rea-
sonably high water table and
sandy-gravel soil, pound that
sucker into the ground using
either a slide hammer or a
drop weight and pulley on a
tripod. Keep pounding until
the point penetrates about
ten feet past the water
table. It’s slow and grueling,
but it works. And it’s cheap.
The sand-point method can
save you thousands com-
pared to having a well drilled
professionally.
same result, as did our coach, though I couldn’t help
considering that they’d both seen me go first. Still. My
rods had crossed entirely unbidden by human force.
They absolutely had. Hadn’t they?
In matters of faith, one can choose to believe or
choose not to. The agony, I’ve found, resides in the
middle path. Besides, we’d shelled out $250 for the
dowser’s time. A flagged stake was planted.
Three weeks later, the rig arrived. The drill carriage was mounted
on a lift. When raised, by leveling jacks that hoisted the rig’s front
wheels off the ground, it stood forty feet in the air. Despite the modern
technology—diesel engine, digital display, high-flow hydraulics—
it looked prehistoric, like a dinosaur ready to chew up my yard. At
165 feet, it punched into a vein that shot past at approximately fifty
gallons per minute. “Truth is, I’m not sure exactly how fast it’s flow-
ing,” the rig operator told me. “It’s coming in too damn fast. But it’s
the best well in town, that’s for sure.”
That evening, I threw a couple of T-bones on the grill and got my sons
to move the picnic table from the backside of the house to the front. It’d
be another day before the casing was fully installed, and another week
before a friend and I dropped in the pump and ran water to the house.
Still, I wanted to look out on our good fortune while I ate my steak.
Can I say with certainty that divination produced our desired
result? I cannot. We’ve got water. That’s all I need to know.

What’s the closest anyone’s gotten to creating no trash at all?

Great Astonishingly close, though it certainly takes an effort that most folks aren’t prepared to expend.

Unknowns
The average American, per Environmental Protection Agency statistics, jettisons 4.4 pounds of
trash a day. Lauren Singer, a Brooklyn-based blogger, on the other hand, has managed to fit sev-
of eral years’ worth of waste into a single mason jar. Of course, she drinks her iced coffee through a
reusable straw and makes her own toothpaste. Singer is one of several young bloggers dedicated
Self-Sufficiency! to sharing strategies to cut down on waste. For starters, you’ll want to be conscious of what you
buy—items in nonrecyclable packaging are no-nos. Obviously, you’ll want to recycle or compost
absolutely anything you can. Otherwise, think of a way to reuse it. Styrofoam blocks might make
for stylish lightweight headgear, and used PC towers serve as sleek, modern side tables.

@ P o p u l a r M e c h a n i c s _ FEBRUARY 2017 59
 When you’re living far from
civilization, it’s the little things 1) Snow boa r d
→ Cut a sixteen-inch square out of
that are the most difficult. plywood, paint it white, and place
it on even, open ground next to
a vertical meter stick. Mark the
location with a bright flag. By mea-
suring both snowfall and the water
equivalent of snow (use your rain
gauge, below), you’ll be able to tell
how much water your crops are
getting in the winter.

2) Ther mometer...
2 → Shell out for a thermistor ther-
mometer. These register electrical
resistance and are very accurate.
Record temperature for a few years
to get the average first freeze.
...a nd h ygrometer
→ This will give you dew point, the
highest temperature at which
water vapor will become liquid.
High dew points at low tempera-
1 tures can protect your plants from
frost damage.
3
3) Cup a nemometer a nd
w ind va ne

How to
→ The anemometer will give you
wind speed, while the vane

Predict will show wind direction.

Strong winds at night can pre-

Weather
vent frost from sitting on—and
damaging—crops.

4) Four-inch r ain gauge

in Your Backyard → Recording total rainfall over time
will help you predict your proper-
4
ty’s threshold for how much rain
With Ginger Zee
is too much (for example: at what
point your basement will flood).
Good Morning America and
ABC World News Tonight 5) A neroid ba rometer
→ An aneroid barometer, which
chief meteorologist Ginger Zee uses a vacuum box to measure
grew up on a four-acre farm pressure, will last longer than a
that ran on geothermal power liquid barometer, which is subject
and a small woodstove. It’s important to record to evaporation. Depending on
what side of a storm you’re on, air
and understand your homesite’s microclimate,
5 pressure will drop or rise as it
she says, especially when you’re growing food. approaches.
You’ll need the following tools.

You Need

A Manual Washing Machine Even if you rarely use it, a fat, crankable egg, such
as the EasyGo Washer mobile hand-powered
washing machine, is easily worth $55 just so you don’t have to dunk your drawers in the sink during a
power outage. Stuff it with clothes, add two glugs of camping soap, and start sloshing. It doesn’t look like
it, but a toddler could muscle the handle. Give it a full turn, a hard yank in the opposite direction, then a full
rotation, then back again. Enjoy the therapeutic slushing. Two minutes in soapy water, two minutes in a
fresh water rinse, and you’re done. Or mostly done. Without a spin cycle, your clothes will be fairly soggy.
Two dozen black socks washed in the EasyGo took two full days to dry on a shower-curtain rod, even with
the window open. If climate permits, use a clothesline. Or plan your underwear schedule accordingly.

I L LU S T R AT I O N S : J O N AT H A N C A R L S O N ; TO O L S : DY L A N G R I F F I N
 The Ultimate
Off-the-Grid
Toolbox
12-gauge shotgun
→ Off-grid means on your own. Use this to Long-h a ndle No. 2 round-
scare off potential mischief-makers, or to point shov el
dispatch rabbits digging up your vegetable → Dig a ditch, put out a brush fire,
patch and eat ’em for dinner. chop through ice and snow. It’s all
in a day’s work for old No. 2. Get
one with a deep socket—the metal
cup at the top of the blade into
which the handle fits. This will
make it nearly indestructible.

Ca nt hook
→ If you’re gonna be
lighting fires, you’re
gonna be moving logs. Ch a insaw
Your back will last → Use it to cut fire-
twice as long if you use wood, make fence
one of these grabbers posts, or clear a tree
to do it. that fell across your
quarter-mile-long
driveway.

Fr a ming h a mmer
→ Nails will cower when they see this big-
Linesm a n pliers ger, heavier version of a standard claw
→ Also called side cut- hammer coming. The unbreakable solid-
ters for the blades on steel model from Estwing is a good bet.
its jaws, these pliers
can make electrical
repairs, cut fence wire,
and chop through
nails and small
screws.

P H OTO G R A P H / I L LU S T R AT I O N BY T E E K AY N A M E @ P o p u l a r M e c h a n i c s _ FEBRUARY 2017 61


Ecocapsule
Shortcut
Shack
Don’t want to build your own cabin in the woods?
You don’t have to. A premade, off-grid-compatible house can
function wherever you decide to call home.
Acr e Designs
→ Best for: Design
enthusiasts
→ Comparable to: A
four-star resort
→ Coolest feature: It
combines all your
utilities into a single
appliance, the Zero-
Box, which includes
an electrical panel, a
distribution panel, a
7.2-kilowatt inverter,
an energy recovery
ventilator, and a
whole-home water-
filtration system and
emergency shutoff.
→ Cost: $400,000 to
$500,000; available
at acredesigns.com
62 FEBRUARY 2017 _ P O P U L A R M E C H A N I C S . C O M
How to Make
Your Own
Power
Set up one of these systems,
and then bellow like Zeus every time
you turn on the coffeemaker.
Sol a r
→ Location: South- or west-facing rooftop or
unwooded area
→ Equipment: At least 24 solar panels,
The charge controller, breakers, switchgear,
inverter, and batteries.
→ Output: 7.5-kw
→ Cost*: $25,000 to $30,000, depending on
whether it’s a rooftop or a ground array.
Gener ator
→ Location: Level ground near the house
→ Equipment: Generator, panel, breakers,
and switchgear. A 100-gallon or larger lique-
fied petroleum gas tank. Propane.
→ Output: 7.5-kw
→ Cost: About $10,000, but it can vary based
on distance to the house, plumbing, and inter-
connection to a battery.
Sm a ll Wind Tur bine
→ Location: Breezy area, high ground
→ Equipment: A wind turbine, set atop an
80- to 100-foot tower, turbine disconnect,
ZeroHouse Ecoca psule electronics, inverter, and batteries.
→ Best for: People who → Best for: People who → Output: 7.5-kw
wish the Jetsons were don’t shower much → Cost*: $36,000 to $40,000 on average. Cost
real → Comparable to: varies based on whether there is road or trail
→ Comparable to: A Wrapping your access to tower location and how far the tower
motel in Japan comforter around is from your home.
→ Coolest feature: yourself like a burrito
High-efficiency solar → Coolest feature: Micro Hy dro
panels produce all This pod can survive → Location: A water source with a vertical
of the zeroHouse’s anywhere, without drop and a steady flow measured in gallons
electrical power, connection to any- per minute
storing it in battery thing, for up to a → Equipment: An intake gate called a pen-
banks that can oper- year. It powers itself stock, valves and pressure gauges, turbine,
ate for up to a week through solar cells switchgear, inverter, and electronics. Low-
without sunlight. A that cover the roof output or variable-output systems may
2,700-gallon cistern and a retractable require a battery bank.
collects rainwater 750-watt wind tur- → Output: 7.5-kw
from the roof, while bine, and the shape → Cost*: Anywhere from $8,000 to $36,000,
a digester unit under maximizes collected depending on the length of your penstock,
the house processes rainwater, which whether there is road or trail access, and how
organic waste into built-in filters make the turbine will be sheltered.
dry compost. safe for consumption.
→ Cost: Approximately → Cost: Approximately *Costs do not reflect tax or other incentives or locally
required permits.
$350,000; available $87,600; available at
at zerohouse.net ecocapsule.sk
R I G H T: P H OTO G R A P H BY DY L A N G R I F F I N
 Now that you have the
basics taken care of,
what is there to do out here?

The Ultimate Off-Grid

Entertainment
System
Because a man can only play so much candlelit Pictionary.

1 2 3 4
“Procure” movies Sync movies onto Create power Set up your
→ The legal way: Buy movie a big smartphone → During the day, connect home theater
files from iTunes, Google, or a tablet two 20-watt Goal Zero → The AAXA P300 ($400)
or Amazon. → A 256-gig iPhone 7 Plus solar panels ($200 apiece) can display an image up
→ The...legally compli- ($969) is ideal, but a 128- to each other, and plug to 120 inches, but a full
cated way: Travel back to gig Google Pixel ($749) or them into a Sherpa 100 battery will only run
the early 2000s and find iPad Air ($499) will also battery ($300) with an for about an hour. The
DVDs. A library works. work. FYI: Most Android optional inverter ($50) Sherpa with the optional
On a laptop with a CD phones will need Google that can run power- inverter will get through
drive, download an app Chromecast to play video, hungry devices that about ten ninety-minute
called HandBrake (free) which requires extra have two- or three-prong movies before everything
to turn those disks into power to run. plugs. Three to five hours runs out of juice. Connect
video files and save them of sun will fill this bat- your phone to the projec-
to your laptop. tery with enough power tor using an HDMI cable
to charge a projector and ($5) and an adapter ($50).
your phone or tablet. Stand it up on a Joby
GorillaPod ($30).
Press play.
P H OTO G R A P H / I L LU S T R AT I O N BY T E E K AY N A M E @ P o p u l a r M e c h a n i c s _ FEBRUARY 2017 63
 How to
Entertain
Your Kids
in the Woods
With Matt Ross

n HBO’s Silicon Valley (returning in April), Matt

Ross plays smug, frivolous technology executive
Gavin Belson, a man given to such statements as “I
don’t know about you people, but I don’t want to live
in a world where someone else makes the world a bet-
ter place better than we do.”
Ross himself is less wealthy, more sensible. He lives with his wife
and two children in a duplex in Berkeley, California, and often wor-
ries about how much time his kids spend in contact with nature. It’s
an outgrowth of the way he himself was raised: in a series of communal
societies deep in the woods of northern California and Oregon, where All of this sounds like kids don’t much appreciate growing up far
he learned to hunt, make fire, build shelter, track animals, and read from civilization, or, at the very least, that such a life can go danger-
stars. “At one point we lived seven miles from a cement road. We were ously off-track, which is true. But for all the challenges, Ross has a
thirty or forty minutes away from the general store, and it was literally degree of creativity that came in large part from his early freedom.
called The General Store,” he says. When local hunters hadn’t deliv- Without access to TV or video games, he and his brother used to wan-
ered venison for a while, his single mom sometimes slaughtered a goat. der through uninhabited woodland for hours at a time, hauling bows
Ross’s experiences living off the grid, along with the questions and arrows, jumping fences, and pretending to hunt. Now, Ross often
about his own children, inspired him to write and direct Captain has to explain to his own kids that being bored means you’re simply
Fantastic, a film about a man who devotes his life to raising a fam- not trying hard enough to entertain yourself.
ily of six in the Washington wilderness. The film, starring Viggo “One time, I remember hiking and
Mortensen, is an extreme exaggeration of Ross’s childhood, a sort of hearing this otherworldly sound,” he
thought experiment about what it would be like to abandon modern says. “I had no idea what it was, and
convenience entirely in the service of raising a self-sufficient brood. then I come up a ridge and see hun-
A Family
The borderline-illegal parenting is a little scary, but the movie, which dreds of deer, and they are making the Itinerary
was released nationwide in July, won Ross a best director award at the strangest sound. It was one of those Matt Ross’s recom-
2016 Cannes Film Festival. sounds where you’re convinced it can’t mendations for a fun,
Ross’s own childhood may have been less militant than the one have come from the animal you’re productive day in the
depicted in Captain Fantastic, but he still had to do “intense chores.” looking at. It was like bayahhhooooy- wilderness
He remembers chopping wood into kin- aaaahhhh [Ross makes an incredible
dling in the rain for “something like six noise that is a cross between a holler, → Swim in a mountain
hours.” He also felt a sense of isolation that a moo, and a bay].” river or lake
he tried to show in the film. “I played foot- Another time, Ross says, he woke
ball, but that was the only connection I had up at dawn and walked to a lake, and → Set the kids up to
to the town,” he says. “Just going to a movie a plane swept down and dropped live fish so that they can
took an hour and a half to get there. I felt like fish into it. Rangers were repopulat- entertain themselves
I wanted to be around kids my own age, and ing the lake for some sort of scientific
we weren’t, at all, and that was really hard.” purpose, but what Ross remembers → Go for a hike
is that it was raining fish. “You have
Matt Ross also appeared in American Psycho
and Face/Off, neither of which, presumably, a pretty rich fantasy life when you → Teach the kids to
were based on his life. live like that.” track and hunt

64 FEBRUARY 2017 _ P O P U L A R M E C H A N I C S . C O M
 You Need
Books
Into the Wild
By Jon Krakauer
→ What many people learn
from this true story of sur-
vival gone wrong in the
Alaskan backcountry: If
it’s your first time surviv-
ing on your own, maybe
don’t choose the Alaskan
backcountry.
My Side of the
Mountain
By Jean Craighead George
→ A twelve-year-old boy lives
off the land in a hollowed-
out tree while his family is
surprisingly relaxed about
the whole thing.
Ba ll Blue Book Guide
to Preserving
→ The gold standard for pre-
serving fruits and veggies
for midwinter consumption.
Bonus: Will help you avoid
giving everyone botulism!
Great
Unknowns
of
Self-Sufficiency!
P H OTO G R A P H BY P H I L I P F R I E D M A N
Walden
the Self-
Sufficiency
CliffsNotes
Henry David Thoreau was tired of life’s
meaningless distractions 150 years
before smartphones. Though most
of the guidance in Walden, his mem-
oir about living alone in a cabin in the
woods, is philosophical in nature, it
does contain some practical advice.
Pack w isely
→ “At the present day, and in this country, as I
find by my own experience, a few implements,
a knife, an axe, a spade, a wheelbarrow, etc.,
The Outermost House and for the studious, lamplight, stationery, and
By Henry Beston access to a few books, rank next to necessaries,
→ Why do novels about home- and can all be obtained at a trifling cost.”
steading always take place
in the woods, when the Get up ea r ly
beach on Cape Cod is a → “I would advise you to do all your work if
much better idea? Think of possible while the dew is on.”
the lobsters!
R educe your r eli a nce on luxur ies
The Unsettlers: In → “I did not use tea, nor coffee, nor butter, nor
Search of the G ood milk, nor fresh meat, and so did not have to
Life in Today’s A merica work to get them.”
By Mark Sundeen
→ A new nonfiction collection Pl a n a hea d
about modern pioneers try- → “While yet it is cold January, and snow
ing to find the “simple life” in and ice are thick and solid, the prudent land-
a complicated world. Read it lord comes from the village to get ice to cool
on your Apple watch. his summer drink; impressively, even pathet-
ically wise, to foresee the heat and thirst of
The Bushcr aft Field July now in January.”
Guide to Tr a pping,
Gathering and Cooking Don’t get a hea d of yourself
in the Wild → “Beware of all enterprises that require new
By Dave Canterbury clothes.”
→ Because you can only eat so
many carrots. Br ing a ch a ir
→ “None is so poor that he need sit on a
pumpkin.”
Could you power any thing with a horse?
Absolutely—they don’t call it horsepower for nothing. A horse or cow (or any other reasonably
robust creature—pet alligator, caffeinated goat, malingering teenager, etc.) can be suitably
motivated to walk on a treadmill attached to a generator in order to yield electricity, which
may be used immediately or stored in rechargeable batteries. Problem is, the gambit is inef-
ficient from both energy production and economic standpoints. Solar power, for one, is a
better bet. Solar’s initial startup costs may be higher ($25,000 or more), but decent horses
aren’t free, either to buy (about $3,000) or to feed (close to $4,000 a year for twenty-five
to thirty years). And then, of course, you have the indelicate issue of the horse’s substantial
“exhaust.”
@ P o p u l a r M e c h a n i c s _ FEBRUARY 2017 65
THE WORLD SURROUNDING

MY FATHER’S MONTANA

HOMESTEAD COULD DISAPPEAR

TOMORROW, AND HE WOULD MAKE

OUT JUST FINE . I WENT TO

SEE HIM TO FIND OUT

HOW HE DOES IT—AND WHY.

By Smith
Henderson

Photographs by
Morgan Levy

The author and

his father on
an impromptu
bow hunt near
Lolo Creek,
Montana.

page 67
 Ron Henderson could smell smoke as he
walked out to his pickup on a Monday
morning in the summer of 2013, but he
was not alarmed. There’s no such thing as
a western Montana summer without the
smell of a forest fire. Blowups as far away
as Canada or Idaho can waft hundreds Above: “Doing firewood” at the Lolo Creek homestead. Right: A compound bow like the
of miles, haze a Montana day, and make Mathews MQ32 uses a system of cams and pulleys to make shooting easier and more accurate.
a mountain valley smell like a campsite.
This time, however, there’d been a light-
ning strike somewhere above the stretch
of residences on Lolo Creek where Ron and his neighbors lived. The
blaze, which would come to be known officially as the West Fork II
fire, was close. For two days it had fed on the fuel of dry grass, under-
story, and deadfall as it made its way toward them. Another small
fire, the “Schoolhouse,” had started downstream. Eventually, the
two would combine into an inferno that would burn ten thousand
acres, driven by forty- to fifty-mile-per-hour winds. But that morn-
ing no one knew that. Ron didn’t worry about the smoke.
Ron’s wife, Jan, wanted to pack up and be ready to skedaddle.
But Ron had grown up in these woods. And though he wasn’t com-
placent about wildfire, he felt calm here. “We’ll wait until the ash is
falling,” he said.
Ron eyed the tobacco tinge in the sky as he moved the sprinklers
to another part of the yard. He’d been watering constantly for the
past few days. The pasture that ran up to the two-lane highway was
likewise getting a good soak from large sprinklers on rebar tripods.
A moat of wet grass might not stop a forest fire from sending a fusil-
lade of burning embers the size of fists onto the cedar-shake roof of
his log home, Ron figured, but it could keep the flames from running
up to the front door.
As for the house, Ron had assembled it himself some thirty years
before, buying and hauling the logs with his truck and having them
coped and notched at a log-home outfit in the nearby Bitterroot Val-
ley. It was an upgrade from the cramped two-bedroom cabin that he
had previously shared with his wife and their five kids—my brothers
and sisters and me. After Ron, my dad, got home from work, we all
would come out to watch him put a log on the structure before sup-
per. He would usually run out and throw a couple more up before bed.
In the end, the house was a grand achievement. The large flag-
stone floor was warmed by a grid of hot-water pipes, the water heated
by a large stone fireplace. The vaulted living room housed a fifteen-
foot Christmas tree every year. There were three ground-floor
68 FEBRUARY 2017 _ P O P U L A R M E C H A N I C S . C O M
bedrooms and a patio. A deck off the upstairs master
bedroom looked out over the property—the old barn
and bunkhouse, the chicken coop, and the timbered
mountainside beyond.
In a few hours most of it would be on fire.
few years ago, I published a novel,
Fourth of July Creek, which has, as
its complicated antagonist, an iso-
lated survivalist. People often ask
me if the book is based on my fam-
ily in Montana—a simple question
with a complicated answer. A book is made out of
your experiences and your people, of course, but what
drives a novelist is a central query, a nagging ques-
tion. For me, that question was whether it’s better to
be free or good for society. The character at the center
of my novel bears no resemblance to my father, but the
question can be traced back to my family of pioneers,
ranchers, cowboys, and loggers. They were the kind of
people, living alone in the wilderness, of whom you’d
have to ask such a question.
I visit my father in Montana a couple times a year,
mostly to spend time with him and see my kids, who
live down the road. The most recent time I visited, I
drove up to his property on a beautiful fall day. The
hillsides were scarred with dark stands of dead timber
all around, but the sun was bright and warm.
The Henderson homesite looks different now,
but it’s even better suited to withstand all manner of
trouble than it was before. It’s set back from the high-
way. There’s always a garden. There’s a windmill that

can pump water from a well in the event of a power
outage. There’s a root cellar and generator. There’s
a creek nearby, stocked with trout. The woods have
game, and everyone who lives here is a fine shot. It is
self-sufficiency in the extreme. You could live here
alone forever.
My father and I have a cup of coffee and talk about
the family. We talk about the fire. Pretty soon he’s
showing me the addition on the outbuilding, a con-
crete base and hip roof that extends off the left side
and wraps around the back. He needed to corner the
thing with a huge beam to account for the winter snow
load. I ask how hard it was to get that beam in place,
and he delights in telling me how he and my step-
brother used his tractor to hold it up and situate it.
“You’re not a carpenter,” I say.
“Measure twice and cut once,” he says. The man
loves making a shelter, an instinct that has led to tree
stands and lean-tos and even a log house that will one
day stand in the path of a forest fire.
e asks me to help him chop a little
firewood. I jokingly complain about
it—the way I did as a kid. We used to
have to “do firewood” every weekend,
throwing the cut wood into the back
of his pickup and then unloading it
and stacking it at the cabin. It was a much-reviled
chore.
Now, he saws the rounds and uses a powerful split-
ter to portion them as easy as pulling apart an orange.
He used to suffer my complaints while he swung the
splitting maul, but it’s fun to be out with him today. I joke that I want
to make notes of the moment and sit down on the log while he works.
He fires up the chainsaw. As he saws into the log, I think: It always
seemed like he worked so hard.
You sort of wonder, when you’re me, and Ron is your father, how
you came to be this person, a writer in Los Angeles who reads and day-
dreams for a living. Los Angeles couldn’t be culturally or logistically
farther from western Montana. I have a Marmot Limelight tent, a
Coleman lamp, a Jetboil MiniMo camp stove, a half-dozen freeze-
dried meals and a large hunting knife. I keep a gallon of water in the
fridge because warm tap water freaks me out. I have a pair of good
boots, and a first-aid kit in a Jeep Grand Cherokee that will almost
certainly not have a full tank of gas when I need one. In a citywide Los
Angeles emergency I expect to be utterly screwed. Why? Because in
the event of an earthquake, I would find myself with the San Andreas
Fault (the likely epicenter) to my north and east, and millions of
panicked Los Angelenos to my south and west. Prepared I am not.
We stack the wood under the new wood shelter my dad built after
the fire and fill the new furnace—a shed-size freestanding wood-
THEY SPED UP THE CANYON,
WATCHING THE THICK COLUMN OF
SMOKE, BLACK AND OMINOUS AS
A THUNDERHEAD, OVERTAKE THE SKY.
IT WAS LIKE DRIVING INTO HELL .
stove that he installed as well. I ask him about the generator nearby.
“I should probably get it hooked up,” he says, mentally ticking
off the other more urgent things to do around the property. Some-
times I think that I simply sought an easier life than my dad has.
He does more actual work in a weekend than a roomful of TV writ-
ers do in a month.
“Just a heads-up,” I say, “this is where I’m headed if the world is
ending.”
“That’s the plan, eh?” he says.
“Yeah, I hope that’s cool.”
bout 1 p.m. on the day of the fire, my father had fin-
ished loading the trucks at his job and was sorting
and decking the processed logs when his phone
rang. He looked at the sky toward the house, where
he’d been watching a plume of slowly burgeoning
smoke. Jan said she was racing home. The fire had
crested the ridge across Lolo Creek.
My dad jumped out of his loader and told his boss, Adam, that
he had to go. Both men loaded into my dad’s pickup and sped up the
canyon, looking for panic in the faces of the people driving the other
way. Mostly they watched the thick column of smoke, black and omi-
nous as a thunderhead, overtake the sky. It was like driving into hell.
The column of smoke had blotted the sun by the time they got
to the house. It was warm, but growing dark. My dad could hear
the fire’s approach, a sound like the high whine of a jet engine. The
fire was inhaling the wind, growing. He looked at the pines in the
@ P o p u l a r M e c h a n i c s _ FEBRUARY 2017 69
 pasture, the pines near the house. The whole scene was way of explaining why it took two shots.
surreal, but he wasn’t really thinking about it. He felt no “When was this?” I ask.
fear. They had a way out. They had the truck. It was just “Oh, I must’ve been in the eighth grade,” he says.
a matter of doing what you could before the fire arrived.
Jan and her granddaughter were already hurrying important hen my father gets his annual elk,
papers, pictures, guns, and clothing out to her Jeep. Adam began he puts the meat in the freezer, and
to hitch up the fifth wheel to it. Jan was running stuff to the trailer everybody in the family eats elk
and then she was leaving. Something exploded on the neighbor’s steak and elk burgers. It’s the same
property, but my father couldn’t see what it was from where he stood all over the state. The first time I
on the roof. The fire was here. went hunting with him on opening day, we watched
all the cars heading up the highway in the predawn to
e go out for a hike with his bow. I want to see the join us. Every one of those people was looking to get an
whole getup—the camo, the GPS, binoculars, and elk for the garage freezer. Nearly everything you do for
rangefinder. Bow hunting is my father’s passion. fun out here meets an ulterior need. You hike where
Hitting a bull elk with his .300 Winchester Mag- you saw huckleberries last year and bring a bucket in
num from a couple hundred yards is one thing. But case the bears haven’t found them. You know where to
calling in an enormous beast with a bugle while
slathered in stinging elk urine, and then silently
aiming a Mathews MQ32 compound bow with
seventy pounds of draw weight to hit an elk in the Ron Henderson built this woodshed, installed the freestanding woodstove next to
it, and chopped all this wood himself.
heart is well-nigh impossible. It’s like the chal-
lenge of dogfighting in an airplane, or surfing a
forty-foot wave, or writing a novel. It’s crazy—a test
at the very edge of your skills—but it’s fun to try.
My father expects to get an elk every year and
always does, with his rifle. He’s a crack shot. I
ask him about a story my grandmother told me,
known in the family as “the goat-hunting story.”
As he drives, he tells me how he once applied for a
mountain-goat license and rode horseback up the
south fork of Lolo Creek to Snowslide meadows to
hunt for one. He and his friend Joey glassed a few
on the cliffs and decided they could manage an
afternoon hunt. It wasn’t long before they real-
ized that the “benchy-looking spots” were in fact
pretty steep and the steep spots were cliffs. They
pressed on, taking turns climbing and passing the
rifles up, as they edged above the tree line. Finally
in a high, steep draw with little runnels of snow-
melt, they found four goats munching beargrass.
After confirming one of the older goats was indeed
a billy, my dad took aim with his .270 Remington
pump. He only had iron sights and Joey offered
his aught-six with a scope. My dad had never shot
with a scope before. He passed.
The first shot hit the goat right behind the shoul-
der, but the animal took off as though unharmed.
The pump was quick to chamber another cartridge,
and he got a second shot off. The goat piled right up.
“They’re a pretty sturdy animal,” he says, by

Is there anywhere the post office won’t deliver?

Great Not really, though if you live in one of nearly 400 out-of-the-way ZIP codes, you may have to

Unknowns pitch in by collecting your mail from a local post office. Such arrangements are common in
Alaska, but you may also encounter them in such seemingly civilized states as California, Vir-
of ginia, Maryland, and North Carolina. It’s hard to fault the good ole USPS, though. They go the
Self-Sufficiency! literal extra mile whenever possible. One route in Alabama is served entirely by boat. Mariners
plying the Great Lakes use a ZIP code assigned to a ship that cruises the Detroit River; passing
vessels lower a bucket to receive mail. And members of the Havasupai Native American tribe,
who dwell in the depths of the Grand Canyon, get their bills and birthday cards via mule train.

70 FEBRUARY 2017 _ P O P U L A R M E C H A N I C S . C O M

Clockwise from top: The author and his father trade their bows for rifles; hunting tools,
including binoculars, a handmade knife, a rangefinder, elk cattle call, GPS, and a high-speed
lighter; rations from the pantry.
mushroom. When you harvest your garden, you pickle
or jam everything you can’t give away. Even if you
make a pot of stew, you can the leftovers and put them
in the root cellar. The more you actually live on your
land, the more you look for purpose and efficiencies.
It becomes a kind of game, getting more out of less.
Nowadays, all kinds of modern devices make self-
sufficiency easier. Take the old man’s compound bow:
Its complex sighting system adjusts for range, the
soloCam reduces the draw weight of the bowstring
when aiming, and the arrows, flying at 305 feet per
second, flange outward when they hit their mark—
vastly improving his chances on the entire endeavor.
And if my father’s lucky enough to get his bull, his
chainsaw winch can drag the field-dressed thing
out of some pretty nasty scrub up to the logging road
where he has his pickup or ATV.
The most vital thing isn’t doing everything the
hard way—just being smart about doing it all your-
self. It’s the sense that freedom is a function of actual
independence, and actual independence is a conse-
quence of ability. For the longest time, I didn’t think
I had much of my father in me—just look at the pair of
us walking in the pasture, one with a compound bow
and the other with his laptop. But that’s the thing:
I’m exactly like him. I’ve always got a project.
I recently took my ten-year-old son to a lec-
ture by one of the hosts of his favorite podcasts,
Jad Abumrad. My son loves Abumrad’s Radio-
lab. (Say that five times fast.) He listens to it
every night. Still, I wasn’t sure that the lecture
was right for him. It was an exploration of the
creative process—“gut churn,” in Abumrad’s
phrasing. Interesting for me, but a lot for a kid.
During the lecture, Abumrad explained
that one can navigate the emotionally treach-
erous waters of creativity by identifying the
“adjacent possible.” Instead of allowing
all their options to paralyze them, he said,
successful creators look for the “adjacent pos-
sible” and see choices as doors that open into
rooms with more doors. You manage the fear of
creative work by engaging with the next closest
thing, and then the next and then the next. By
breaking it up this way, you never have to look
at the terrifying whole.
The phrase “adjacent possible” appeared
most aptly in a 2010 essay by Steven Johnson
in The Wall Street Journal called “The Genius
of the Tinkerer” wherein he writes:
The adjacent possible is a kind of shadow
future, hovering on the edges of the present
state of things, a map of all the ways in which
the present can reinvent itself.
Not only does this describe the act of writ-
ing at its most exhilarating, it also explains my
father’s orientation to the world. He is always
tinkering—playing with a step just beyond the
place where he already is. It looks like a lot of
work to build a log house or put in a root cellar
or install a shed-size external woodstove or
hunt with a bow or go after a mountain goat.
To me, it looks downright impossible. But step by step, it is not only
possible, but happening right in front of me, here in Montana. And it
is not that my father is afraid of what the future holds—prepping for
the apocalypse or whatever—but that he is excited about what oppor-
tunities it will provide for him to be even more engaged with life.
Here’s an example: It’s winter. Out in the yard, we kids are digging
an igloo out of a huge pile of snow. My father is changing the oil on his
logging truck, which involves using a kind of blowtorch to heat up the
engine in the freezing temperatures. He finishes up, and of course
comes to help us with the igloo. The man loves building a shelter.
So we’re sitting inside pretty satisfied when that tinkering grin
lights up his face, and before we know it he’s got the propane tank
and the blowtorch and he’s running a blue flame over and inside the
igloo, melting it just a touch so it’ll freeze hard as stone. Come April,
the thing’s still standing.
So what’s the adjacent possible when the house you built stands in
the path of a wildfire? When your fort isn’t a fort, but a house contain-
ing the memories of your family, your children, and your hard work?
What does the tinkerer do then?
He fetches the aluminum ladder and leans it against the house. He
dashes out to the pasture and drags the two enormous sprinklers, one
and then the other, up the ladder, situating the tripods on the spine
of the roof. Then he climbs down and turns on the spigot. He loses
the barn and the coop and even the tractor. But the house survives
because he makes it rain.
@ P o p u l a r M e c h a n i c s _ FEBRUARY 2017 71
HOW IT

NASA’s Venus
THE MIXER
This machine

Machine blends the gases,

also adding any
necessary water
Inside the Glenn Extreme and pumping the
Environments Rig, you can visit blend into the
anyplace in the cosmos. sealed vessel,
B Y J O E PA P PA L A R D O where the test
materials await.
Imagine what it’s like to be a spacecraft.
Your service life begins with a violent
explosion skyward, followed by a hypersonic
struggle to escape Earth’s gravity, and, if
you’re lucky, the reward of reaching the minus-
455-degree-Fahrenheit vacuum of space.
Then, after months or, in some cases, years,
you might get to land on an alien planet with
an environment seemingly designed to melt,
corrode, compress, or irradiate you out of exis-
tence. One particularly lethal planet is Venus,
where NASA plans to send a probe by 2020.
In order to make sure the expensive machin-
ery survives the mission, scientists at the
Glenn Research Center, a NASA outpost near
Cleveland, Ohio, have been testing samples
in a fourteen-ton steel tank called the Glenn
Extreme Environments Rig (GEER). With
eight gas streams and the ability to mimic
the extreme temperatures and pressures of
Venus, it can help scientists find the absolute
limits of man-made objects before they face
them in space. Here’s how it works.

4 THE VESSEL
The vessel is constructed of low-carbon 304-type stain-
less steel, which is nearly tough enough to resist the
Venusian atmosphere on its own. In addition, the internal
walls are polished to a mirror finish, so that there are no
nicks or rough spots to give corrosion a foothold.

H E AT A N D P R E S S U R E
5 INCREASE
The atmosphere of Venus
is primarily composed of
“supercritical” carbon diox-
ide—it’s under so much
pressure that it doesn’t
behave like a liquid or a gas
but somewhere in-between.
Once the gas mix is inside
the vessel, the heat and 6
pressure increase to this
level, so researchers can TESTING
find out what it might do to Once the machine is up to Venus’ conditions, a gas sample is run through a
potential probe materials. mass spectrometer. In the future, a window will be added to the container,
allowing a laser to measure chemical composition and the vessel to remain
sealed for the duration of the test.

72 FEBRUARY 2017 _ P O P U L A R M E C H A N I C S . C O M I L LU S T R AT I O N BY S I N E L A B
1 START H E RE ▼
G A S C A B I N E T S Each of four
cabinets contains two independent gas
cylinders to create a mix of up to eight
gases, which can re-create an alien
atmosphere to the parts per million.
(See Recipe for Venus, right.)
PIPING
2 To make sure the corrosive
gases don’t damage the
GEER itself, a majority of the
RECIPE
tubing is treated with a non-
reactive protective coating FOR VENUS
called Sulfinert. It reduces
corrosion and prevents the
gases from adsorbing on, or
sticking to, the tube walls. 96.5%
CARBON DIOXIDE
965,000 PARTS PER MILLION

3.5%
NITROGEN GAS
35,000 PPM

less than 1%
SULFUR
DIOXIDE
180 PPM
poisonous

CARBONYL
SULFIDE
51 PPM
poisonous and
also flammable

WATER
30 PPM

CARBON
MONOXIDE
12 PPM
poisonous

HYDROGEN
SULFIDE
2 PPM
poisonous, flammable,
explosive, and smells
like rotten eggs

HYDROGEN
CHLORIDE
0.5 PPM
7 a main component
of hydrochloric acid,
which breaks down
VENTING food in your stomach
Using the ingredients for this hellish brew
isn’t as dangerous as it sounds. Since the HYDROGEN
FLUORIDE
concentrations GEER uses are so low, the 0.0025 PPM
amount of gases used at the facility over a main component
of hydrofluoric
the course of a year doesn’t even violate acid, which can
the EPA’s daily allowable limit. Still, when dissolve glass
GEER vents after the end of an experi-
ment, a fan on the building’s roof draws
in air to dilute the exhaust.
Raise to 1,340 psi at 878 degrees
Fahrenheit. Good luck.

@ P o p u l a r M e c h a n i c s _ FEBRUARY 2017 73
 P R E S E N T S
THE

BY T I M G R I E R S O N
P H OTO I L L U ST R AT I O N BY JEFF WACK

02.17
 THE BIAS ISN’T INTENTIONAL but it’s there: Nearly every
category at the Oscars recognizes the achievements of actors
or directors. Sure, there are Oscars for effects, production,
and even makeup, but as fans of innovative new camera technology,
ingenious set designs, bigger explosions, and just the right amount
of CGI, we want more. And the men and women responsible for those
moments deserve more. That’s why, for the third year in a row, we’ve
highlighted the greatest visual effects in film. We want to recognize
those people whose work is often judged more by what isn’t noticed
than what is. Just as important, we want to encourage them to do
more—because we’re watching and appreciating every minute of it.

PM-C SUITABLE FOR THE CURIOUS

May contain spoilers, cinema secrets, and unabashed fandom.

LEAST FAKE
FAKE WORLD
THE JUNGLE BOOK

For director Jon Favreau’s adaptation of the Disney

classic The Jungle Book, visual-effects supervisor
Robert Legato says the crew had a mantra: “Do not
embellish nature. My primary interest was not mak-
ing a fantastic new world, but making one that feels
like it was conventionally photographed.”
That meant the crew created a “virtual cinematog-
raphy.” In motion-capture, they shot only Mowgli and
stuffed animal stand-ins (left). “We shot and cut as if
everything was in front of us,” Legato says. “It wasn’t
photo-real, but it has enough information to know
where our camera is and what lens we were going to
use. When we replicated it on stage, instead of being
limited to a blue screen and looking at one angle, we
have a 360-degree view of the world.”
The animals were based on real-world examples.
“We’re not allowed to photograph them anymore
because of animal rights. So we looked at nature
documentaries and movies. Every one of our scenes
had a real-life piece of reference. The animals move
the way a real animal moves. The computer rigs that
we created were based on their skeleton and their
musculature.” To up the realism, the creative team
even embraced the imperfections that stem from
old-fashioned live-action filming. “We wanted it to
feel like we went out and photographed each thing,”
Legato says. “If someone got too close to the cam-
era, it would shake. If you put a camera in a spot in
the middle of a stampede, you’re going to get mud
all over it. The audience starts to absorb the story as
we wish to tell it. They don’t get mired in the tech-
nique of it.”

76 FEBRUARY 2017 _ P O P U L A R M E C H A N I C S . C O M P H OTO G R A P H / I L LU S T R AT I O N BY T E E K AY N A M E

 ▶HARDCORE HENRY

Writer-director Ilya Nai-

shuller had experience with
first-person filming before
Hardcore Henry, having
directed and starred in a similar music
video in 2013. But that was less than
five minutes—and the technology, or at
least the rigging of it, was basic. “I shot
a lot of it with a GoPro in my mouth sur-
rounded by tissues and hoping not to
slobber too much.” For Henry, a film shot
entirely from the first-person POV, GoPro
provided its best equipment at the time—
GoPro HERO3s—with then-unreleased
software that allowed Naishuller to con-
trol the aperture and outer focus.
Instead of having actors hold the cam-
eras in their mouths, Naishuller settled on
a lightweight 3D-printed plastic helmet
with magnetic stabilization (above). Two
GoPros were mounted at mouth height.
“If you put the camera on top of your head
like in extreme sports, it looks terrible. It’s
a very lanky, slender character.” The chal-
lenge was training the actors to focus on
the camera, rather than the eyes of the per-
son in the rig. “It’s basic human instinct to
look at the eyes when we talk,” Naishuller
says. “So we bought these ridiculous,
1980s skiing glasses with yellow reflec-
tive lenses” to obscure the actor’s eyes, and
added red arrows pointing to the cameras.
Including Naishuller, thirteen dif-
ferent operators served as “Henry.” The
crew went through about a dozen GoPro
HERO3s. Most of those casualties were
due to kicks to the head, which had to
get very close to the cameras to look real.
Sometimes they got too close, breaking
the cameras’ outputs. But not a single one
was lost to drool.

@ P o p u l a r M e c h a n i c s _ FEBRUARY 2017 77

B I L LY LY N N ’ S L O N G H A L F T I M E W A L K
Director Ang Lee (above, right) rigged up two
cameras at a 90-degree angle to each other
with a beam splitter between them to create
a smooth 3D picture. The biggest challenge
was getting the actors to focus on the splitter
instead of one of the camera lenses.
78 FEBRUARY 2017 _ P O P U L A R M E C H A N I C S . C O M
MOST FRAMES PER SECOND
Most movies are shot at 24 frames per second (fps): Each second,
24 images flash on the screen—just enough to make us see motion.
Anything higher than 24 makes some people feel sick, but director
Ang Lee wanted a smooth, immersive experience. So he shot Billy
Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk at 120.
“Lee really liked 3D,” says his editor Tim Squyres. “But 24 fps
causes strobing [a jumpy image] and motion blur [a smeared image
caused by movement]. In 2D we’re used to it. It’s what we consider
the film look. In 3D, strobing is annoying.” So Lee increased his frame
rate and incorporated a two-camera 3D rig. “Both cameras have syn-
chronized shutters running at 120,” Squyres says. This led to a few
surprises. “You can’t really get away with makeup,” says Squyres.
Some viewers will initially be shocked by Billy Lynn’s startlingly
live look but Lee thinks that his shooting style will soon be common.
If you have a queasy stomach, you can always play it safe and wait
thirty minutes after eating before entering the theater.
 ▶JASON BOURNE

In five movies, the Jason The city agreed to close down its main air, and the cars themselves were slightly
Bourne franchise has included thoroughfare from 10 p.m. until 6 a.m. for doctored. “We took out the engines to make
a lot of car chases (and jump only two weeks. “We had something like sure when we hit them they were as light as
cuts and insanely frenetic fight two hundred extras and roughly fifty-five possible,” Powell says. “It looks great, but
scenes), but the one down the Las Vegas Strip stunt drivers,” Powell says of the actual Strip they still look like cars.”
at the end of Jason Bourne is what director shoot. There were very few visual effects, so All they needed was a spectacular ending,
Paul Greengrass considers the best. When that the scene would look more real. When which presented itself when they found out
stunt coordinator Gary Powell first met with that SWAT van plows through cars, it’s plow- the Riviera Hotel was already set for demo-
second-unit director Simon Crane to scout ing through actual cars—but with a little lition. If it’s already going to be torn down,
locations, one thing became clear. “We were bit of movie help: A ramp was added to the it is no big deal to drive a car through the
both adamant it had to be on the Strip,” Pow- SWAT vehicle to throw the cars higher in the front door.
ell says. “It was pointless going to Las Vegas if
you weren’t going to be using the Strip—if you
go around the back roads, you could have been
anywhere else.” The idea required the kind of
permissions that Las Vegas rarely gives. “We
had to go through all the implications of shut-
ting down the Strip: how much does it cost,
what hotels are going to play ball with us. We
lucked out that everyone was really accom-
modating. The speeds we were doing—the
amount of cars we crashed—has never been
done on that scale in Las Vegas,” Powell says.

Other than enhancing some background buildings

and removing camera rigs and a car-tossing plow
from the front of the SWAT van, nearly all of the
chase scene was created using practical effects.

Makeup-effects producer Jason Hamer created

MOST USEFUL a life-size mold of Daniel Radcliffe to use as the corpse
CORPSE buddy to a character trapped in the wilderness in
SWISS Swiss Army Man. Although the corpse can’t move
ARMY MAN and only barely speaks, he serves many roles:
companion, Jet Ski, water well, axe, gun, and
highly inappropriate compass.
 MOST MOBILE TREE
A MONSTER CALLS

“We wanted a monster that looks like a tree

but has a lot of expression,” says Félix Bergés,
visual-effects supervisor for A Monster Calls.
Much of that expression was inspired by Liam
Neeson, who voices the character. The tree
even moves a little like Neeson. But primarily
it’s a tree, with all the walking challenges
you might expect: “We wanted him to have
difficulty making even one step. Everything
is completely rigid—but we had to study all
the positions, all the joints, all the ways of
modeling, to achieve the muscles.” Which
probably explains why most trees remain still.

It’s not easy to re-create a plane crash on a river, but

that’s what visual-effects supervisor Michael Owens and
cinematographer Tom Stern did for director Clint East-
wood’s Sully. Some of their bigger challenges:

1 . FINDING A PLANE
You can buy old airplanes, Stern says. “Used-up aircraft
become some discounted amount of scrap aluminum. We
bought two out-of-service A320s. They had to be brought
from the airplane junkyard in Victorville, California,
▶ S U L LY to Falls Lake at Universal Studios outside Los Angeles.
They had to be moved at night under highway patrol
escort, on a route that was calculated to avoid bridges.”

80 FEBRUARY 2017 _ P O P U L A R M E C H A N I C S . C O M
 ... AND MOST
ACCURATE
SPACESHIP
ALSO: ARRIVAL

When Amy Adams’s
character Louise
first visits the aliens
who land on Earth
in Arrival, she learns something
incredible about their spaceship: It
has its own internal gravity, which
shifts partway up the vessel. The
shift was dreamed up after pro-
duction designer Patrice Vermette
and director Denis Villeneuve had
to abandon an initial idea in which
Louise and her team simply rose
up to the top of the ship with a scis-
sor lift. “The scissor lift just wasn’t
tall enough,” says Vermette. “So,
we said, ‘Well, maybe there should
be a gravity shift there.’”
▶ARRIVAL
Arrival’s creative team
approached the complicated shot
from two angles: as a philosoph-
ical comment and a logistical
puzzle. “The characters need to
jump and walk up—it’s a leap of
faith,” Vermette says. To make
it work, visual-effects supervi-
sor Louis Morin drew inspiration
from Gravity, seamlessly integrat-
ing two sets to give the impression
that the characters were physi-
cally hopping from Earth’s gravity
at the base of the ship to the ves-
sel’s, which stems from the walls,
changing the viewer’s perspective
from horizontal to vertical.
“We first shot the actors fak-
Even a fictional
spaceship should be
accurate. Although
he began consulting
on Arrival after the
craft was designed,
scientist Stephen
Wolfram came up
with a theory for
how the ship would
travel: It could “spin
to create gravita-
ing the jumping element,” Morin tional waves,” then
says. “Then the camera would “swim through space
move to the second set, where we propelled by those
would have the people landing. waves,” he says.
The first camera was wild”— It helps to picture
the spacecraft as a
that is, run by an operator—“and
submarine: “You can
the second camera was motion-
push it through the
controlled with a rig called the water. Or you can boil
Technodolly. We stitched all the water around it,”
those shots together, and then we he says, and make it
reverse-engineered the camera, easier for the sub-
locking it to the faces of the actor, marine to move. “If
and the motion-control would do you can kind of boil
space-time, you don’t
all the camera moves as if they
have something with
were flying in the air.” The result is the same struc-
a seamless transition and an ele- ture you thought
gant leap from Earth’s gravity to you were going to,”
the walls of the spacecraft. Wolfram says.

2. TWO LOCATIONS
The crew planned to film the crash and rescue in the Hudson River,
but Mother Nature intervened. “The current is quite intense and it
goes both directions,” Owens says. “It runs up and down at five knots
twice a day,” Stern says. “That’s a tremendous amount of force.” To
avoid injury to the cast and crew—or drowning Tom Hanks—they
shot some rescue scenes in the Hudson and then moved to an over-
size water tank at Universal’s lot.
3. WATER
The studio tank, which ran from six to thirty feet deep, wouldn’t allow
the fifty-ton plane to be as submerged as it needed to be. “There were
many shots where I CG-ed extra water,” says Owens. “In real life, the
plane would pitch and rotate down the river, changing level as it goes,
but we weren’t able to do that because it was fix-mounted in the tank.”
4 . BRACING FOR IMPACT
Owens used real background shots to mimic the path of US Airways
Flight 1549 into the Hudson, but when it came time to duplicate the
actual crash, CG took over. “Because of the complexity of the shot, all
the water, all the background, and the plane were done completely with
a computer,” Owens says. Water simulations were run to mimic what
the force of a commercial airplane hitting the Hudson would look like,
with Owens balancing Eastwood’s desire for realism with the demands
to make the landing look as dynamic as possible. “With effects shots,”
he says, “it looks absolutely phony until it’s perfect.”

@ P o p u l a r M e c h a n i c s _ FEBRUARY 2017 81
 MOST CREATIVE
PLACEHOLDER
TO MAKE IT INTO
A MOVIE
DEADPOOL

The opening credits of Deadpool show the

superhero in a hyper-realistic slow-motion CGI
depiction of a combination car crash, gun bat-
tle, and aggressive use of a cigarette lighter
(right). Throughout, sarcastic credits identify
the cast as “God’s Perfect Idiot,” “A Hot Chick,”
“A British Villain,” and “A CGI Character.”
Director Tim Miller explains how the scene
was created:

THE FROZEN INTRO

“When CG isn’t moving, you can really sculpt in
a lot of detail that you may not be able to do with
a character that has to behave and move through
space. With an animated human, you have cloth
on his body that moves with it properly. You have
a face that has to have a really complex set of
controls underneath. The hair has to be simu-
lated. But if the characters are frozen in space,
you don’t have to do all that work. On the flip
side, you don’t have the benefit of motion to hide
any irregularities or lack of detail. It took a team
of ten to twelve people working on this for two to
three months to get it done.”

THE CREDITS
“The writers had done it that way before I even
got involved in the project. We had started pre-
viz [a digital video tool that roughs out a scene]
before we even had a budget or the movie was
cast. Franck Balson, a director at my produc-
tion company, Blur, put in placeholders—just
a tongue-in-cheek thing to amuse him and me,
and we all loved it.”

T H E L O W -T EC H AWA R D S LEAST CONVINCING TRANSFORMATIONS

ACTOR John Krasinski Denzel Washington Ben Affleck Joseph Gordon-Levitt Chris Hemsworth

TRANSFORMED A special-forces A vengeful cowboy in An autistic accountant A traitor and/or hero A nerdy secretary
TO soldier in 13 Hours The Magnificent Seven in The Accountant in Snowden in Ghostbusters

glasses and glasses and glasses and a

L A R G E LY B Y muscle and a beard mutton chops
a pocket protector a Rubik’s Cube slightly looser shirt

82 FEBRUARY 2017 _ P O P U L A R M E C H A N I C S . C O M
 ▶PASSENGERS Production designer Guy Hendrix Dyas has no idea how
a spaceship would work. “My background is in industrial design,” he says. But he knows that
things need to make sense—and that everything needs to have a purpose. So that’s exactly
what he ensured in designing the ship in Passengers. “It’s absolutely no good coming up
with an attractive exterior if there’s not some logical consideration as to how people are
going to be inhabiting the interior,” he says. Dyas explains a few of the ship’s features:

HULLS WALL STRUCTURE SCALE NAVIGATION LIGHTING POD TREES

“It’s a tri-hull sys- “Enormous alloy “With only two “If you’re in the “The large mush- “There are eight
tem, where each ribs hold the ship or three principal rotating spaceship room structure people in each of
hull serves a dif- together. The inspi- actors, we needed and want to get above the sleep the pod trees. By
ferent purpose, ration for them to convey a sense from one hull to chambers housed grouping them, you
and they’re all was the grilles of of isolation and the other, you have UV lights. One of can be economical
attached to a cen- 1930s racing cars. loneliness—and to travel through the things people about the power
tral pivot point. The The ribs were first horror, really. We the central core. don’t think about it takes to monitor
three hulls rotate created as a CAD could have done In this pivot point when designing their vitals. At the
in a centrifugal drawing, then sent green screens, but you’d actually be at sci-fi sleep cham- same time, and this
arrangement. In to the woodwork- that tends to be a zero gravity, so we bers is that the skin is morbid, but if
science fiction, this ing shop and cut as little difficult for ended up designing is a living, breathing there’s a malfunc-
theoretically cre- CNC profiles. Each actors to feel that an elevator that you organism. It has to tion, you don’t
ates gravity for you one has a male and sense of loneliness. climb into, where receive UV light the want to lose all of
to stand up on the a female element So the sets were you have to buckle same way a plant your passengers. “
inside edge of the that are snapped absolutely enor- up a seat belt. does. Otherwise
hulls. One hull is for together to make mous. Thirty or When you pass we’d simply die.”
storage, one is ded- the larger shapes.” forty feet high and through the central
icated to the sleep up to eight hun- point, gravity even-
chambers, and the dred feet long.” tually catches up
third hull is retail.” with you again.”

@ P o p u l a r M e c h a n i c s _ FEBRUARY 2017 83
 HOME HYDROPONICS
Winter doesn’t have to mean the end
of growing your own produce.
BY DAN I E L KLU KO

P H OTO G R A P H BY D E VO N J A R V I S @ P o p u l a r M e c h a n i c s _ FEBRUARY 2017 85

W
drain (flow)
hen summer ends, a lot of our gardens close for the winter. But fitting concrete
hydroponics keep your garden going year-round. Rather than mixing tray
counting on the soil to provide plants with nutrients, a hydro-
ponic setup gives them everything they need directly through
the water. You don’t even need natural light.
fill (ebb)
There are six basic types of systems: wick, deep-water culture (DWC), fitting
ebb-and-flow, drip method, nutrient-film technique (NFT), and aero- plastic lid
ponics. (See page 88.) At Green Spirit Farms, an indoor vertical-farming
company that I run with my father in New Buffalo, Michigan, we use a
combination of NFT and ebb-and-flow. [Editors’ note: Read about Dan fill tube
and his dad in “In the Light Fields,” June 2016.] NFT is probably the most 20-gallon
plastic bin
popular system for commercial growers. It’s what most greenhouses use
because of the low water requirements, and it’s the most conservative you
can be on your water and nutrients. But it’s also prone to clogging, and if
you don’t pay attention, little issues can lead to crop loss. For home use
pump
I recommend an ebb-and-flow system like this one. There’s little main-
tenance and fewer opportunities to kill your crops. The system is also
relatively inexpensive and easy to build. You’ll be eating homegrown
arugula in as little as two to four weeks.

SYSTE M

M ATERIALS LIST *
• 20-plus-gallon sturdy
plastic bin with lid,
dark color (light
promotes algae
growth)
• Concrete mixing tray
• Ebb-and-flow kit
(Botanicare Ebb and
Flow Fitting Kit with
two extensions)
• Oil-free pond pump,
between 150 to 400
gallons per hour
• 2 feet 1/2-inch black
vinyl tubing
• 1 ¼-inch spade bit
or holesaw
1 At two opposing sides of
the concrete mixing tray,
use a drill and a 1 ¼-inch spade
bit or holesaw to create holes
for the filling pipe (ebb) and drain
(flow) from the ebb-and-flow kit.
For a cleaner hole, put a piece of
scrap wood beneath the tray to
drill into.
2 Place the mixing tray on
top of the plastic bin lid.
Mark the location of the holes
in the mixing tray on the lid.
Remove the mixing tray and
drill holes in the lid with your
spade bit or holesaw.
Near one edge of the bin
3
lid, drill a ¼-inch hole. Use a
box cutter to make two 1 ½-inch
cuts in the shape of an X over
the hole. This will be where the
pump cord leaves the plastic bin,
your reservoir.
Identify the flow fitting from
4
the ebb-and-flow kit (Fig. A).
It has the larger nipple on the bot-
tom. This will be the drain for your
tray. Assemble the flow fitting by
screwing a riser to the side oppo-
site the nipple, then screwing
the filter on above it. (We added
a riser because of the eventual
height of our grow medium. You
want the drain, excluding the fil-
ter, to be a quarter of the height
of the medium you use. If you
choose a shorter medium, don’t
worry about using the riser.)
5 Insert both fittings in the
holes in the tray (Fig. B).
Do not attach them to the
reservoir lid. Make sure that
the gaskets are above the tray
for a watertight seal, and that
the nipples extrude beneath it.
Secure the fittings by tighten-
ing the nuts beneath the tray.
6 Attach the ½-inch adapter
included with the pump to
the pump’s outflow and place it
in the reservoir. Add the tubing
to the pump and pull the power
cord through the X cut in the res-
ervoir lid.
7 Pass the tubing through one
of the holes in the reservoir
lid and attach it to the smaller
ebb nipple below the mixing
tray (Fig. C).
8 Place the lid on the reservoir,
align the fittings, and put the
tray on top of the lid.

flow fitting
↘

ebb fitting
↘

Fig. A Fig. B Fig. C

*Unless otherwise noted, all materials are available at your local hardware store or on Amazon.

86 FEBRUARY 2017 _ P O P U L A R M E C H A N I C S . C O M I L LU S T R AT I O N BY I N F O M E N
 HOME HYDROPONICS

P L A N T S A N D O P E R AT I O N

M ATERIALS LIST
• pH/EC meter
• Two programmable
electrical timers
• Full-spectrum LED or
fluorescent light
• Plant nutrient
• Arugula seeds
• Rock-wool starters
and cubes
A
lthough similar plants, like spinach and kale, could probably be grown together, for best results,
you should grow only one plant in a system at a time. I recommend starting with a leafy green like
arugula, which does not have a fruiting phase in which the plant makes seeds before harvest.
Before any plants go into the system, your seeds need to germinate. You’ll need to choose a
growing medium. This is what the plant will take hold in, and it can be a lot of things. The industry
standard is rock wool, a material very similar to fiberglass that is extremely porous and holds 16 times its
weight in water. It’s the most widely used hydroponic medium in the world because it’s completely inert.
There’s nothing in it, and that’s exactly what you want; you can control your variables. You can also use
regular soil, a foam medium called Oasis, clay pebbles, products made from the husks of coconuts, or
crumpled coffee filters in plastic plant pots. As long as you have an inert material that can hold water and
oxygen, you can use it as a medium. But we’ll stick with rock wool.

Fig. D
1 Rinse the rock-wool starter
cubes (Fig. D), then soak
them in water with a pH of 5.5
for about an hour. Place a seed
in the hole of each starter and
moisten the cubes. Keep them
moist, and in a few days a sprout
should appear. Put it near a win-
dow for light, and in ten to 12
days—when you see sprouts a
few inches tall and roots going
to the bottom of your rock-wool
starters—place the cubes in
their larger rock-wool blocks.
3 Plug the water pump into
an electrical timer. For
the majority of plants, setting
your pump to run two to four
times per day for 15 minutes
will provide adequate water and
nutrients. When the pump is
on, water floods through the fill
fitting and drains back into the
reservoir when it reaches over
the drain riser (Fig. E). Once the
pump shuts off, any leftover
water drains back into the reser-
voir through the fill tube.
4 Hook your lights to a timer
and fix them above your
hydroponic system in a way that
light hits all parts of the grow
tray. The amount of light your
plant requires depends on the
plant itself and the particular
stage of the grow cycle. A good
reference for light timing (and
nearly everything else) is How-
ard M. Resh’s Hydroponic Food
Production. For arugula, 12
hours a day will be enough for
the plant to grow but not flower.
5 Fill your reservoir with 15
gallons of water and mark
the water level with a Sharpie
so you don’t have to mea-
sure the next time. Having a
consistent amount of water is
important for correct nutrient
concentration.
6 Look up the produce you
want to grow online on
Cornell University’s Controlled
Environment Agriculture page
to find a plant-specific nutrient
base. I recommend a one-part
mix that can all be added at
once, like J.R. Peters’s 16-4-17
Hydro FeED. Follow the instruc-
tions on the nutrient mix to add
an appropriate amount to the
water. Change the water and
nutrient solution at least every
two weeks.
7 Keep track of the pH and
electrical conductivity (EC)
of the water daily (Fig. F). The
pH should remain the same for
all plants. The ideal is 5.8, but
anywhere between 5.5 and 6.2 is
acceptable. If your levels are off,
you can adjust them with a kit
bought from the hot-tub section
of a hardware store. The EC will
vary based upon the plant you
grow. As your plants feed, you
want the EC to gradually rise. In
order to lower the EC you will
add water to the reservoir. To
increase the EC, add more nutri-
ents to the system. The target
EC level for arugula is 0.8 to 1.2.

2 The most important con-

sideration in hydroponics
is consistency. The basement is
often a good place to put your
system because of the even
temperatures. (One easy way to
tell if it’s a good place to grow
plants: Ask yourself if you’re
comfortable in that room. If
you’re not, your plants won’t
be either.) Place the growing
medium in the mixing tray. Con-
firm that the risers for the drain
fitting reach only a quarter of
the way up the medium. Fig. E Fig. F

@ P o p u l a r M e c h a n i c s _ FEBRUARY 2017 87
 HOME HYDROPONICS

HARVEST

1 Watch your plants as 2 Harvest your crops 3 When a harvest is

you would in a tradi-
tional garden. If a problem
gets to the point that you
can see it, the plant has
been dealing with it for a
week. Avoid tinkering with
nutrients until you get a
successful first run.
at the same time you
would in traditional gar-
dening. Arugula should be
ready to harvest after two
weeks and should provide
another harvest every
week for another four or
five weeks.
finished, replace the
rock wool and clean the
system’s reservoir, pump,
and tubing with a 3 per-
cent hydrogen-peroxide
solution.

TH E SIX T YPES OF HYDROPON IC SYSTE MS

The simplest system. It can use soil as a grow

WICK medium with a wick line into a reservoir of plain
SYSTEMS water. Doesn’t take much attention, but it’s not
going to have the best yield.

The medium is the water and the plants rest

in it all the time. You need an air pump and
DEEP-WATER an air stone to make sure that the plants get
CULTURE enough oxygen, though. You get great yields
but it’s a lot harder without experience and
you are more liable to get root rot.

The best system for beginners, but it’s used

by many professionals as well. Provides
EBB-AND-
good yields and uses very few mechanical
FLOW
parts. One drawback is that it requires large
amounts of water to use.

The most sustainable approach to nutrient

conservation. An emitter slowly drips nutri-
ent water on the root system all day long. The
DRIP
problem comes when the small emitters clog.
METHOD
Which they are going to do. NASA experi-
mented with this system on the International
Space Station.

A small film of nutrient is used like a small

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NUTRIENT-
stream that is always flowing down along the
FILM
roots and recirculating. As with the drip sys-
TECHNIQUE
tem, expect the emitters to clog.
The highest yields—if you can do it correctly.
A mister sprays water and nutrients on the
roots and gives them great oxygen flow.
Again, beware clogged emitters.

I L LU S T R AT I O N S BY I N F O M E N
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QTY DESCRIPTION

action figure with open-grasp

1
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1 1N914 diode
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2 AA rechargeable batteries
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Solar
panel Instructions
Toggle
switch KID PARENT PARENT
LED ONLY ONLY AND KID
lamp

1. Crosscut the top panel from the 4-inch

poplar board. A 3 ½-inch piece should accom-
modate most action figures.
2. Using twist-drill bits and a cordless drill,
make a 3/16-inch hole for the LED wire and a
Batteries 1 ½-inch hole for the switch. Use a spade bit to

90 FEBRUARY 2017 _ P O P U L A R M E C H A N I C S . C O M
 NIGHT-LIGHT

Instructions
CONTINUED

make the ¾-inch hole for the leads from the

solar panel.

3. Crosscut the box ends and sides from

the 3-inch poplar to accommodate the top
panel. Use wood glue and finish nails to fas-
ten the parts, and a nail set to countersink
the nailheads.

4. Cut two 10-inch pieces of wire. Use wire

strippers to remove 3/8 inch of insulation
from all four ends. Take one end of each
wire and solder it to the LED. Wrap connec-
2 3
tions with electrical tape. Twist these wires
together and poke them down through the
hole in the box cover.

5. Take the remaining 6-inch piece of wire

and strip ¼ inch off each end. Poke one
end through a hole in a switch terminal and
solder. Beneath the box top, attach the posi-
tive wire from the LED to the other terminal
on the switch.

6. Feed the switch leads down through the

box and hold the switch in place by tighten-
ing the nut from below. Drop the leads from
the solar panel down into the box and glue
the panel in place.

4 5 7. Use the schematic below to make the

remaining connections. First, solder together
the free LED wire and the negative wires
from the solar cell and battery pack. On the
other side of the solar cell, solder the positive
wire to the diode. Diodes are directional, so
make sure that the black band on the diode
is on the side of the circuit nearer the battery
holder. Solder the other side of the diode to
the free wire on the switch and the positive
wire from the battery.

8. Place two batteries in the holder and test

the circuit. If it works, glue the holder to the
inside of the box wall. If not, double-check the
wiring against the schematic and be sure that
you have the batteries in the holder correctly.
6 7
9. Attach the action figure by boring a pilot
hole from the inside of the box using a
3/32-inch bit. Use the same bit to make a hole in
the foot of the action figure. Mount the action
figure on the box by driving the sheet-metal
screw through the box and into the figure’s
foot, and place the LED in its hand.

Wiring Schematic
Battery holder
Diode Switch
LED
AA battery
Solar
cell
AA battery

8 9

P H OTO G R A P H S BY R EB ECC A M C A LPI N ; I LLUS T R AT I O N BY G EO RG E R E T S ECK @ P o p u l a r M e c h a n i c s _ FEBRUARY 2017 91

 R
PE ON
SU UP
CO
Customer Rating
3 PIECE TITANIUM
NITRIDE COATED
HIGH SPEED STEEL
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COUPON SU UP
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ITEM 93897 shown
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ITEM 69649
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69265/62344
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46163 shown
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presented. Valid through 5/3/17. Limit one coupon per customer per day. ITEM 68784 shown
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SU UP ALL PURPOSE WEATHER
CO RESISTANT TARP
ITEM 69249/69115/69137
69129/69121/877 shown

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Customer Rating
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comp at
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R Customer Rating
PE ON R MOVER'S DOLLY R 3/8" x 14 FT. GRADE 43 R
• 1000 lb.
SU UP Customer Rating PE ON capacity PE ON PE ON
CO SU UP Customer Rating
CO
SU UP
CO
SAVE TOWING CHAIN SU UP
CO 17 FT. TYPE I A
ITEM 60497/93888 shown
61899/62399/63095/63096 Not for 63% Customer Rating ITEM 60658 MULTI-TASK LADDER
2500 LB. 63098/63097 overhead 97711 shown ITEM 62514
SAVE
lifting.
ELECTRIC WINCH • 5400 lb. capacity
62656
67646 shown
WITH WIRELESS • 300 lb. capacity
$238
REMOTE CONTROL $ 21
$3999 119
$ 99
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$ 5499 $8999 SAVE

$105
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comp at $159.99
ITEM 61258 shown
61840/61297/68146 7
$ 99 $1099 $19.97
comp at
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$60.95 139 comp at
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SU UP
O
R
PE ON Customer Rating
EMERGENCY
39 LED TRIANGLE
WORKLIGHT
R
PE ON
SU UP
4 PIECE 1" x 15 FT.
RATCHETING TIE DOWNS
ITEM 63056/63057/60405/63094
R
PE ON
SU UP 8", 5 SPEED
W OW SUPER COUPON
MECHANIC'S GLOVES
C CO CO
ITEM 62158 shown
62417/62574
SAVE 63150/61524/62322/90984 shown BENCHTOP
DRILL PRESS SIZE ITEM Item

57% Customer Rating 62429

ITEM 62520/60238 shown MED 62434/62426 shown
6243 3/624 28
Batteries included. Customer Rating LG
X-LG 62432/62429
SAVE 2
$ 99 $ 997 99 $5499 SAVE YOUR CHOICE
76%
3
$ 99
$ 12 comp at
$60 $ 993 SAVE Customer Rating
comp at $12.80 $18.85
$ 6999 $115.56 comp at
5
$ 99 comp at
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LIMIT 6 - Good at our stores or HarborFreight.com or by calling LIMIT 9 - Good at our stores or HarborFreight.com or by calling LIMIT 3 - Good at our stores or HarborFreight.com or by calling om or by calling
our stores or HarborFreight.c
t or coupon or prior
800-423-2567. Cannot be used with other discount or coupon or prior 800-423-2567. Cannot be used with other discount or coupon or prior 800-423-2567. Cannot be used with other discount or coupon or prior LIMIT 8 - Good at used with other discoun
purchases after 30 days from original purchase with original receipt. purchases after 30 days from original purchase with original receipt. purchases after 30 days from original purchase with original receipt. 800-423-2567. Cannot be from original purchase with original receipt.
Offer good while supplies last. Non-transferable. Original coupon must be Offer good while supplies last. Non-transferable. Original coupon must be Offer good while supplies last. Non-transferable. Original coupon must be purchas es after 30 days Original coupon must be
s last. Non-transferable.
presented. Valid through 5/3/17. Limit one coupon per customer per day. presented. Valid through 5/3/17. Limit one coupon per customer per day. presented. Valid through 5/3/17. Limit one coupon per customer per day. Offer good while supplie 5/3/17. Limit one coupon per customer per day.
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COUPON
SUPER COUPON
R
PE ON
2.4" COLOR LCD DIGITAL
SU UP Customer Rating INSPECTION CAMERA
CO

FREE
ITEM 61839/62359 shown
RAPID PUMP® 1.5 TON Includes hook, mirror,
magnet accessories,
ALUMINUM RACING JACK and video-out cable.

ITEM 69252/68053
62160/62496/62516
WITH ANY PURCHASE SAVE
$135
$ 69 99
60569 shown • 3-1/2 Pumps Lifts Most Vehicles
• Weighs 34 lbs.
• Pit crew quality design, machined 1" x 25 FT.
$ 79
99
$205.75
TAPE MEASURE comp at

SAVE
from lightweight aircraft aluminum
with a sapphire anodized finish
• Industrial quality for professional

$60
mechanics and hardcore automotive
enthusiasts $ 974VALUE
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R 60", 4 DRAWER
$ 59
99 $8999
$119.99 comp at
ITEM 69031/69030 shown
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CO
PE ON
SU UP Tools sold
HARDWOOD WORKBENCH
separately. ITEM 93454
69054/63395
62603 shown

5/3/17. Limit one FREE GIFT coupon per customer per day.
Customer Rating
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R
PE ON
12" SLIDING COMPOUND R
PE ON
18 VOLT CORDLESS
3/8" DRILL/DRIVER
R
PE ON
10 FT. x 20 FT.
PORTABLE CAR CANOPY SAVE
$ 13999
SU UP SU UP
SU UP
CO
DOUBLE-BEVEL MITER SAW
WITH LASER GUIDE CO WITH KEYLESS CHUCK
ITEM 69651/62868
CO ITEM 63054/60728/69034/62858 shown
$255 $ 15999$395 comp at

ITEM 69684 shown 62873/68239 shown

SAVE
61969/61970
Customer Rating
$ 13999 Includes one
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ª
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R
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12 VOLT MAGNETIC
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SU UP Customer Rating
SAVE
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$ 1699 CO

SAVE
ITEM 63100

$259 Customer Rating $ 11999 71%

comp at
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$ 1999
$ 9999 $14999 comp at
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W OW
21 GAL
SUPER COUPON
LON
R
PE ON
SU UP
TORQUE WRENCHES WOW29SUPPIEERCECOUTITPON
ANIUM
R
PE ON
SU UP
1/2" INDUSTRIAL QUALITY
SUPER HIGH TORQUE
2.5 HP, Customer Rating SPEED CO IMPACT WRENCH
125 PSI VERTICAL SAV E CO NITRIDE COATED HIGHBIT SET ITEM 62627/68424 shown
AIR COMPRESSO R $347
DRIVE ITEM
STEEL DRILL 62281 • 700 ft. lbs.
1/4" 2696/61277 Customer Rating ITEM
shown
ITEM 69091/67847
61454/61693/62803
3/8" 807/61276 SAVE 61637 shown
max. torque
Customer Rating
1/2" 62431/239 Item 239
66% SAVE
$ 14999 99 Customer Rating YOUR CHOICE
shown
• Accuracy within ±4%
$ 1299 78%
$ 179 comp at $497 $ 999 $ 2199 $29.99 comp at
$ 19
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SAVE
$180
$ 79 99
comp at

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$ 99 99 $259.99
used with other discoun used with other discoun
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SU UP SU UP SU UP R RECIPROCATING SAW
CHARGER PE ON
CO Customer Rating CO SAVE ITEM 69995 shown CO Customer Rating
SU UP WITH ROTATING HANDLE
SAVE ITEM 42292 shown
$65 • Lift range: 60536/61632
CO Customer Rating

82%
5-1/4" to 17" ITEM 61196
69594/69955 Customer Rating 69597

5
$ 99 $ 69 99
SAVE $
38846 shown

2499
$ 8 99 comp at
$34.99
$ 89 99 comp at
$135 42%
$ 1999 comp at $34.99 SAVE
66%
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comp at
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 CREDITS

p. 3 Guide to Self-Sufficiency: Morgan Levy; How It

No-Drill MudFlaps
Works: Sinelab; Special Effects Awards: Jeff Wack;
p. 4 D’Agostino: Ida Garland; p. 5 “Hardware Stores”:
Gene Smirnov; p. 8 groundhog, NBA game, Glenn,
Sazerac, filter: Getty Images; hydroponics: Devon Jarvis;
pp. 21–25 styling: Lynne Chan/Halley Resources;
p. 31 Dean Kaufman; p. 32 bench: Anja Hitzenberger;
p. 39 Seinfeld, McQueen, Lohan: Getty Images;
p. 40 mechanics: Shutterstock; p. 55 book: iStock;
wooden surface: Shutterstock; p. 57 Dufresne: Getty
Images; p. 60 Zee: Getty Images; p. 64 kids: Stephanie
Rauser/Trunk Archives; Ross: Getty Images; p. 79 cars
on street: Vital Vegas; p. 82 Krasinski: Everett Collection;
Affleck: Warner Bros.; pp. 86–87 process images: Ida
Garland.

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 How does your brain work?
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 TOOLS THEY USE
T H E SU BJ E C T :
MICHAEL
PARRIS
THE JOB:
Ski-maker and designer
at Igneous Skis
L O C AT I O N:
Jackson Hole, Wyoming
1 / Wintersteiger
belt sander and
stone grinder
A. I use the belt sander to
shape the sidewalls of the ski
and to shape out the band-saw
cut, to bevel it, round it out at
the top a little bit.
B. The other side is a round
stone cylinder. A diamond-
dressing bit goes back and
96 FEBRUARY 2017 _ P O P U L A R M E C H A N I C S . C O M
I N 1998, Parris left a career design-
ing robots for Carnegie Mellon. His
new gig? The ski business. A friend
who ran a ski company hired him as
a designer—Parris has a degree in
architecture—and today he owns
Igneous Skis, handcrafting only 100
pairs each season, each of which sells
for about $1,600. This giant green
thing helps him do it.
A
forth along the stone to cut
different patterns called
structure. The base of a final
ski has little grooves cut into
it, like tire treads. A structured
base with microfine texture at
the bottom dissipates water,
making the ski go over the
snow faster. I put the final
edges in a crosshatch pattern
with the stone.
“I interview
each customer.
Someone who wants
to cruise with their
kids? An ex-college
racer bumming in
Jackson Hole? I want
to know why
you ski.”
B
2 / The wood 3 / Handcrafted cores
Maple is one of the harder One of the unique things we
woods to work with, but it do is build our own cores. Any
has rebound strength, impact one piece of wood might have
resistance, and a vibration some inconsistencies, but
transfer that gives a precise making a core out of a dozen
feel for the snow. Ash has a strips creates a more homog-
similar impact resistance, but enous material. It’s stronger
slightly less rebound quick- and more stable than the wood
ness. It mellows out the ride. was originally.
P H O T O G R A P H BY C H R I S T I E H E M M K LO K
 BEYOND
PROTECTION

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