Popular Mechanics USA - September 2016

HOW
YOUR WORLD
WORKS
PLUS
The Best New
Generators
Do You
Really Know
How Your
Microwave
Works?
N E V E R S T O P B E I N G A N AT H L E T E
T H I S I S T E C H N I C A L A P PA R E L F O R YO U R R E A L L I F E
KITANDACE.COM
4
6
10
The Reader Page

Calendar
PM Everywhere
CONTENTS
SEPTEMBER 2016
HOW TO
HOW YOUR WORLD

WORKS
13
16
18
20
22
24
26
VR at the U.N.
The other state making
great bourbon
Can a hair dryer be worth
$400?
The new football stadium that can withstand
Minnesota winters
A makers guide to
Louisville, Kentucky
Things Come Apart:
Microwave
Great Unknowns
Actor,
woodworker,
Scotch
enthusiast.
KNOW-HOW
29
32
36
37
41
44
The noncriminals guide to

lock picking
Tool Test: Generators,
ladders, and earplugs
Shop Notes
Entrepreneurs: How to
scale up
Getting Started In:
Trail running
Ask Roy
70
DRIVING
47
50
52
54
56
One truck to rule them all

Bentleys first SUV
The easiest way to touch
up scratched paint
Reviews: The latest from
Chevrolet, Mercedes, and
Ford
My Ride: The 76 Ferrari of
one mans dreams
THE LIFE
57
In the Shop, On the

Water Beautiful standup paddleboards and the
guys who build them
PROJECT
97
Army Trunk
Bringing a forgotten
Korean War trunk back
to life
By Jacqueline Detwiler
POPULAR MECHANICS
FOR KIDS
102 A doorbell for your
bedroom!
STUPID OR AMAZING?
108 GMOs
By Jesse Hirsch
HOW TO MAKE ANYTHING

Our third-annual celebration of the
great American practice of making stuff. Including: a NASA-grade
telescope, a spindle sander made
out of a blender, a book safe, and
root beer from real roots.
64
THE WORLDS FUNNIEST WOODWORKER

You may know him as the whiskey-andsteak-adoring outdoorsman from Parks and
Recreation, but Nick Offerman makes more than
jokes. From his decked-out woodshop in L.A.,
the actor also makes birdhouses and strip-panel
canoes. And more jokes.
B Y M AT T H E W B . C R AW F O R D
84
PLUS
HOW TO DESTROY
ANYTHING
A guide to shredding, incinerating,
and scrubbing away the things that
are toughest to get rid of, like diamonds and your browsing history.
CLIMB ABOARD,
YE WHO SEEK THE TRUTH
More than half of all Americans
believe in some kind of conspiracy
theorybe it faked moon landings,
crop circles, UFOs, or nefarious vaccines. Where can they all gather
together with the movements biggest
celebrities to swap stories and suspicions? On a weeklong Mexican cruise!
BY B RO NWE N D I CKE Y
ON THE COVER: Nick Offerman photographed exclusively for Popular Mechanics by Emily Shur. Shirt by Filson. Still life photograph by Ben Goldstein.
@ P o p u l a r M e c h a n i c s _ SEPTEMBER 2016
The Reader Page
PROJECT
OF THE
MONTH
A XYLOPHONE
IN 600 STEPS
ich Wickstroms 13-year-old son wanted a xylophone for Christmas.

Easy, thought the 52-year-old electrical engineer, who has been
woodworking for more than 30 years. But xylophones, it turns out, are
complicated. Each of the instruments 44 bars is shaped like a bridge,
and each of those bridges has to be specifically shaped to produce a tone.
When he couldnt find plans online, Wickstrom, from Albuquerque, New Mexico, began researching the math behind a xylophones sound, contacting an
Australian expert to help him with his design. He went on to code his own computer software to help him engineer each bar. After five months of designing,
LETTERS
YOUR DAD SOUNDS LIKE OUR
KIND OF GUY
For the past 40 years, Fathers Day
was just another day for me. Your
Fatherhood issue (June), though,
brought back memories of my dad
and everything he taught me in the
short time we had together. When I
was 15, my father asked my younger
brother and me if wed be interested in building an extension to our
house. He knew nothing about building houses, but he bought a book
on carpentry and construction, did
the plans, and obtained the permit.
We dug a basement and completed
the exterior, but my father fell ill to
leukemia and passed within a year.
He was in his mid-40s. I finished the
interior by myself. He taught me skills
like carpentry and plumbing, and that
you can teach yourself to do almost
anything just by reading a book. Most
4
importantly, I witnessed bravery

firsthand when he was sick.
Jay Berkley
Lumberton, New Jersey
ROY FOR VEEP!
Popular Mechanics put the wrong
men on the June cover. Instead
of Joe and Hunter Biden, it
should have been Oscar and
Roy Berendsohn (147 Years of
Wisdom).
Gary Jones
Murrieta, California
SEPTEMBER 2016 _ P O P U L A R M E C H A N I C S . C O M
it took Wickstrom another

six to build the instrument
out of Honduras rosewood
and maple. His sons music
teacher called the final
product professional-grade
and appraised it at $6,000.
But the best part, Wickstrom said, was getting his
son involved in the building process. I feel like I
hooked him on woodworking, Wickstrom says. Since then weve built a bench,
some boxes, and theyve all been his ideas and suggestions.
Now he knows that you can build something yourself.
REMEMBER: We give $100 for reader projects that we publish,

and $50 for original reader tips that we run. You can send both to
editor@popularmechanics.com.
ONE SURVIVAL SKILL WE FORGOT TO MENTION?

DETECTING SARCASM
The survival issue (March) was very informative, but has
left me with one question: The cover says you will find out
when to eat the dog, but I have not been able to notice any
information on this topic. On pages 70 and 71, there are
some appreciable tool recommendationsI found the use
of survival laces fascinatingbut no information on the
dog. That skill may be necessary in case of an emergency.
I was wondering if there were any facts on the subject
matter that did not make it into the magazine.
Michaela E.
McCall Middle School, Winchester, Massachusetts
Michaela, all kidding aside, wed never recommend eating the
dog, unless it became seriously dire. But glad to know youre
reading and just as curious as we are. Keep it up. The Editors
Letters to the editor can be emailed to

editor@popularmechanics.com. Include your full name and
address. Letters may be edited for length and clarity.
CUSTOMER SERVICE/SUBSCRIPTIONS
online: service.popularmechanics.com
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mail: Popular Mechanics, P.O. Box 6000, Harlan, IA 51593
subscribe: subscribe.popularmechanics.com
Calendar SEPTEMBER
SUNDAY
MONDAY
TUESDAY
WEDNESDAY
28
29
30
31
IN NEXT MONTHS ISSUE

Our annual Breakthrough Awards
highlight the most exciting innovations
of 2016. Plus, a blind writer goes scuba
diving with a sushi chef.
11
College football
technically started
last weekend with
a game in Australia,
but today is the
real kickoff with 14
games, plus eight
more on Saturday.
10
The first submarine attack

happened 240
years ago today.
NASA launches
OSIRIS-REx, an
unmanned spacecraft that will
collect samples
from an asteroid.
Sully, out today,

re-creates the
heroic 2009
emergency
landing of a US
Airways flight
in the Hudson
River.
Tennis U.S. Open

wraps up this
weekend. While
youre watching,
check out Arthur
Ashe Stadiums
new retractable
roof.
12
13
14
15
Why not tidy up

the garage or
basement before
you put away the
deck furniture?
19
Save the seeds
from your vegetable garden
for next year.
20
21
22
16
17
Joseph GordonLevitt plays NSA

contractor-turnedwhistleblower
Edward Snowden
in Snowden, out
today.
Oktoberfest
starts today.
Grab a brew.
23
24
The first day of

fall and a good
time to give the
leaf blower a
tune-up.
26
27
28
Elon Musk said he

hopes to unveil
SpaceXs plans for
a Mars mission at
the International
Aeronautical Congress this week.
Residents of
New Jersey,
rejoice: Bruce
Springsteens
autobiography,
Born to Run, hits
stores today.
If youve built the

worlds largest
amateur telescope (see page
72) or bought one,
see Mars and the
Lagoon Nebula
tonight.
THIS MONTH IN
MECHANICAL HISTORY
Though the first submersible ships

date back to the 1600s, they werent
used for war until the American Revolution. On this day in 1776, patriot Ezra
Lee piloted a hand-powered, eight-foot-long wooden
capsule called the Turtle through New York Harbor,
attempting to attach a bomb to
a British ship. It was powered
by hand-cranked propellers
and moved at about 3 mph in
calm waters. Though Lees
bombing attempt failed, the
strategy gave way to a new
mode of modern warfare.
6
SATURDAY
The October
issue of Popular
Mechanics hits
newsstands.
18
9/7
FRIDAY
The Emmys air

tonight at 8 p.m.
EST. As always,
were pulling for
perennial nominee Deadliest
Catch.
WED
THURSDAY
Labor Day. Plus,

watch Harley and
the Davidsons, a
miniseries about
the birth of the
motorcycle
company, on Discovery Channel.
On the 15th
anniversary of
the World Trade
Center attacks,
make today a day
of service. Go
volunteer.
25
How to get the most

out of your month.
MON
29
30
Marvel and Netflixs Jessica Jones
spinoff, Luke Cage,
about a hero with
impenetrable skin
starts streaming
today.
HOW TO SAVE SEEDS
Harvest seeds from your best plants when the flowers or pods have
turned brown and dry. For wet vegetables like tomatoes, place the
seeds and their gel into a jar with water and allow them to ferment
for a few days. The viable seeds will settle on the bottom. Strain the
good seeds and spread them out on a plate or piece of glass to dry
for about a week. Store the seeds in labeled glass jars or paper packets,
and keep them in your refrigerator until next spring.
9/19
BONUS!
BOOK RECOMMENDATION: MORE SEEDS! Scientist and conservationist Cary Fowlers new book, Seeds on Ice: Svalbard and the Global
Seed Vault (out September 6), explores the massive seed cataloging operation in Norway. Says Fowler, We have a problem if we lose
agricultural diversity. The seed vault helps us not to lose it. All the countries in the
world are coming together to do something thats positive and benefits everyone.
WE build AMERICAN FACTORIES
WE buy AMERICAN MACHINERY
WE use AMERICAN RAW MATERIALS

WE hire AMERICAN WORKERS
,
ISN T THIS THE WAY
,
IT S supposed TO BE?
WERE DOING OUR PART
WeatherTech.com
2016 by MacNeil IP LLC
EVE RYWHE RE
What Were Up To Beyond These Pages
FA C E B O O K L I V E !
T HE ARCHIVES!
WHICH COVER IS WEIRDER?

THE FIFTH-ROUND RESULTS
WI NN ER!
April 1911
44%
September 1976
56%
ROUND SIX
were privileged to have lots of special guests regularly swinging by Popular

Mechanics HQ, be it the good people from Stihl sharing the latest in chainsaws or
champion competitive eater Crazy Legs Conti (pictured) demonstrating how to take
down two hot dogs as quickly as possible. With Facebook Live, now we can share those
visits with you as they happen. Were also doing live Ask Roy sessions in which our
senior home editor answers your DIY questions in real time. Just go to our Facebook
page, facebook.com/popularmechanics, and select Live Subscribe to get alerts when
were rolling. And while youre there, go back and catch the video with Crazy Legs as
he coaches two of our editors (Kevin Dupzyk and Katie Macdonald, inset) in a head-tohead hot-dog-eating contest.
T HE P O D C A ST S!
ON MO T ORCYCLES!
September
1976
June
1927
Cast your vote now for Cover A or

Cover B. The winning cover will
square off against another challenger
in the November issue.
the host of our Most Useful Podcast Ever, Jacqueline

Detwiler, has been taking cuttingedge antiaging pills for a month.
The product, Basis by Elysium, is
supposed to improve health on a
cellular level and was developed by
the director of the Glenn Lab for
the Science of Aging at MIT. Find
out how Jacquis cells are doing on
the Most Useful Podcast Ever on
iTunes, SoundCloud, or popularmechanics.com/podcasts. And while
youre at it, check out our other
podcast, How Your World Works.
10
Email your vote to editor@

popularmechanics.com.
Or tweet it to @popmech using
#weirdcover.
to get to and from his interviews

with Nick Offerman (see page 64),
writer and motorcycle mechanic
Matthew Crawford took a new Ducati
Hyperstrada ($14,295) around Los
Angeles. You can read his full review of
the bike and more motorcycle reviews
at popularmechanics.com.
WHERE ELSE YOU CAN FIND US

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ORE
A STS
BOURBON | FOOTBALL | HAIR DRYERS | LOUISVILLE
Gabo Arora, second

from left, debuted his
first film for the U.N.
at the 2015 World
Economic Forum in
Switzerland.
REFUGEES
The Future of Humanitarianism
On the eve of the annual General Assembly, the U.N.s first

creative director talks about how artificial intelligence and virtual
reality will really change the world. B Y M I C H A E L J . M O O N E Y
o the left is a set of garish plastic storage bins. Green,

orange, magenta, blue. To the right is a decrepit TV and
a few wires hanging along a bare white wall. Directly
ahead sits a young Syrian girl named Sidra, wearing
a head scarf, describing her life in a refugee camp in
Jordan. You can look anywhere you want: up at the fan, down at the
floral-print floor mats in a room otherwise devoid of furniture. The
entire time, youre listening to Sidra talk. About the kite she left in
a tree when her family fled. About the meals her mom makes without the spices she used to have back home. As she describes aspects
of her life, the virtual-reality headset transports you to her world
immediately. You see the muddy playground, the cramped classroom,
the soccer ball shared by dozens of children. In each locale, you are
immersed, able to look at the asphalt soccer field or up at the bare,

lonely sky. This is the short film Clouds Over Sidra, the work of Gabo
Arora, the United Nations first-ever creative director.
This is also the future of humanitarian aid. Already, the U.N., not
the first institution you associate with advanced technology, is working on projects involving artificial intelligence and augmented reality.
Victims of international sex trafficking who feel uncomfortable talking about their experiences to another person might one day have the
chance to talk to a virtual avatar instead. Answers the victim gives
would change the way the avatar interacts, using artificially intelligent sensitivity. The equipment to pull this off is still a few years away,
but the potential is limitless. The same kind of technology might be
used in the peace and reconciliation process in a place like Rwanda,
13
160
8
Total number of interpreters
INTERPRETER BOOTHS AT
U.N. GENERAL ASSEMBLY
2 per booth
6 OFFICIAL LANGUAGES
OF THE U.N.
3 per booth
where the nation is still staggering from tribal in India and to introduce them to the people of
rural Nepal, who face both severe poverty and
war and genocide.
Arora was there when his film debuted at environmental concerns stemming in part
last years World Economic Forum in Davos, from a 2015 earthquake. Hes also planning to
Switzerland, to an audience filled with heads employ augmented reality to create a room in
of state and corporate leaders from all over the which some of the most powerful people on the
globe. He was able to see the reaction: A lot of planet can talk frankly with genocide survivors.
These tactics are expensive, to be sure. The
them had tears in their eyes.
The film is the first in a series Arora started cost of making a short film or projectbetween
before founding the U.N.s first virtual-reality $300,000 and $1 million apiecewould be
lab in 2015. A 39-year-old New Yorker who astronomical for an organization like the U.N.
studied philosophy and film at New York However, its more practical for a tech company, which is why almost all
University, Arora worked at
the funding so far has been
NGOs in Colombia and Zamfrom VR production combia before joining the U.N. full
pany Within (formerly VRSE).
time in 2009. Since launching
(Oculus has provided support,
his lab he has already made
and Arora is also in talks with
three more movies, with two
Nokia.) For them, along with
others on the way, covering
all of the goodwill, there is an
such topics as the Ebola epiIn 2009 Gabo Arora became
added benefit, Arora says.
demic, the war in Gaza, and
the U.N.s first creative director,
Its really good R&D. Most
sexual violence in the Congo.
bringing progressive technology
to a traditional institution.
of Aroras filming locations are
The goal in all of this, Arora
incredibly hot, for example, so
says, is increasing empathy
among policymakers. At last years U.N. Gen- Within created a camera with an internal veneral Assembly, Arora partnered with Facebook tilation system that can keep the components
to show off portal technologya room where cool. Arora says The New York Times is already
heads of state could have what were essentially using a similar camera in the field.
Aroras projects arent limited to things we
full-body Skype conversations with refugees.
Aroras team built a small house full of interac- currently face. Within about a year, visitors to
tive media just inside the entrance to the main Auschwitz will be able to put on a wearable device
conference room. Instead of walking into the similar to Google Glass to see an overlay of the
U.N. they expected, anyone who entered had to concentration camps appearance in 1944, with
watch videos of refugees or images of pollution actual Holocaust survivors telling their stories
from around the world before moving on to the to visitors who are standing where the victims
slept. In a world where history is doomed to
days appointments.
Meeting time is like the Oscars for us, repeat itself unless the repercussions of war
Arora says. At this months General Assembly remain poignant and relevant, the only way to
in New York City, Arora hopes to give delegates truly understand tragedy, much less change it,
a virtual-reality tour of the toxic Ganges River is to be able to see it.
HOW IT WORKS:
LIVE U.N.
TRANSLATION
E N G LI S H
RU SS IAN
FR E N CH
S PAN I S H
AR AB I C
CH I N E S E
2 ALTERNATE
LANGUAGE BOOTHS
Representatives can also bring a
personal translator so that they can
listen in their own language, such as:
URDU
or A Z E R BAIJAN I
Translators must
wear headsets
All booths
are soundproof
INTERMEDIARY LIMIT
Each translator speaks three

languages. If, say, the main speech
is in Chinese, but none of the Russian
translators speaks Chinese, then the
French booth (for example)
will translate the Chinese into
French, and the Russians will
translate the French into Russian.
Intermediary steps are capped
at one to prevent meetings from
turning into a game of telephone.
Sidra, a Syrian
refugee, watches
herself in Aroras
humanitarian film
Clouds Over Sidra.
14
Interpreters translate in real time, so

they take breaks every 30 minutes
or so to prevent exhaustion. During
Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafis
95-minute rant at the U.N. in 2009, his
personal interpreter collapsed after
translating for 75 minutes straight.
A R O R A : P H OTO G R A P H BY S A R A H S H AT Z
MY WISH IS TO RACE MY
BROTHER IN MONACO.
Professional drivers on closed course. Do not attempt. Prototypes shown with options. Production models will vary. 2016 Toyota Motor Sales, U.S.A., Inc.
WHAT
MAKES
BOURBON
BOURBON
By Ryan Lang
BOURBON MUST BE
MADE FROM AT LEAST
51 PERCENT CORN.
We worked with regional

farmers on a non-GMO
white corn, similar to what
was used as far back as the
1800s. From there, rather
than a high concentration
of rye, which delivers a real
spiciness, we use Ohios
soft red winter wheat as
our secondary mash grain.
Traditionally used in baking,
it gives the bourbon a soft
sweetness that enhances the
other barrel-infused flavors.
THE DISTILLATE MUST
BE AGED IN NEW
CHARRED-OAK BARRELS.
SPIRITS
Bourbon. In Ohio.
Kentucky will always supply the legacy, but

its no longer the only state making great
bourbon. B Y F R A N C I N E M A R O U K I A N
ust as barbecue and

the blues arrived in
the Midwest after the
Civil War when newly
emancipated workers came up
the Mississippi, bourbon made
its way up the Ohio River to the
pre-Prohibition distilleries
of Columbus and Cincinnati.
Our 200-mile proximity to
Louisville creates a geographical spillover, says Ryan Lang,
a former engineer and the
cofounder of Middle West Spirits in Columbus, Ohio. Its a
unique prairie southern region.
We share many resources,
including grain varieties, distinctive limestone-filtered
water, and weather patterns
that affect the aging process.
But even with those similarities, Middle West Spirits
bourbon is truly a product of
Ohio. With the exception of
16
specialty malted barley, which

no one in Ohio has the facilities to process, Lang says,
our grains are sourced from a
40-mile radius of our plant.
Founded in 2008, Middle
West occupied a small portion
of a 1920s-era warehouse in the
Weinland Park neighborhood
of Columbus. As the company grew, instead of finding
a new, larger facility, Middle
West Spirits developed vertically, adding to the single-story
building it already occupied
by constructing a five-story
exoskeleton above its original
10,000-square-foot footprint.
The exoskeleton was created
to house larger-scale equipment
including a new column still,
created by Vendome Copper
& Brass in Louisville, to allow
Middle West to use continuousdistillation technology. Because
the column couldnt be brought

into the warehouse through the
front door, the still was dropped
in by crane before the roof of the
new addition was added. What
once took several weeks to produce batch-by-batch in a pot
still now takes six hours, Lang
says. Not that it brings them
even with the big liquor producers. With the new automated
distilling process, Middle West
is still just a blip on the screen
compared to legacy brands,
Lang says. They can produce a
barrel in seven to 30 seconds.
What they cant produce
is Middle Wests OYO (pronounced oh-why-oh, from the
Iroquois for the great river)
Bourbon Whiskey, Michelone
Reserve, a double gold winner
at the 2016 Berlin International Spirits Competition,
where Middle West was named
the U.S. Distillery of the Year.
We asked Lang to explain how
Michelone Reserve meets the
United States Code of Federal
Regulations three main
bourbon requirements while
still reflecting Middle Wests
signature.
Many craft distillers use

small barrels to accelerate
the aging process, but we
use larger 30- and 53-gallon
barrels, and then combine
the individual distillates
to make the final product.
The bigger barrels, at char
No. 4, promote tobacco
and licorice with oak, toast,
and heavy sweetness. The
smaller char 3s impart
cinnamon spice, caramel,
and vanilla. We age for a
minimum of two years in our
30-gallon barrels and much
longer in our 53s.
THE LIQUID MUST BE NO
MORE THAN 160 PROOF
OUT OF THE STILL.
After the barrels are poured

through a screen filter, we
cut to 90 proof and bottle.
We do not do any sort
of heavy filtration, as we
believe it removes unique
aroma characteristics.
THE RESULT
OYO BOURBON
WHISKEY, MICHELONE
RESERVE
Soft and velvety,

with a delicate toffee
flavor. Drink it neat.
P H OTO G R A P H S BY L E V I B R O W N
AMERICAS
ORIGINAL CRAFT VODKA
WINE ENTHUSIAST RATINGS

SCORE OUT OF 100 POINTS
PTS
My American vodka beats

the giant imports every day.
Try American! Its Better.
GROOMING
The Hair
Dryer That
Doesnt
Get Hot
James Dysons
domination of the
air-based-machine
category continues.
BY ALEX AN DER GEORGE
18
THE SPECS
ve been told that my inch-and-a-half

cut is too short to require a hair dryer,
but I use one anyway. Not to get my
hair so itll fall just so, but to expedite the morning routine. I think it
was my old man who told me never to show
up with a wet mop. It makes you look like you
were in a rush.
When I tried the Dyson Supersonic hair
dryer ($400; out this month) it didnt make my
hair $375 more lustrous than the communal
Conair in my gyms locker room. It didnt even
dry my hair faster. But those metrics dont
apply to Dyson products. You pay hundreds
of dollars for a Dyson vacuum or humidifier
because its so ergonomic and pretty that it
makes routines pleasant, even futuristic. Like
commuting in a Tesla.
Much like the Air Multiplier fans, the
Supersonic has a motor in the handleas
opposed to the typical location at the rear
of the headthat pushes air out of a small
vent lining the ring-shaped barrel. Inside
that motor is a metal impeller with 13 blades
instead of the 11 in ordidust clogs
nary hair dryers, which If
the openings at
means that even at max the bottom, the
airflow, the Supersonic is LED will flash
like a checka white-noise machine, not engine light.
a droning HVAC system.
Sensors read the air temperature 20 times a
second, maintaining the heating elements
at one of four heat settings. If the Supersonic
approaches a hair-frying 212 degrees Fahrenheit, itll cool down automatically. My
current dryer, on the other hand, could be
used by criminals looking to burn off their
fingerprints.
I dont have $400 to spend on a hair dryer,
so Ill go back to using the Conair at the gym,
but I wont stop thinking about how good
a Supersonic would look on my bathroom
countertop, next to the induction-charging
toothbrush.
Air shoots out an annular

vent and over an airfoil, using
inducement (the same property
that produces lift in airplanes)
to create a breeze.
The Supersonics three
attachments adhere magnetically.
HOW TO USE HAIR TO

SOP UP AN OIL SPILL
Individual hairs on your head are made of three
layers: keratin scales on the outside, a tightly
knit layer of keratin fibers beneath that, and
an inner core called the medulla. Those outer
keratin scales give each strand of hair a ton of
surface area, which allows oil
to cling. During the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in 2010,
medulla
hair clippings from salons
and barbers were stuffed
fibers
into old nylon stockings to
create hair booms. Volunscales
teers lined these up along
beaches to prevent oil from
spreading onto land.
2016 P&G
OFFICIAL SHAMPOO OF THE NFL
SHOULDERS WERE
MADE FOR GREATNESS.
NOT DANDRUFF.
SPORTS
Meet the NFLs Newest Stadium

With a new see-through venue that lets sun in while
keeping subzero temperatures out, the Minnesota Vikings can
finally stop looking so darn cold on TV.
BY L ARA SOROK AN ICH
THE SHAPE
U.S. Bank Stadium was designed
to handle Minnesotas snowy
winters. The angled roof comes to
an off-center point, so that snow
on the northern side will slide right
off the building, while the larger,
flatter southern face maximizes
snowmelt from the sun.
T H E M AT E R I A L
The southern face of the stadium's roof is made of ETFE, a
lightweight, transparent resin.
Architect John Hutchings says
its intended to give people the
impression of being outside,
even on a freezing Minnesota
winter day. Builders formed
the ETFE into slightly inflated
pillows that are reinforced by
steel, creating a roof that is both
strong enough to support snowfall and transparent enough to
let sun into the stadium.
THE GUTTERS
All that snow has to go somewhere, which is why there are
massive snow gutters built into
the sides of the building, hidden from view of people on the
ground. The gutters are up to
50 feet deep and 20 feet wide at
the largest parts. They also contain melting systems to help
snow drain efficiently.
THE DOORS
To continue the illusion of being outdoors, the architects created five enormous pivoting doors on the west end of the stadium that form a wall during cold months but can be
opened on pleasant days. At 55 feet wide and up to 95 feet tall, theyre the tallest pivoting
glass doors in the world and contain custom steel frameworks, hinges, and hydraulics.
THE NEW,
IMPROVED
CONCUSSION TEST
How many vials
of blood am I
holding up?
20
T H E S E AT S
U.S. Bank Stadium was designed
to accommodate a number of different sports, including University
of Minnesota baseball games and
the 2019 NCAA basketball Final
Four. To fit different configurations of fans, there are 32 rows
of retractable seats made of a
plywood laminate composite with
a textured finish that resembles
concrete.
Despite the NFLs efforts to mitigate the brain-health crisis through fines and suspensions, the
hits keep coming. Last season concussions reached a four-year high at 271. The good news:
The medical industry may have discovered a smarter way to diagnose the problem. In May, Dr.
Linda Papa of Orlando Health found that blood tests for a protein associated with brain injury
can detect concussions with 94 to 97 percent accuracy up to a week after impact. Meanwhile,
Quanterix and Banyan Biomarkers, two companies that have received NFL funding, believe
they can develop sideline-friendly blood tests as early as next season.
Andrew Deck
I L LU S T R AT I O N BY S P O O K Y P O O K A
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THE AMERICAN ASSOCIATION FOR CANCER RESEARCH (AACR) IS STAND UP TO CANCERS SCIENTIFIC PARTNER.
BY FR AN CI N E MARO U KIAN
Booze, bats, and bar

games in a whiskey-making
town thats surprisingly wholesome.
Situated closer to Toronto than to New Orleans,

Louisville is a delightful combination of northern enterprise and southern hospitality, a blend
that has led to the citys long reign as a hub of
sports and entertainment. High rollers have handicapped horses at
Churchill Downs, home of the Kentucky Derby, since 1875. During
Prohibition, bootlegger kingpin AlCapone played poker at the Seelbach Hotel. And the city still grows the kind of people who are willing
to carry a little risk on their way to reward. Here, two makers who
bet big on their ideas share the best of their city.
THE MAKERS
BEN AROH
COMPANY: Aroh Co.

PROJECT: American-cherrywood magne-
tized key holders in the shape of 49 states, and a

Popular Mechanics bottle opener made from old
bourbon-barrel staves (Know-How, June)
TYLER DEEB
COMPANY: Misc. Goods Co.

PROJECT: Artisanal
playing cards
Bored, broke, and looking
for my next project, I started
redesigning playing cards
as a distractionmy way of
playing solitaire. I did the face
cards first, then chipped away
for three months until I had a
whole deck. Playing cards are
a symbol of community and
hospitality and fun, which is
what Louisville is all about.
My dad is a craftsman, so I grew up in a very Tom

Sawyer way, experimenting in his workshop
with my best friend. I designed my first wooden
stateKentucky, obviouslyin college, because
I was constantly losing my keys and got tired
of crawling through the cellar window. A less
powerful magnet would save a few production
dollars, but I want folks to be able to just throw a
wad of keys up there and have them stick.
TH E RECOM M E N DATIONS
1
Favorite
neighborhood
Favorite place
to take a firsttime visitor
Favorite
place to eat
Best bourbon bar
Best place
to bring an
out-of-towner
In the 19th century, some

of the rich folks moved
out of the downtown
floodplain onto a ridge
called the Highlands.
Within that area is the
Cherokee Triangle. It has
huge trees, charming brick
alleyways, and incredible
examples of late-19thand early-20th-century
American residential
architecture.
22
Louisville Slugger Field,

named for the bats that are
made a few blocks away, is a
beautiful minor league park.
You enter through a restored
train shed. After the game,
you can walk along the river
and visit Whiskey Row, the
old cast-iron storefront
buildings that once housed
bourbon distilleries.
Game is a little shack

with a rustic vibe and
these great red oak
tables. You build your own
burger out of elk, goat,
duck, or wild boar and
toppings like bonemarrow mayonnaise
or grilled romaine.
Theyve got beer, too.
Garage Bar, a converted service garage.

There are outdoor
ping-pong tables, an
awesome beer list,
wood-fired-oven pizza,
an assortment of country hams, and at least
30 Kentucky bourbons.
Thats all they could fit
on the menu. But you
can ask them for more.
I take people to
Cherokee Park: 400
acres of green space
designed by Frederick
Law Olmsted, the
father of American
landscape architecture.
There are even game
areas with archery
and horseshoes.
I L LU S T R AT I O N BY S I N E L A B
PROPANE.
ITS MANS BEST FUEL.
Making my rounds lling propane tanks with

the person who feeds me, Ive learned a few things.
Like how propane is a clean, reliable, and efficient
energy source. It also fuels some great outdoor
living (and I should know about outdoor living).
Learn more at proudlypropane.com
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
protected from food and fingers by

the wave guide cover [15]).
CHOOSE YOUR SETTINGS
The magnetron is a binary deviceon
or off. No matter what you punch in on
the control panel (8), youre ultimately
just telling the microwave how long to
be on. If you select 50 percent cooking power, the magnetron will switch
off during 50 percent of the time on
the timer, not operate at 50 percent
strength. Similarly, the defrost option
or food presets like rice or bacon
are preprogrammed, choreographed
combinations of time and magnetron
activation. So dont feel pressured to
use themchoose the time and cooking power you want for your cold pizza,
punch them in, and hit start.
D I S A S S E M B LY R E P O R T
MICROWAVE OVEN
MODEL:
CUISINART CMW-100
PRODUCED:
GUANGDONG, CHINA
TIME TO DISASSEMBLE:
2 HOURS,
14 MINUTES
NUMBER OF PARTS:
216
The story of the microwaves invention is deservedly legendary:

While working on a microwave radar system, a Raytheon engineer discovered a melted candy bar in his lab-coat pocket. Eureka! In hindsight, he was
lucky he wasnt carrying a sandwich wrapped in aluminum foil or a grape,
which, when properly prepared, creates a ball of plasma. Used incorrectly,
microwave ovens can be incredibly dangerous, but 97 percent of our kitchens have them because the design pioneered by Raytheons Radarange
has proved capable of quickly and easily heating TV dinners and leftover
Chinese food, which have no business in a toaster.
NOTES:
YOUR FOOD IS COLD

You open the door (9) and put a plate of leftover
pizza on the tray (14) in the center of the microwave oven. The tray is connected to a small
motor (16) by the coupler (12) and rides on the
ring rotating assembly (13). Made of tempered
glass, the tray wont absorb microwave energy.
It rotates the pizza so the waves generated by
the device pass through it from all directions,
heating the pizza evenly. The door contains a
thin layer of mesh called the barrier screen (4).
When shut, the mesh and the cold-rolled steel of
the cavity (11) form a Faraday cagea grounded
metal cage that keeps microwaves in.
H OW TO NY
A
IM P R O V E A V E:
W
MICRO
ADD A
LI D
24
The ten-dollar plastic microwave lid

seems like a product you buy from
an infomercial in which people sustain highly improbable injuries from
ordinary household objects. But
its much better than that. Sold by
dozens of companies for a couple
ENTER THE MAGNETRON

When the microwave oven is in cooking mode,
low-voltage alternating current from the power
supply cable (10) passes through a transformer
(17), a diode (1), and a capacitor (2), which
together boost the signal to 4,000 voltsthe
input voltage of the magnetron (5), the ovens
most critical component. When electricity
reaches the magnetron, it energizes a filament,
which gives off electrons. The magnetrons shape
causes these electrons to generate microwaves
as they travel through it. Those microwaves are
then directed out into the cavity (where your
pizza awaits) through the wave guide (which is
of dollars apiece, the lids are made
of microwave-safe plastics, such
as polypropylene and Tritan, which
have high melting points and dont
contain potentially dangerous plasticizers such as bisphenol A (BPA).
They obviate the need for plas-
YOUR FOOD IS NOW HOT

The Faraday cage that keeps microwaves in (and body parts out) works
only if the door is shut. When that is
the case, the latch (6) contacts a set of
microswitch interlocks (3), triggering them and alerting the microwave
that the door is closed and its safe to
start the magnetron. If you notice
boiling cheese and yank the door open
using the handle (7), these contacts
will break, automatically switching
off the magnetron.
With the door closed, microwaves
bounce around the cavity, spinning
the water molecules in the food, which
naturally have a more positive side and
a more negative side. Spinning warms
the water molecules, and hence the
food. (This also works, albeit less efficiently, on fats and oils.) Assuming a
food has a mostly even distribution of
water (soup, say), it will heat evenly
not inside-out, as many people think.
However, parts of the food that have
higher water content will heat more
quickly than parts with lower water
content. Thats why you can comfortably grab a slice of pizza by the crust
while taking a bite of cheese that feels
hot enough to burn through steel.
Kevin Dupzyk
tic wrap, which can melt onto food.

And if you cover a bowl of soup,
the inevitable splatters will hit the
lidwhich you can stick in the dishwasherand not the roof of your
microwave, which, lets be honest,
you have no intention of cleaning.
17
5
16
6
7
15
14
13
12
11
10
25
vehicle. The latest specialized aviation coatings cost as much as $300 a gallon, though
they have extended the life of airplane paint
jobs from five to as many as eight years
by which time the plane would likely need a
makeover anyway, given the steady pace of
mergers and bankruptcies in the industry.
BIG QUESTIONS.
ANSWERS YOU CANT FIND
ON THE INTERNET.
There are only two states where

its illegal to pump your own
gasNew Jersey and Oregon.
Whats up with that?
LIKE MANY SILLY laws, bans on
self-service gas exist under the guise
of safety. You, who are not a highly
trained professional gasoline transfer specialist, could catch fire should you attempt
this demanding, technical procedure on your
own. The ceaseless pall of smoke that rises
over the 48 states that callously disregard
their citizens well-being is acrid testimony to
the legions of tragically DIY-minded motorists who leave this earth each day, losers in the
deadly game of gas-pump roulette.
So, its safe to say its not really safety
at least not in New Jersey. Back in the day,
according to Sal Risalvato, executive director
of the New Jersey Gasoline-ConvenienceAutomotive Association, an enterprising
station owner lowered the price of gas by a
nickel if customers fueled vehicles themselves. Angered by the competition, other
station owners pushed the legislature to ban
self-service, which it did in 1949. (Oregon followed in 1951.) But there was nobody who
was either for or against self-serve at that
time, says Risalvato. Nobody cared.
They care now. Jerseyans, especially, cherish their full-serve-only status. Among the
benefits of the ban cited by proponents are
convenience (why get out of the car if you dont
have to?), jobs (someones got to pump the gas),
and an appreciation for tradition. The popularity of the Jersey ban is helped by the fact
that the state has among the lowest gas taxes
and therefore among the lowest gas pricesin
the nation. So it seems to be a benefit that
comes with little or no cost. Accordingly, any
26
legislation introduced to repeal the Jersey ban

invariably fails. Meanwhile, in Oregon, thanks
to a recent revision of the law, residents of the
Beaver state can now pump their own gas,
but only at night in rural areas. Who came up
with that? Bigfoot? Stay safe out there, people.
What kind of
paint do they use
on airplanes?
As you might surmise,
the airlines dont just
slap on a couple coats of Dutch Boy and call
it good. The skies are not so friendly, at least
when it comes to snazzy paint jobs (or liveries, as theyre known). The paint on a plane
needs to stand up to extreme environmental conditionsbroiling sun, stinging rain,
subzero temperaturesas well as speeds
that may top 600 mph, meaning airborne
grit, dust, sleet, etc., can hit with the force of
a sandblaster. The paint also must be light:
Even an extra 100 pounds is enough to reduce
an airliners fuel efficiency. Think about that
the next time you hit the airport food court
before your trans-Pacific flight.
To solve these challenges, current practice
is to use a specially formulated, light, durable
base coat in whatever garish colors the marketing department decides upon, covered
with an exceptionally strong, clear, polyurethane topcoat. This is similar to how cars are
finished, though the clear coat on a Hummer,
say, is softer, so you can buff out the scratches
when prickly environmentalists key your
Do people still
try to set the
odometer back
when they
sell a car?
Nah, thats just a myth. Now step over here
and let me show you this cherry 1978 Dodge
Dart we got in on trade from a little old lady
who only took it to and from churchon the
back of a flatbed truck. Zero miles! Can you
believe it?
No, we cant. Of course peopleand
we use the term loosely, as only a despicable
animal would engage in such chicanery
set back odometers, but we were shocked to
learn how common it is, even in this age of
digital counters. Peeling miles off can add
thousands to a cars value, so the incentive
is strong. Used-car-data purveyor Carfax
estimates there are as many as 1.5 million
vehicles with doctored odometers out there.
Time was, odometers were mechanical affairs, and cheats could nudge number
wheels back with dental picks. Less patient
crooks could attach a drill to the odometers
control cable and spool it backward. Eventually, manufacturers wised up and installed
stops to prevent the wheels from turning in
reverse. Sleazes overcame this by disassembling the entire odometer and putting it back
together with the desired data showing.
Today there are no wheels to turn, but
the problem persists. Odometer fraud has
reached the digital age, says Carfax spokesman Chris Basso. Now instead of having to
physically roll the analog odometers back by
hand, its as simple as going on the internet,
buying tools and software that plug into the
cars computer, and those will change the
mileage within seconds.
Thats a vexing thought, though there are
ways to protect yourself. Reports from information services like Carfax may contain
mileage readings recorded over a cars life.
If those numbers dont match the mileage
on the dash, its a strong hint that that little old lady is the invention of a rip-off artist.
Do you have unusual questions about how things
work and why stuff happens? This is the place to
ask them. Dont be afraid. Nobody will laugh at you
here. Email greatunknowns@popularmechanics.com.
Questions will be selected based on quality or
at our whim.
I L LU S T R AT I O N S BY G R E G C H R I S T M A N
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SMALL
BUSINESS
EARPLUGS
TRAIL
RUNNING
SECURITY
Secrets
of a
Weekend
Lock
Picker
And how they can help make

your home saferor at least
help you talk to a locksmith with
confidence.
BY DAN DU BNO
L O C K S A R E D E S I G N E D to keep honest people

out. (Dishonest people can always break a window.) But that doesnt mean that honest people
cant enjoy picking them. Ive been an amateur lock picker for four decades. Ive used a
small sheet of plastic or a credit card to open
the doors in offices, hotels, and schools. I taught
my kids to pick locks, and my young daughter
once astounded a locksmith when she opened
a tumbler in less than 30 seconds. And Ive also
helped more than a few desperate neighbors get
back into their homes. The more you understand
locks, the easier it is to choose the right one for
your situation.
We used a Balteau BALTOSPOT portable X-ray generator to capture this image of a Kwikset doorknob.
P H OTO G R A P H BY DAV I D A R K Y
29
S EC U R I T Y ( co n t i n u e d )
PIN TUMBLER
USED IN: Most door locks with a latch or deadbolt
HOW IT WORKS: When you insert your key in a pin tumbler
lock, pins of varying lengths are pushed by springs into the
grooves on the key. Only when all the pins are aligned along a
particular axis, called the shear line, will the key turn.
VULNERABILITY: Any well-trained lock picker can release
pins at the shear line by tapping each pin up with a diamondpointed pick as he turns the keyway with a tension wrench. You
can also use a bump key ground down to the lowest setting,
carefully whacked into the keyway. Bumping flings the pins up
in the air long enough for the key to twist and catch the pins
when they come down, allowing the cylinders plug to turn.
Five Ways to
Immediately
Improve the
Safety of
COMBINATION LOCK
USED IN: Padlocks

HOW IT WORKS: As you spin the dial, three or more parallel
discs inside the lock align and a spring latch is released. In theory, attempting to derive the correct three-digit combination
on a 40-number padlock can take as many as 64,000 tries.
VULNERABILITY: By pulling the shackle and twisting through
the combinations, experts can feel when one or more of the
discs is in the open position, significantly lowering the number
of possible combinations. Also, many combination locks have a
small flaw in the design of the shackle: Simply twisting a metal
shim around and down into the clasp will often cause the lock
to release and open.
TUBULAR LOCK
USED IN: Vending machines, alarms, bike locks, elevators
HOW IT WORKS: Tubular locks are similar to pin tumblers.
They use cylindrical keys to manipulate a circle of six to eight
pins to release the closure. These locks can be more difficult
to penetrate because its difficult to use a common straightlock pick on a series of pins that are in a circle.
VULNERABILITY: Cylindrical pick sets exist to bypass these
locks. Luckily these tools are not carried by most burglars.
However, most people do have a Bic pen, the hollow back of
which was unfortunately shown several years ago to serve as
an effective pick on a now-discontinued series of Kryptonite
bike locks.
WARDED LOCK
USED IN: Filing cabinets, some padlocks
HOW IT WORKS: This ancient lock design is relatively basic.
Obstructions, or wards, prevent the wrong key from fully
turning and opening the lock. Keys for warded locks have slots
to bypass the wards that allow the key to freely rotate inside
the lock. Generally, warded locks have a latch or spring closure
that the correct key engages and opens.
VULNERABILITY: The right skeleton key, which has most of
its teeth ground down to avoid wards, easily fits into the keyway and releases the mechanism.
30
Your Home
Buy the right locks.

Medeco and MulT-Lock tumblers
are highly pick- and
bump-resistant,
thanks to keyways
that are engineered
with special pins set
on different angles.
These locks are twice
as expensive as other
locks, but thats still
much cheaper than
having a break-in.
2
Use a deadbolt on
exterior doors. Otherwise your lock can
often be broken by a
good kick.
3
Replace hollow core

or flimsy glass doors
with solid wood and
metal doors. If you
can break the door,
you dont need to
worry about picking
the lock.
4
Get rid of that

hidden door key.
Burglars know that
you have them.
5
Always lock doors

and windows, even if
you think theyre too
high for someone to
get to. Simple, yes,
but often ignored.
I L LU S T R AT I O N S BY T. M . D E T W I L E R
THE ROBOT
REVOLUTION
IS HERE.
rave new world . . . or source of fear? Ever since robots first appeared in science
fiction, theyve inspired fascination, dread, and wonder. Popular Mechanics tells
the true story, examining the way we live with these sophisticated machines today
in our cities, skies, military, medicine, and in space.
Available wherever books are sold.
TOOL TEST
THE PROVING GROUND FOR EVERY THING YOU NEED
A
Briggs & Stratton P2200
RUN TIME*: 6.5 hours

WEIGHT
LIKES: Flawless power at a
61.5 lb
great price. We particularly
liked the multiple handles
(allowing for a two-person carry), the
large gas overflow, and the inclusion of
a convenient 12-volt (5-amp) DC power
outlet and USB port.
DISLIKES: The weight. Plus, it feels top
heavy compared to the others. Be sure
to strap it down for transport.
$650
B
B
Honda EB2000i

WEIGHT
LIKES: An outstanding
52.5 lb
industrial-duty product with
a 20-amp GFCI-protected
outlet. Thats an important safety feature for something that might spend
most of its time at a soggy construction
site. We were also impressed by the
machines thrifty use of gas.
DISLIKES: Small overflow reservoir.
$1,280
C
Generac iQ2000
Generators
The delicate electronics that now run refrigerators, power tools, and laptops require
a modern generation of generator. We tested the newest small inverter generators
with a Fluke 345 power analyzer. We also bounced them around in the bed of
a pickup to make sure they were durable enough to make it through your next
emergency power situationor to the tailgate party.

WEIGHT
LIKES: Excellent power
51 lb
quality, and it's almost
impossible to tip over during
transport. The Generac was our quietest generator at 60.5 dB, and the digital
power readout is extremely helpful,
showing fuel level, power consumption,
and percentage of power being used.
DISLIKES: As with the Honda, the small
overflow reservoir often causes gas to
run down the side.
$800
*At 25 percent load
32
TOOL TEST
THE PROVING GROUND FOR EVERY THING YOU NEED
fer
ch sa
So mutanding
s
than cket.
u
b
on a
Little Giant 15286
Werner NXT1A06
Werner PDIA04
WEIGHT RATING: 375 lb

WEIGHT
LIKES: Thanks to its light
22 lb
weight, comfortably sized
platform, and a well-designed
plastic handle secured with straps to
the side, this ladder is a breeze to move, set
up, and use.
DISLIKES: Yes, theres a big yellow
caution sticker on the ladders platform.
But that didn't stop us from pinching a
finger.

WEIGHT
LIKES: It's a classic fiberglass
22 lb
rail stepladder after a serious
overhaul. The platform has a
quart-can-size recess, a hook for a paint can,
two notches that hold a Werner toolbox, and
plenty of grooves and holes for tools. Builtin magnets keep loose screws from rolling
off the side, and four oversize foot pads give
the ladder a firm foundation.
DISLIKES: None.

WEIGHT
LIKES: Combines the best
26 lb
features of a stepladder and a
scaffold in an easy-to-use product. The top work surface is a roomy 16 by
19 inches, with four slots for debris from
your work boots to fall through, and an
arched guardrail that allows you to work
safely while facing any direction. The rail
also has clips to hold Werner Job Buckets.
DISLIKES: None.
$160
$100
$130
34
Earplugs
Reviewsand a bonus users guide.
A / 3M
NOISE-REDUCTION
RATING: 29
The firmness was a bit
uncomfortable, but they
formed a noise-tight seal.
$0.54 per pair
B / AirSoft
NOISE-REDUCTION
RATING: 27
Four-flange design twists
in for a comfortable, noisesealing fit. Twists out for
easy removal.
$2.64 per pair
HOW TO PROTECT YOUR

HEARING
Finding the best earplug is
an individual matter that
requires some experimentation. What works well for
me may not work for you.
We strongly recommend
you visit a site such as earplugstore.com and look at
the variety of plugs that
are available. Luckily most
options are inexpensive,
because you really need to
buy a few and pick the pair
that you like best.
C / SilentEar
D
NOISE-REDUCTION
RATING: 32
The most comfortable
pair we tested, thanks to a
shape similar to a badminton birdie bulb.
$6.97 per pair
D / Hearos
NOISE-REDUCTION
RATING: 33
Pillow-soft and
comfortable.
$0.55 per pair
E / Moldex
D
Little Giant SafeFrame 15776-804

WEIGHT
LIKES: Solid, with innovative,
31 lb
individually adjustable feet. A
spring-loaded mechanism gives
off a warning clank as you reach the last step,
which is useful in a distracting commercial
environment. And no top step means you
won't be tempted to climb onto the top cap.
DISLIKES: Not a dislike, but an observation:
This is a contractor-grade product. Its heavy
and its priced for professionals.
$330
NOISE-REDUCTION
RATING: 24
Excellent noise damping. A flip-to-listen tab on
each stem permits sound
penetration when needed.
$5.21 per pair
A FEW
LESSONS I PICKED UP IN
OUR TESTS
Clean your earplugs
every time. Everything
from hair to drywall dust
can interfere with the comfort and fit. I inserted an
earplug not realizing it had
picked up a speck of sawdust. That tiny thing felt
like a fishhook when I put
the plug in my ear.
Follow the directions.
You may feel silly reaching
a hand behind your head to
tug your ear and open your
ear canal while inserting the
plug with your other hand.
Do it anyway.
Comfort counts a little
more than performance.
Youre more likely to use
earplugs if theyre comfortable. No matter how
good a job earplugs do at
blocking out sound, theyre
ineffective if you dont
wear them.
Understand the noisereduction rating on every
set of earplugs. A higher
number is better. But you
can only achieve that rating
if the plug fits well.
Roy Berendsohn
E
INNOVATION OF
THE MONTH
ReadyMax
SoundShield
NOISE-REDUCTION RATING: 25
These heavy-duty wrap-around safety glasses
have a flip-open pod on the arms that conceals replaceable three-flange earplugs.
$9.70 per pair
35
SHOP NOTES
E A S Y WAYS TO D O H A R D T H I N G S
Nail Polish
Remover
Removes
Other Things
For spot treatment in
a minor mishaplike
touch-up paint that
has dripped on a door
hingeacetone nail
polish remover can
help. Use it to dampen
a rag, then hold the
rag briefly against
the splotch before
rubbing it clean.
Lip Balm
When the
Weather Turns
A Workshop Air Filter

WITH SUMMER TURNING to fall, the amount of shop time spent
with the garage door down is going to increase. That means
more sawdust and other particulates in the air and your lungs.
Reader Larry Brannock of Cana, Virginia, has a solution: a box
fan rigged with a furnace filter. Brannock simply duct-tapes the
filter to the back of the fana common size for both is 20inches
square. Placed as close as possible to the source of dust, his
device traps the bad stuff and outputs clean air. One thing to
keep in mind: the higher the rating of the filter, the harder the
fan will have to work to pull air through.
ChapStick isnt only

for lips: Apply it to
seams on tents, shoes,
or packs for temporary waterproofing.
Rubbed into the teeth
of Ziploc bags or the
threads of jars, it
gives them insurance
against water
penetration, too.
Fix the One

Thing Duct
Tape Cant
If there is a problem
with duct tape, its
that rolls of it take up
a lot of spacecarrying it in a backpack
or glove box can be
a hassle. Alleviate
this problem with
mini-rolls made by
wrapping a short
length of six or eight
feet around another
useful item, like a
pencil or AA battery.
How to Read Resistors

Manufacturers indicate the rating of a resistor with color bands. Each band represents
an input for a complicated formula. Heres
how it works for a four-band resistor:
1. The first two stripes represent digits
(see chart, below). String them together. If
stripes are yellow and violet, start with 47.
2. The third stripe is a multiplier. Its product with the digits is the resistance rating.
In the example, an orange multiplier stripe
(1,000) means the rating is 47,000 ohms.
3. The tolerance stripe indicates how much
performance may vary in practice.
Note: On five-band resistors, the first three
stripes are digits. Everything else is the
same. The rare six-band resistor has an
additional stripe that rates the resistors
performance as its temperature changes.
COLOR
DIGIT
MULTIPLIER
(NONE)
TOLERANCE
+/ 20%
Silver
0.01
+/ 10%
Gold
0.1
+/ 5%
Black
Brown
10
+/ 1%
Red
102
+/ 2%
Orange
103
Yellow
104
Green
105
+/ 0.5%
Blue
106
+/ 0.25%
Violet
107
+/ 0.1%
Gray
108
+/ 0.05%
White
109
M
FRO E
TH IVES
H
ARC 41!)
(19
Homemade Bird Feeder
A TIP FOR SPRAY-PAINTING FASTENERS

If you find yourself spray-painting a batch of
fasteners, poke their shanks through a piece of
cardboard so they stand like lollipops on a candystore counter. This allows you to easily coat all
surfaces in one pass with the paint can.
36
A cheap but effective bird feeder can be

quickly constructed from an old pan. Cut
a half-moon of wire mesh with a diameter
slightly larger than the mouth of the pan. Fix
the mesh to the pan with a bit of solder, leaving the top half of the pan open. Remove the
handle and nail the bottom to a tree. Use the
opening to fill the feeder with suet or other
bird food that wont fall through the mesh.
I L LU S T R AT I O N BY M O R N I N G B R E AT H
PRESENTED BY CHEVROLET
STILL
HUSTLING
HARDER
IN THE CRAFT WHISKY MOVEMENT,
Chip Tate is a something of a
virtuoso. Not only is his distillery,
Tate & Company, establishing a new
tradition of Texas whisky, but Chip
is elevating the distillation process
itself, handcrafting his own hammered
copper stills. Here, Chip distills his
advice for other entrepreneurs.
TASTEMAKER
According to Chip,
success is a product of
the right ingredients.
PASSION
A love for the craft
drives me to create.
INNOVATION
I needed to build my own
equipment to make it
happen, so build it I did!
ART & CRAFT

Chips motto, Live
your art, is a principle
he uses to guide him to
the next opportunity.
There are so many
things I want to explore
new ideas pop up
daily that intrigue and
tempt me. My challenge
is culling through
and choosing which
ventures to pursue.
LEADERSHIP
REMEMBER TOUGH
SCRAPES FROM
THE PAST TO FACE NEW

CHALLENGES WITH
OPTIMISM.
My goal is to move
everyone in the same
direction without
losing focus or burning
out. I have to push
without shoving, and
wait for some things to
come to pass without
becoming complacent.
HARD WORK
And lots of it!
MUSCLE FOR
YOUR HUSTLE.
When you hustle harder, you need a car that keeps
the pace. The all-new 2016 CHEVROLET CRUZE is
designed for those who carve their own path in life.
D I S C O V E R W H Y CR U Z E T O P S T HE L I S T O F C O MPA C T C A R S T H AT HU S T L E H A R DE R AT A L L N E W C H E V YC RU Z E .CO M.
PRESENTED BY CHEVROLET
10
STANDARD
YOU WERE
BORN IN
THE
DRIVERS
SEAT
AIRBAGS
and the all-new 2016

CHEVROLET CRUZE
was designed with
you in mind.
Available 4G LTE Wi-Fi Hotspot for up to seven

devices and available wireless charging
2
Standard MyLink color touchscreen

4
Apple CarPlay and Android Auto compatibility
Available advanced safety features including

Rear Cross Traffic Alert, Lane Keep Assist, and
Forward Collision Alert
Up to 42 MPG highway fuel efficiency
1
REQUIRES A COMPATIBLE MOBILE DEVICE, ACTIVE ONSTAR SERVICE, AND DATA PLAN. 4G LTE SERVICE AVAILABLE IN SELECT MARKETS. VISIT ONSTAR.COM FOR COVERAGE MAP,
DETAILS AND SYSTEM LIMITATIONS. 2THE SYSTEM WIRELESSLY CHARGES ONE PMA- OR QI-COMPATIBLE MOBILE DEVICE. SOME DEVICES REQUIRE AN ADAPTOR OR BACK COVER. TO
CHECK FOR PHONE OR OTHER DEVICE COMPATIBILITY, VISIT MY.CHEVROLET.COM/LEARN FOR DETAILS. 3MYLINK FUNCTIONALITY VARIES BY MODEL. FULL FUNCTIONALITY REQUIRES
COMPATIBLE BLUETOOTH AND SMARTPHONE, AND USB CONNECTIVITY FOR SOME DEVICES. 4VEHICLE USER INTERFACES ARE PRODUCTS OF APPLE AND GOOGLE, AND THEIR TERMS AND
PRIVACY STATEMENTS APPLY. REQUIRES COMPATIBLE SMARTPHONE, AND DATA PLAN RATES APPLY. 5CRUZE PREMIER MODEL SHOWN WITH 1.4L 4-CYLINDER ENGINE AND AUTOMATIC
TRANSMISSION OFFERS AN EPA-ESTIMATED 40 MPG HIGHWAY. 6ALWAYS USE SAFETY BELTS AND CHILD RESTRAINTS. CHILDREN ARE SAFER WHEN PROPERLY SECURED IN A REAR SEAT IN
THE APPROPRIATE CHILD RESTRAINT. SEE THE OWNERS MANUAL FOR MORE INFORMATION.
GOOD SPIRITS
TO STAY AT THE
TOP OF HIS CRAFT,
CHIP RELIES ON
TIME WITH HIS
FAMILY, TIME TO
HIMSELF,,
HIMSELF, AND TIME
TO BE CREATIVE
(PLUS A HEALTHY
DOSE OF CHOCOLATE).
B E C A U S E , F O R Y O U , I T S A L W AY S G O -T I M E . V I S I T A L L N E W C H E V Y C R U Z E . C O M .
ENTR EPR ENEU RS

know that we shouldnt
do it, but I want the
moneywe not only
mess up that job but
the other jobs, too.
And then were done.
Id rather say were just
too busy, but please
try us again next time.
Chances are that guy is
going to come back.
Adapt your pricing.
When we bid local jobs,
were competitive. But
when bidding against
companies out of New
York and L.A., I know
Im going to be 20 to 30
percent lower. Ill still
make money because
the cost of doing business is less here, but
the client often wonders why Im so cheap.
Theyre thinking the
work must be poor
quality. Im not going
to raise my prices just
so I can compete with
those guys, but it is
something Im aware
of when bidding.
How to
Scale Up
What started as tinkering

became a career. Things
are going well. Now what?
B Y B U D DY K I T E
his crew go into

their workshop with a bunch of raw materials
and an ideasomething strange and neverbefore-constructed from their clients. And they emerge
with spectacular creations. Whatever our clients
dream up, we do, says the Nashville-based owner of
MadeFirst, a custom design and fabrication shop. The
companys portfolio includes stage designs for Miranda
Lambert, a 15-foot music note that drops every year for
Nashvilles New Years Eve bash, and the flashy props
in a lot of those increasingly slick and elaborate brand
lounges for companies like Samsung that you may have
been lured into at SXSW.
Hammel, who started out building Mardi Gras floats
in New Orleans, launched MadeFirst the way wise old
business mentors say you should: small, and, in his case,
working out of his kitchen (and Nissan Frontier). In its
eight years, MadeFirst has grown from $160,000 in
annual revenue to more than $2 million in 2015. Hammel now has eight full-time employees and a growing
arsenal of magnificent toolsa CNC router, plasma
cutter, 3D printer, and saws of every bite and capability
which has him desperately searching for a new space.
Such a dizzying upswing, which mirrors that of the
city itself, has made finding the sweet spot of sustainable growth a challenge. I used to worry about when
the phone was going to ring, Hammel says. Now, I
wish it would just stop for a bit. He shares a few of the
lessons hes learned.
J O NAT H A N H A M M E L A N D
P H OTO G R A P H BY J A S O N M Y E R S
Subcontract.
Let demand
determine space.
I started in my kitchen
because thats all I
needed. Soon after I
was in a 900-squarefoot shed. Then I got a
warehouse space. And
then another. Ideally,
Id like to have another
15,000 square feet
somewhere that I can
rent out for music videos, commercial shoots,
and photography.
Grow organically.
The fastest way businesses die is by growing
too quickly. If you dont
have the infrastructure, how can you take
on bigger jobs? You
cant just prop yourself
up with money. To buy
everything and staff
up at one time with a
big check is just setting
yourself up for failure.
Owe nothing.
I have zero debt. My phi-
losophy is if you dont

have it, you dont have
it. For me, its pride.
I dont want to owe
anybody. If somebody
called tomorrow and
offered to buy me out
of this business, I could
make a big profit. I am
super proud of that.
Prepare for higher
expectations.
Theres obviously a big
difference between a
$5,000 job and the jobs
were doing now that
are often 100 grand.
When somebody
drops that kind of
money, the expectations are high. We can
provide drawings, but
if we cant actually be
dialed in, produce, and
finish, theyre going to
be upset, and our reputation will suffer.
Know your limits.
If were seven jobs
deep and I take another
rush jobeven though I
Its a great option for

businesses that are in
the middle of a growth
spurt but might not
have the infrastructure
or employees to handle
the growth. This is
our problem. We have
more work than we can
handle until I get a bigger space. Ive invested
heavily in tooling to be
able to do as much as
possible in house. But
when were super busy,
we occasionally use
select subcontractors.
I trust them, but still,
always build in a couple
extra days in case
something goes wrong.
Remember morale.
Our hours and travel
schedule can be grueling. We might have a
beer after a long day. Ill
bring lunch in occasionally, or we might play
basketball in the paint
shop. When we are on
site doing an installation, Ill take all the guys
out for a steak.
37
Getting
Started
In...
TRAIL RUNNING
Trail running is to road running what fly fishing is to traditional fishing: The main
activity is the same, but the technical aspects are completely different. Youve got
to learn to read the land and trust your instincts. B Y K E V I N D U P Z Y K
Its Not
the
Same
as
Running
Around
the
Block
You may find yourself climbing hills or descending along
rivers, all while dancing
around obstacles. Lean in
a little when going uphill so
you use the largest muscles
in your bodyyour glutes.
Going downhill, dont lean
back and ride your heels.
Thats a good way to overload your thighs and end up
sore or injured.
When you run through your
neighborhood, you probably
dont look too far past your
feet. On a trail, your inclination may be to stare directly
down, but your feet know
what to do. Dodging those
obstacles is pretty instinctive. You actually want to
look about 20 feet ahead,
so you can see approaching challenges with time to
react to them.
Running injuries dont
usually come from doing it
wrong, but from the stress of
repetition, says Dan Lieberman of Harvards Skeletal
Biology Lab. The natural
environment pushes runners
toward shorter, varied steps,
which helps the body better
absorb impacts.
With thanks to Jason Koop

of Carmichael Training
Systems and Forrest Boughner of Runners Edge in
Missoula, Montana.
41
Getting Started In TRAIL RUNNING
What You Need

Even though youll feel like a runner, youve got to think like a hiker: Get gear suited to the place you
want to run, and bring some backup for the unexpected.
SHOES
Trail-running shoes balance the light weight and
breathability of road-running shoes with the durability and
traction of hiking boots.
A rock-protection plate made
of hardened rubber or plastic
under the sole guards against
the multitude of sharp
objects youll encounter
on the trail.
Lugs, the sections
of tread on the bottom of your shoes,
bite into softer
surfaces like dirt,
mud, and snow for
better grip. The
trade-off: As lugs
get bigger and
chunkier, the contact area of the
shoe decreases,
making them less
effective on harder
surfaces, like rock
faces. Lugs wear
quickly on pavement,
too, so use them only
on the trail.
Some shoes feature a waterproof
bootie that wraps
the foot, typically
made of Gore-Tex.
If you plan on running mostly in dry
conditions and
hot weather, youll
appreciate the
breathability of a less
fortified shoe. But
if youre going to be
jogging through rain
and over creek beds, a
bootie will save you from
soggy feet and blisters.
The Brooks Cascadia 11 ($120) is

durable and stable, and starting this
fall, its available with a Gore-Tex liner.
Theres a lot more debris on a trail than on the street. For

about $25, you can get gaiters, cinching collars that cover
the tops of your shoes to keep stuff out. (Some trail-running
shoes even come with gaiters built in.) Of course, you could also just
wear taller socks, which you probably already own.
TIP!
42
Lacing
Techniques
for Foot
Ailments
YOUR TOES
HURT
Run the end
of the lace
from the bottom eyelet by
your big toe to
the top of the
opposite side.
Lace the other
end in a zigzag
fashion. This
lifts the shoe
off your toes.
THE TOP OF
YOUR FOOT
HURTS
Working up
from the bottom, at the
second set
of eyelets,
run the laces
directly to the
third eyelets to
loosen the fit
over your arch.
HEEL
SLIPPAGE
Lace the shoe
as you normally
would, but at
the top two
eyelets run the
laces vertically,
creating loops.
Tie the laces
through the
loops to cinch
the upper extra
tight around
your ankle.
GEAR
Jogging in your neighborhood doesnt take much
equipment, but in the woods, the right gear can be critical.
Or at least keep you more comfortable.
For short runs, the Ultimate Direction Groove

Mono ($35) attaches with
easy velcro strips around
your waist. Even with a
full water bottle in tow, its
perfectly comfortable, and
it has room for a phone
and keys.
For anything more than

a few miles, the Nathan
VaporAir ($150) holds
two liters of water and has
a big main compartment
that fits between your
shoulder blades, where
the running motion cant
jostle it around.
QORtec Ultra Light run

shorts ($69) stand out
for their actually usable
pockets (not a given) and
internal brief, which is
more comfortable than
the mesh lining found in
most shorts.
Pearl Izumis Pursuit

short-sleeve shirt ($45)
has mesh paneling and
moisture-transferring
fabric to keep you comfortable when youre
outside the cover of
neighborhood trees.
QOR also makes a seamless crew V2 LS ($69)

that is warm, but thanks
to strategically placed
vents, not too warm to
run in.
Keep Eddie Bauers

Momentum light jacket
($50) in your pack for
wind-breaking at elevation,
and some rain protection
when you need it.
I L LU S T R AT I O N S BY S T E V E S A N F O R D
Where to Run
You can run anywhere you can hike. Just be mindful of crowds. Get out there early, when the air is
fresh and most of the hikers are asleep.
TYPES OF TRAIL
Rail Trail
Double Track
Single Track
Wide, graded trail that uses rail right-ofway to get out into the wild without getting
steeper than a train can handle.
Wide enough for a vehicle to usethese

may be fire or access roadsbut often
rutted and remote.
Narrow, technical, secludedwhat you picture in your mind when you hear trail. The
experienced trail runners dream.
What to Look
For in a Trail
By Stephanie Howe, The North Face trail runner and 2014 winner of
the Western States 100, the most prestigious trail race in the country.
THE BEST TRAILS are the ones that take your breath away: narrow single track that twists and
winds up and down mountains and valleys. There are a lot of trails like that that are accessiblewhen youre ready for them. Those trails are usually littered with rocks, roots, and scree,
which forces you to be really careful about where you step. You wont be used to that if you
havent been off-road before. So when youre just starting, look for something a little
wider, because that will tend to be less technical. And when it comes to slopes, theres
something a little counterintuitive to keep in mind: While uphills are harder in
terms of stamina, the downhills are what really can destroy your body, because of
the heavy impacts, if youre not used to them. Youll feel sore the next day. Luckily,
theres a way to make sure the soreness is short-lived: Keep hitting the trails.
THE TRAIL MAP

The Trail Run Projects
Trail Finder (at trailrunproject.com or as an app)
is a crowdsourced compendium of trails around
the world. In addition to
overall ratings for difficulty
and quality, it includes
stats like distance, trail
type, and elevation
change, so youll know
exactly what youre getting yourself into.
ANIMALS YOU MAY ENCOUNTER ON THE TRAIL IN INCREASING LEVEL OF THREAT
Squirrel
Wont bother you if
you dont bother it.
Mountain biker
If it follows you and
doesnt respond to
repeated warnings,
try putting a stick
through its spokes.
Rattlesnake
Retreat slowly. If
bitten, dont apply a
tourniquet or try to
suck out the venom.
Stay calman elevated heart rate will
spread the venom.
Mountain lion
Make yourself big,
make noise, make
eye contact, and back
away slowly.
Bear
Talk to the bear so it
knows youre not prey.
In attacks, play dead
for grizzlies (big hump
between the shoulders), but fight black
bears (no hump).
43
ASK ROY
POPULAR MECHANICS SENIOR HOME
E D I T O R 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
My hammer has a
big chip in its
head. That shouldnt
happen, right?
CURT T., KALISPELL, MONTANA
I havent seen a hammerhead chip

in more than 30 years. Given
someof the abuse dished out on
construction sites and on volunteer
workdays, all I can say is that todays
hammers are so abuse-tolerant, it takes a
lot to chip one. Here are a few rules for
keeping your hammers whole. See if one of
these situations sounds familiar:
Claw hammers are designed to hit nails,
sets for sinking finish nails, and specially
made bars that are used to dig out nails or
pry wood away from a surface. Dont use
them to strike hardened steel or to break up
cast iron or concrete. Those jobs require a
sledgehammer.
Dont use one hammer to strike another.
For example, dont use a claw hammer to
strike the head of another claw hammer in
order to drive its claw deeper between two
pieces of lumber.
Dont use a claw hammer to hit a brick
chisel, stone chisel, cold chisel, or center
punch. There are specific hammers to
strike those.
Dont use a claw hammer (or its claw) to
break or chip rocks or bricks.
Regardless of the type of hammer you
buy, get the best you can afford. Ive owned
hammers by Estwing, Vaughan, Warwood,
Craftsman, and Stiletto. Theyre not cheap
tools, but not one of them has chipped, and
I have decades of use on some of them.
Good tools last.
44
Why would long

The two decoracracks be showing
tive posts on our
up in the drywall ceiling front stoop are startof our garage for the
ing to rot. Are these
first time in 12 years?
easy to replace?
BOB B., CARLISLE, PENNSYLVANIA
HEIDI R., DULUTH, MINNESOTA
Garages can be surprisingly

vulnerable structures. The house
gets all the attention, and the
garage is where the builder cuts costs.
Take fire-taping, for instance. This is the
minimalist technique used in garages in
which the builder finishes drywall with a
single application of tape and drywall
compound, helping the structure achieve
its fire rating (a measurement of resistance
to flame spread) while holding down costs.
Since youre in southeastern Pennsylvania, the scene of record-setting snowfalls
last winter, my hunch is that you had snowload deflection on the garage roof. Smaller
rafters or trusses spaced farther apart, a
likely cost reduction for a garage roof, can
experience more deflection from a heavy
snow. This isnt enough to risk collapse, but
it can break loose a few drywall joints, especially if they are simply fire-taped.
Repairing the cracks shouldnt be more
difficult than driving some drywall screws
to ensure that the drywall is properly fastened, then applying paper tape and joint
compound over the cracks. Although I
think its unlikely that the trusses (or rafters and joists) were damaged, it couldnt
hurt to grab a flashlight and poke around in
the attic above the garage. If you find lumber that has cracked or pulled away from
truss plates, consult with a licensed architect or structural engineer.
Yes. Your first step is to support

the roof load. Position a scrap of
lumber near the post you want to
remove. Jack the scrap piece up using a pair
of plastic chainsaw felling wedges nested
against each other. Next, drive the wedges
together just enough so that the old post
dangles freely from the roof assembly.
Using the post as a gigantic lever, twist it
free from the roof structure. Youll probably
have to use a pry bar to coax it completely
out. Ideally, you want to remove the post
without wrecking it so that you can use it
as a pattern to mark the replacement post.
Cut the new post and insert it in the same
position as the old one. Then gently remove
the support lumber by tapping out the
wedges to lower the load onto the new post.
Repeat with the other post.
Decorative turned posts have a top and
a bottom, so make the shortening cut on
the same end on both posts (usually the bottom). If you dont do this, youll produce two
posts of the correct length, but the turned
section will be at a slightly different height
on each. This is visually clumsy. Your
neighbors wont let you live it down.
Call 212-649-2828 and leave a message

with your home or yard question. You
could be featured on a new Popular Mechanics
podcast. Questions can also be emailed to
askroy@popularmechanics.com.
I L LU S T R AT I O N S BY C H R I S P H I L P OT
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WITH
Zee
ber
Trck
AMERICA, MEET
THE MERCEDES-BENZ
G-SQUARED.
P H OTO G R A P H BY J E R E M Y M . L A N G E
EZRA
DYER
SPECS
he guy with the jacked-up Toyota Tundra

BASE PRICE:
$213,000
pantomimes snapping a photo, so I pull
GROUND
alongside and peer down, down, at his
CLEARANCE:
truckwhich is an unusual perspective
17.7 inches
FORDING DEPTH:
when youre next to a full-size pickup with
3.2 feet
35-inch tires. I jump out and we both stand there gazing
at the seven-foot-tall Bavarian Sasquatch drenched in
highlighter-yellow paint and wearing German license
plates. Man, he says. I never thought Id live to see a jacked-up G-Wagen on Carolina
Beach. Me neither. We definitely wont see two. Right now, this is the only Mercedes-Benz
G500 4x42 on the continent.
You can buy a 4x42, or G-Squared, in Europe, Russia, the Middle East, and Japan. In early
2017, youll be able to buy one in the United States. To find out what truck-savvy Americans
think of it, I brought one to Carolina Beach, North Carolina. Here, every summer weekend
is an unsanctioned off-road show as the four-wheel-drive crowd rolls out onto the sand for
fishing, tailgating, and general mine-is-bigger-than-yours vehicular one-upmanship. Its
the place to go for informed opinions about your truck.
The G-Squared is based on the wonderfully anachronistic G-Classaka the G-Wagen,
or Gelndewagen. An original 1979 model doesnt look much different from a 2016, and
thats on purpose. The G-Wagen remains eternally popular because of its purposeful, classic design. History and authenticity have their own appeal, especially when theyre attached
47
WITH
EZRA
DYER
During its introducto a badass truck that comes with a

F-250 with a ten-inch lift kit.
tory goodwill tour,
twin-turbo V-8 and triple locking
He exhorts me to demonstrate
the G-Squared rescued overconfident
differentials standard.
the 416-hp V-8 by doing a burncrossover drivers.
But the G-Squared is far from
out in two-wheel drive. I tell him
standard. To make a G-Wagen into
the G-Squared has no two-wheel
this behemoth, Mercedes adds portal axles drive, only all-wheel drive and locking differ(see right), which are like a lift kit for 0.001 entialstraction or more traction.
percenters. That setup pushes the cars footI meet Ronnie, who has a 1995 Chevrolet
print out about a foot wider than the normal Silverado with Dana 60 axles and 46-inch
G-Wagen, necessitating excellent carbon-fiber tires. Its the tallest truck on the beach. That
fender flares. It also raises the ground clear- Mercedes badge is the last thing I expected!
ance to the point that you feel like you could he says. Thats got more ground clearance
drive straight over a fire hydrant.
than my truck, and with smaller tires. Hes
The G-Squared should be unruly to drive. right. Thats the magic of portal axles. The
When your center of gravity is up near the sand would have to be a lot deeper than this
power lines and the axles weigh as much to challenge the G-Squared.
as a Fiat, you set low expectations for hanBut the sand is challenging plenty of
dling and responsiveness. But somehow, the other drivers. The entrance to the beach
G-Squared drives great. Thanks to the extra has become clogged with buried crossovers
width, it feels more planted than a regular whose drivers woefully misjudged their
G550. Push the button for Sport mode and pseudo-SUVs off-road capability. I attach
half of the shocks stiffen to give you more sta- my recovery strap to the Benzs rear tow
bility through turns than you have any right eye and set out clearing the beach with my
to expect from a vehicle this big. Its like being $220,000 tow truck. Those rescued offer
on the bridge of a very responsive ship.
money, which is politely declined. This is the
Its been an hour since I parked above G-Squared goodwill tour, where Jeep Patriots
the high-tide line, and Eric, the guy with the are snatched from doom by the towering TeuTundra, and I are still alone. Im guessing ton. It makes me even more impressed with
that the G is too intimidating for anyone to this machine. Not only does it move swiftly
take an adjacent spot. Or that everyone fig- through deep sand, it does so while dragging
ures Im the despotic nephew of a Russian another vehicle behind it. I havent even aired
uranium oligarch.
down the tires or locked the differentials.
Eric calls his brother Tim, a Mercedes Imagine if I did. I could drag a tugboat ashore.
service technician. Tim arrives and tells me
Of all the prototypes and foreign-market
that the G-Wagen is seriously rugged, that cars Ive driven, none were as much of a
one came in to the dealer with 420,000 miles no-brainer for U.S. distribution as the
without any kind of a rebuild. While we talk, G-Squared. Americans love trucks, the taller
the beach fills in and admirers approach. the better, and a subset of that truck-loving
One of them, Richard, is driving a Ford populace will spend six figures to loom above
THE
OTHER
WILD
WAGEN
48
WHATS A PORTAL AXLE?

Conventional axles come straight
from the center of the wheel, in line
with the differential. That means your
ground clearance increases only a halfinch for every additional inch diameter
of tire size. Portal axles add a gearbox
to the wheel to set the axle above the
wheels center. The effect on ground
clearance is dramatic. Setting the
wheel five inches below the axle is like
going from 30-inch tires to 40s. The
downsides: weight, mechanical complexity, and cost. To that latter point,
Jeep offers a portal axle kit for the
Wrangler. It costs $23,500.
traffic in Miami and confound valets in Manhattan. Nothing else in this country is like the
G-Squared. Its outrageous. It makes you want
to talk like Arnold Schwarzenegger. Its the
coolest thing on the road. Or off it.
This year marks Americas introduction to another previously off-limits model: the G65 AMG,
which stuffs a 603-hp V-12 into the G-Wagens angular proboscis. You feel like theres some electronic torque-limiting in the first two gears, probably to keep the axles from disintegrating. But
once you get into third, the V-12 comes off its chain, with passing power thats best described as
terrifying. Forget crotch rockets and fight clubs. If you want to feel the blood drain from your face,
try flooring a G65 past 100 mph.
TO P : P H OTO G R A P H BY J E R E M Y M . L A N G E
WITH
EZRA
DYER
The New
Luxury Trucks
PORSCHE AND RANGE ROVER
LEARNED YEARS AGO THAT
FANCY SUVS SELL. NOW,
COMPETITORS ARE LEARNING
TO EMBRACE THE TRUCK.
W H E N I T C A M E out in 2002, the Porsche Cayenne was

the original heretic 4x4. Outraged purists called it treason
against a brand rich in performance and racing history.
But Porsche has sold more than 227,000 Cayennes in the
past three yearsduring the same time period, it sold just
167,000 Boxsters and 911s combined. Now, more than a
decade later, other manufacturers that have traditionally
focused on low-slung street machines are building fast, flexible SUVs. If Porsches success is any indication, these new
utes will be each brands best-seller. Only question is, what
took so long?
50
1993 to 1997
Toyota Land
Cruiser
With solid axles
and triple-locking
differentials, the
FJ80 was the last
hardcore off-road
Land Cruiser. Find
one that lived in a
posh suburb for
$5,000. The huge
straight six will
run forever.
1999 to 2001
Isuzu
VehiCROSS
This alien rover is
a real truck, with
remote-reservoir
dampers (seen in
the Ford Raptor)
and low-range
four-wheel drive.
For about $8,000,
youll be the only
vehicle on the
block with fangs
in your grille.
Bentleys Bentayga has a 600-hp W-12.

The tailgate kit (right) is a $28,000 option.
For Bentley, committing to a truck rati is rolling out the

required some introspection. Other Levante. It has a comVolkswagen Group brands (namely pact, asphalt-oriented
Audi) have built SUVs for years, but design like the BMW
it took time for the crew from Crewe X6 and Mercedes GLE
to view a Bentley truck as anything Coupe, but with a Ferother than a sellout. Bentley already rari-built turbocharged
builds big, sumptuous cars, some of V-6 that puts zero-to-60 times in
which are the size of a truck. So why the five-second range. Adjustable
air suspension is
not build an actual
standard, so you
truck? Thats the logic
There will
can jack the ride
behind the Bentayga,
be momentary
height to an impresBentleys $230,000
cognitive
sive 9.7 inches, tall
SUV. On fast corners,
enough to a ct uelectrically actuated
discord, but
ally come in handy
split antiroll bars prowell all get
in deep snow. The
vide resistance to keep
used to it.
L eva nte sta r ts
the truck planted. At
around $72,000
slower speeds, the suspension can be set to allow extra but juicy options will quickly push
travel, for when you need to hop the it into six figures. Its the price youd
curb outside Nobu. You wouldnt expect for a Ferrari F12 Berlinetta
take it across the Rubicon Trail, thatll tow a Riva yacht.
Since not all luxury shoppers have
but then again, no other truck can
go 187mph while hand-stitched Bentley or Maserati money, Jaguar
is aiming at a more attainable price
leather seats massage your back.
Elsewhere in Europe, Ferrari is ($41,000) with the F-Pace crossover.
still insisting that it wont build an A tall wagon with a Jag badge and
SUV. To fill the Italian void, Mase- the option of a supercharged V-6 or
FUTURE
CLASSICS
90S TRUCK
EDITION
Euro-style diesel? Dealers could sell

this thing exclusively in pea green
with an orange burlap interior and
it would still double Jaguars annual
sales numbers. Between the F-Pace
and the new XE sedan, Jaguar now
has a complete lineup for the first
time since, well, ever.
The F-Pace exemplifies the benefit of corporate partnerships: With
Land Rover hawking the serious
mud-boggers, the F-Pace is free to
be a fast, rakish wagon. Jaguar, like
Bentley and Fiats Maserati, had freedom to build something unexpected
without risking the entire company.
The first time you see a 4x4
wearing a luxury badge, therell
be a momentary frisson of cognitive discord. But if the hordes of
Cayennes are any indication, well
all get used to it.
1992 to 1998
Two-Door
Chevy Blazer/
Tahoe
These big twodoor SUVs are
rugged, go
anywhere, and
embrace practicality at the
expense of style.
Find one with the
6.5-liter turbodiesel. We saw
one on eBay with
171,000 miles
for $10,200.
Soon, thatll be a
bargain.
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WITH
EZRA
DYER
Oh No! Your Car

Got Scratched!
TOUCH-UP KITS PROMISE TO ERASE
DECADES OF SCRATCHES IN AN AFTERNOON.
THEY WORK WELL. TOO WELL.
OPTIONS FOR PAINT REPAIR range from simple tinted waxes and As-SeenOn-TV miracle pens to multistage treatments matched to your cars exact color. As
someone whos capable with a wrench, I went with the latter and tested Automotive
Touchups kit on my pockmarked 1993 Ford Bronco. It costs about $50 depending on
which supplies you need, compared to $5,000 for a professional all-over repainting.
This collection of aerosol cans and sandpaper is as close as you can get to an appointment at the paint booth. Heres how it works, and whether its worth it.
As with any serious touch-up kit, there are a lot of materials. The box for my
black Bronco (color code M1724A) includes prep solvent, rubbing compound,
sandpaper of various grits, rubber gloves, a tack rag to pick up dust, pretaped
plastic to block messy overspray (like blue painters tape for your car), and cans of primer, base coat,
and clear coat. It all suggests a lot of work, which turns out to be accurate. I watch one of Automotive
Touchups how-to videos and print out the instructions. I bring everything outside, then pick the most
unsightly scratches and a rust spot on the hood. I wipe them with the solvent and rag, then tape a
perimeter to protect my cherished Eddie Bauer fender badge.
SUPPLIES
STEP 1
ABRASION
It feels very wrong to lean into
your fender with a folded piece
of 180-grit, but thats what you
have to do. You make the scratch
much, much worse before making
it better. I get big, horrible white
blotches on the Broncos fender,
door, hood, and rear quarter-panel.
But its cathartic, in a way, to grind
down to bare metal in the name of
making your car beautiful again.
STEP 2
PRIMING
On to the sprays. First is the blacktinted sandable primer. It fills in the

sandpaper scores with something
that resembles the original black,
instantly reassuring me. I add three
coats to the metal in total, waiting five to ten minutes for each to
dry before applying the next. This
is a running theme of touch-up
work: Spend two minutes painting
and then ten minutes waiting to do
another two minutes of painting. In this manner, a man
could, hypothetically, consume several Founders All
Day IPAs in the course of a job.
STEP 3
COAT I N G
Primer gives way to base coat,

which means more aerosol
cans. Each application seals in
the pigment and protective layers beneath. Between sprays,
you sand with ever-finer paper.
By the end, youre wet-sanding
with 1,500-grit, which feels
smoother than a sheet of construction paper. At each interval, you get closer to a
factory-finish gloss. The last clear coat finalizes your
work with a shiny shell.
52
STEP 4
R E S U LT S
The clear coat dries
overnight, and I hit
my handiwork with
the rubbing compound to bring out
the shine. And shine
it does, which brings
me to an unexpected dilemma: The
touch-up work looks
better than the original paint. Inevitably,
nine layers of new
paint look better
than decades-old
factory black. For
the job overall, I say,
success. In fact, too
much success. The
instructions say an
all-over wax will help
it blend. Final step:
Give it hell with the
orbital buffer and
hope it blends.
PROMOTION
Small act, big effect.

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You strap in your loved ones with a seatbelt. This
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Changing your headlamps in pairs has a big effect too.
It gives you better visibility and driving safety.
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ShurTech Brands, LLC 2016/66927
Base price: $43,575

Number of available fragrances for the in-dash
atomizer: Four.
Base price: $53,915
3 Which is how much cheaper than a

Range Rover Sport? $12,030
Base price: $17,495

Octane required by the turbocharged
engine: 87. (In other words, a turbo you
can fill up with regular.)
2016 CHEVROLET
CRUZE
MERCEDES-BENZ
C300 COUPE
2016 FORD EXPLORER

PLATINUM
Compared to the outgoing model,

the redesigned Cruze is lighter by
250 pounds, more powerful, and more efficient. Its also better-looking and has a nicer
interior and optional safety features like lanekeeping assist that you typically see on much
more expensive vehicles. Theres really not a
lot to pick on, but the Premier models trunk
badge is rendered in a cheesy font. It looks
like it belongs on a North Korean limo. Make
way for the Premier, or else!
The Cruze is now turbo-only, which means
that even the base trim levels get this wonderful setup: a 1.4-liter four-cylinder making 153
horsepower and 177 lb-ft of torque, paired
with either a six-speed manual (hooray!) or a
six-speed automatic (hooray again, because
its not a CVT). Its a quick car, and one that
gets up to 42 mpg on the highway.
The decked-out Premier model is like
a mini Cadillac, with heated leather seats
(front and rear), a heated steering wheel, and
an optional driver-assistance package that
lets you activate the lane-keeping system
with a simple button on the steering wheel
an excellent approach, because you can look
at the button and see if the systems engaged.
Chrysler recently announced that its going
to quit building the Dodge Dart. The Cruze
might be part of the reason why. Its tough to
compete with this.
Praise be to selfish glory, we have a

new coupe! Just when it seems like
every new car is an eggish crossover awash
in dreary practicality, Mercedes rolls out
a vehicle with two doors and no goal other
than to look cool. Coupes are not big sellers
and havent been since their heyday about
30 years ago. But Mercedes is committed to
this type of vehicle and I, for one, applaud it.
The previous two-door C-Class was an afterthought modification of the existing sedan,
but Mercedes designed the new C300 to be
a proper coupe. Its sleek and clean, free of
superficial creases and gaudy grates. The
rooflines arc follows an unbroken trajectory
that draws your eye along the length of the
car. It has the same wheelbase as the C-Class
sedan, but looks more compact and agile.
Right now, the C300 Coupe is available
only with a 241-hp four-cylinder, but wilder
thingsflared fender, AMG thingsare
coming. Like the four-door C-Class, the
Coupe includes a few features you see in
bigger, pricier models, like air suspension,
a Burmester sound system, natural-grain
ash-wood trim. This is the car that Mercedes
hopes will lead you up its two-door ladder, to
an E-Class or S-Class. But the Coupe could be
an end unto itself. Its a finely wrought thing
to put in your parking space, shameless and
shapely, an old idea that somehow feels new.
Ford claims that the Explorer Platinum has the most upscale interior ever
offered on a Ford vehicle in North America.
Believe it. The Ford logo on the steering wheel
is made of brushed aluminum. The front
seats, wrapped in something called Nirvana
leather, are right up there with anything in a
Bentley. They might be the most comfortable
seats Ive found in any car. And the rear ones
feature Fords inflatable air-bag seat belts.
Here we are now, please restrain us.
For 2016, all Explorers got a restyle, but a
Platinum on 20-inch wheels looks especially
like a Range Rover Sportthe ash-and-aluminum interior trim and quilted door panels
reinforce the big-bucks Euro vibe. In a welcome capitulation, Ford gave up on trying
to make the console look like an iPhone and
replaced the touchpad with hard buttons.
Power doesnt change, but the Explorer
was already dominant on that front. The
3.5-liter EcoBoost V-6, fortified with twin
turbos, makes 365 horsepower and 350 lb-ft
of torque. You pull out to pass a dawdler on a
two-lane road and find that by the time you
pull back into your own lane, youre doing 90.
This is a sneaky-fast family machine.
Now, the caveat: The Platinums base
price starts at $53,915. Yes, thats expensive for an Explorer. But its cheap for a
Range Rover.
REVIEWS
54
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Surprise! It has
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Photo provided by Thistlewood Farms, thistlewoodfarms.com
End Backbreaking Work!

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1976 Ferrari Dino 208 GT4

O W N E R:
Bradley Price
L O C AT I O N:
Brooklyn,
New York
Y E A R S O W N E D:
Three
56
T H E R E S T H I S L O R E around Italian cars, that theyre terrible to

own, that youre going to be in the
poorhouse maintaining them. In my
time as an Italian-car owner, every
mechanical issue has been a matter
of regular upkeep or something that
was not original to the carsome
maintenance that wasnt properly
done. Old cars are old cars. Keep on
top of them, and they run.
What sold me on this particular
GT4 was that the rebuilt engine had
less than 10,000 miles on it. Like
most vintage cars, you eventually
have to rebuild the motor, which
is the most expensive thing that
could happen. This one had had it
done already. It also had the European bumpers. The U.S. versions
of these cars had these big, ugly
steel bumpers. The European bumpers, however, are slender, and the
rubber is surrounded by chromed
steel. They look a thousand times
nicer and its the original design, the
way it was meant to be.
The GT4 was the only produc-
tion Ferrari designed by Bertone,

Ferrari dealers complained that
the same company that did the
it was hard to sell a car that had
Lamborghini Countach and
the Dino logo instead of the more
the Lancia Stratos. It has this
prestigious Ferrari horse. Most
folded-paper aesthetic
dealerships removed the Dino
that expresses a spebadge and put the
cific period in Italian
prancing horse
When you see
design. It doesnt look
there instead, but
Ferrari on the my car was one
like what you expect
a Ferrari to look like,
valve cover, you of the few to have
and a lot of people
both. Someone
think, This is
didnt like that. But
even sent me a
I like a car that isnt
the stuff dreams scan of the Ferrari
universally loved.
memo instructing
are made of.
Since I bought
dealers on how to
the car for under 30
drill new holes and
grand a few years ago, the markets
set the Ferrari logo above the Dino
gone crazy. You cant get the same
emblem. That explains why my car
bargain that you used to be able to.
looks the way it looks. When you
That makes it feel even more spehave something, you want to know
cial. When you see Ferrari cast
everything so you can appreciate it
into the valve cover, you think, This
from every point of view. Its uncovis the stuff dreams are made of.
ering the truth of what you own.
I obsessively read everything
I can about this car. My GT4 had
both Ferrari and Dino badges, so
I went on an internet forum and
asked why. Turns out, in the 1970s,
P H O T O G R A P H BY RYA N S H O R O S K Y
For the makers of Tidal Roots wooden stand-up paddleboards,

enjoying the boards is just as important as making them.
Photographs by
M AT T K I E D A I S C H
57
T
A
A, C Perfecting a
Process
Schaefer (above
right) and Scovill
(top, below) came
up with the skeletal
framing system at
the heart of their
SUPs, allowing for a
better balanced and
lighter board.
On Scovill: Lululemon
hoodie ($118). On
Schaefer: Patagonia
shirt ($79).
B The Hatchet
You Cant Lose
Gerber Gear, the

Portland, Oregon,
knife-maker, is
bringing its blade
expertise and
intuitive designs to
burlier equipment.
The bright handle
on the Freescape
hatchet means its
never misplaced
amid the firewood.
Gerber Gear hatchet
($62).
D Lululemon jacket
($128), Kokatat shirt
($90), Mountain
Hardwear shorts ($70),
Astral shoes ($120).
58
he guys behind Tidal Roots

spend most days in their
workshop in Rollinsford,
New Hampshire, down
the street from the Maine state line.
Kent Scovill, Kyle Schaefer, and Nate
Mattern are constantly keeping up
with orders for their white-cedar
stand-up paddleboards. But they got
into this business, which they started
in 2013, for love of the water. So, calling it a test run for their handcrafted
SUPs, theyll shoot two hours north to
a remote part of the Maine Island Trail
where theres not much around save
for a few cabins and local lobster boats
pulling up traps. Paddling out across
the brackish water to Hungry Island,
the wooden boards feel more stable
than any inflatable or foam SUP
enough so that the guys will haul their
camping equipment with them and
make a night of it. The next day theyll
be back at the shop. Its work, technically, but it sure doesnt feel like it.
About Those Boards
A finished Tidal Roots

board runs between
$3,000 and $3,600. These
are luxury items, after
all. For the handier customer, the guys sell kits
complete with framing
system and accessories.
You assemble and apply
the veneers yourself. For
more information, go to
tidalroots.com.
Patagonia hoodie ($120),
Mountain Hardwear pack
($130), Swrve shorts ($95),
Keen sandals ($100), Flylow
hat ($30).
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
On Hungry Island, fires

are allowed only below
the tide line. So when the
water goes out and the
rocks dry off, the campfire gets going.
In background: Coleman
Carlsbad fast-pitch tent
($280). On Mattern, left:
Lululemon hoodie ($118),
Patagonia shirt ($79),
Kokatat pants ($80), Superfeet sandals ($60). On
Schaefer, far right: Fjllrven
anorak ($180).
E The Natural
Scovill is a thirdgeneration woodworker

and cabinetmaker.
The guys joke that his
great-grandfather was
a cabinet.
Lululemon shirt ($78).
F REI eVent jacket ($279),

SealLine duffel ($90).
G All-American
Lifesavers
Kokatat has been making paddling apparel

and gear in the northwest corner of California
since 1971, where it
can keep a close eye on
quality control, which
is reassuring when it
comes to PFDs.
Kokatat personal flotation
devices ($99 to $150), Shaw
& Tenney paddles ($429).
H, I Dinner,
Scavenged
When the tide goes

out, the rocky shores
of Maines islands suddenly become seafood
restaurants with mussels hiding in cracks
and under limp seaweed
available for the picking.
Throw them in a Dutch
oven with a stick and
a half of butter, garlic,
wine, and water. Let them
steam open, and youve
got yourself a meal.
61
Government 5-Star Safety Ratings are part of the National Highway Traffi c Safety Administrations (NHTSAs) New Car
Assessment Program (www.safercar.gov). Tests include driver and passenger front, side and side barrier and pole tests.
SuperCab and SuperCrew when equipped

with optional forward collision warning.
64
E X C L U S IV
Hell make you laugh, hell make

you cry (from laughing), hell
make you a birdhouse. Hes
N I C K O F F E R M A N, comic star of
movies (this months The Founder)
and television (Parks and
Recreation) and proprietor of a
very, very serious woodshop.
By M at t he w B. Cr aw for d
Ph oto g ra p h s B y E m i ly Sh u r
PAGE 65
65
WHO IS
THIS GUY?
Most people know
Nick Offerman from
the NBC sitcom Parks and
Recreation (A), on which he
played an anti-government,
whiskey-and-steak-adoring
outdoorsman with a closet
full of plaid who leads a
small Indiana parks department. He won a Television
Critics Association award
for that one. Or maybe you
watched him last year, when
he donned an Amish-style
beard and became Karl
Weathers, the charmingly
drunk and loquacious town
attorney on FXs Fargo
(B). A few more places you
might have seen him:
HBOs Deadwood
21 [and 22] Jump Street
Nick Offerman: American Ham (C) (a Netflix
comedy special)
Ask This Old House (In
May 2016 he appeared
on the show to offer
woodworking tips)
Fine Woodstrip Canoe
Building With Nick
Offerman (a 2008
instructional DVD)
A
66
I stepped into the Offerman Woodshop in

East Los Angeles, I stepped into a deep hush.
The table saw sat quiet. The band saw was
motionless, and so were the peopleten of
them, variously seated or standing about.
A tense silence hung in the air. Occasional
words were exchanged in low voices. Unsure
what I had stumbled into, I made a discreet inquiry of the person
nearest me. It seemed the bird was not having a good day. The bird
is not a typical feature of the shop. It was a prop for the photo shoot,
and luckily something I had nothing to do with, so I edged my way
past an outfeed table and toward a rack of Bessey clamps. A shopbuilt canoe hung from the rafters, and all manner of knick-knackery
adorned the walls. Half a dozen people work here in a co-op arrangement: A woman named Lee runs the place, and each of the members
takes his or her own commissions. The shared facility makes for constant collaboration and a camaraderie that you can feel when you
walk through the open bay doorat least when theres not a photo
shoot going on.
Nick Offerman learned basic woodworking
skills from his father, uncles, and grandfathers. As a teenager in small-town Illinois he
earned spending money by framing houses. In
college, where he studied theater, he supported
himself by working at the University of Illinois
scenery shop. After school he moved to Chicago
and opened his own woodshop, building sets
and scenery for local theaters while pursuing
acting gigs of his own. When his career took
him to Los Angeles in the late 1990s, he supplemented his acting paychecks with money
he earned building decks and cabins. Then, in
2001, he opened Offerman Woodshop.
By that point, woodworking was more of a
passion than a necessary income. Offermans
acting career, which he refers to as his clowning
career, flourished. Small roles in movies turned
into small roles in movies and TV. And then he
got the role that most of us know him by: Ron
Swanson, the bighearted and tight-lipped antigovernment outdoorsman who leads a small
Indiana parks department on the NBC sitcom
Parks and Recreation.
After the shoot, the bird apparently satisfied
and under control, Offerman came over to say
hello. His manner is warm and gentlemanly.
Hospitable. He has the confidence to execute
a certain formality without embarrassment.
We sat on the table saw, a SawStop Professional
Cabinet Saw. It took only the first five minutes
of conversation to see that Offerman is someone you wouldnt mind working alongside for
eight hours a day. Hes not an actor in a woodshop. Hes a woodworker in a woodshop. And
though he is primarily known for his comedy,
in person he is a serious man who cares deeply
about wood, craftsmanship, and the kind of

community that becomes possible among people dedicated to doing good work.
Offerman and his crew have become known
for their tables topped by massive slabs that the
shop mills from trees that have come down in
storms or been removed from construction
sites. This is wood that would otherwise be
discarded, but Offerman prefers it to hardware-store lumber. For him, this method of
sourcing is part of a larger philosophy that
informs the work of the shop: salvaging something beautiful from societys waste.
As the photo crew bustled about, packing
up after a five-hour shoot, Nick and I moved to
another part of the shop. This room was dominated by layout tables, workbenches, and
stacks of those massive slabs of beautiful wood,
standing on edge. The high-pitched whine of a
table saw filtered in from the adjoining room
as the shop got back to work. (Theres nothing
like the threat of sawdust to get photo equipment packed up quickly.)
Offerman began talking about making
furniture. At one point, he mentioned something he calls delicious living, which seems
to include the cultivation of certain pleasuresthe kind that express a persons taste for
self-relianceand a spirit of gratitude toward
others. His voice is one of gravelly gravitas,
occasionally punctuated by a deranged-sounding giggle. The giggle seems to erupt from a
deep place, the commentary of an inner minime who is bemused by whatever the public
face of Nick Offerman has just said. That giggle showed up a few times as he answered my
questions.
NICKS NEW MOVIE

In The Founder (out August 5),
Offerman plays Dick McDonald, one of
the two brothers who founded the McDonalds hamburger chain before, as the movie
tells it, the company was stolen by businessman Ray Kroc. Offermans character
is a surprising combination of two apparently conflicting mindsets: an engineer who
wants to maximize hamburger-making efficiency but who also cares about the quality
of the food. Its gooda quiet rebuke to
foodies who think technology can only vandalize the things we care aboutalthough
it might make you rethink your next trip to
the drive-through.
At one point in your new book, you mention

that by becoming proficient with tools youve
been able to earn a living, and also that using
tools has taught you a way of living.
Choosing to make things, or having the skills

to fix things in your life, whether its your
vehicles or your home or your clothingthats
what I mean by a way of living. Because of the
way I was brought up, Ive always been surrounded by skills. When something is broken
or there is some sort of deficit, I dont think,
Who am I going to call? My first thought is,
How am I going to fix this? And that cant

help but infect the rest of my life. It makes
me much happier.
ter off getting out a map and looking up your

route instead of depending on a robot to just
blindly guide you.
Do you think people are becoming more

passive and dependent?
Taking things in for yourself offers a kind

of satisfaction that isnt available any
other way.
I hate to think there are corporate minds

actually plotting to use human nature
against us to make money. But whether its
on purpose or not, the world of global industrialization is capitalizing on that part of
human nature. Those of us in the know
understand that in the long run youre bet-
And Popular Mechanics is at the root of

it. If the sh-- goes down, and all of the grid
goes downwhich, you know, its made by
humans so it well might [deranged-sounding giggle] come screeching to a haltits
those thinkers who cant help but still know
His third book, Good Clean Fun: Misadventures in Sawdust at

Offerman Woodshop, comes out October 18. In it Offerman offers
NICKS
detailed projects, shop tips and tricks, wider reflections on his career
NEW BOOK
and craftsmanship, and stories of some of the grab-ass and tomfoolery that happens at the woodshop during the off-hours. During
the on-hours, too. Youll learn from all of the craftspeople who build
at the woodshop, including Offermans father and brother. He goes
through the basics of setting up your shop and the tools you need, offering insight and wisdom
for any level of craftsman. Through it all, he constantly comes back to one thing: Offerman
really loves wood. By the time youre finished, you will too.
67
W H AT IS T H E
OF F ERM A N
W OODSHOP ?
In 2001, before Offerman could pay the bills by being an actor, he opened his eponymous
woodshop in an industrial stretch of East Los Angeles. He built furniture commissions,
trestle tables out of tree slabs, and canoes. When his career took off a few years later, he
brought on a manager to keep the shop running, along with half a dozen other craftspeople.
You can buy whiskey coasters, slab coffee tables, a hand-turned baseball bat, a Build Your
Own D-mn Stool Kit, and even something they call a pixel plinth at offermanwoodshop.com.
how everything works, even though were no

longer required to. I try to maintain a preparedness for just that occasion. Its why I
maintain my education in tool use, why I
learned how to build boats. I havent fully
memorized this set of plans for a water wheel
68
to power a shop full of tools but Ive got a

pretty good grasp on it.
Are you seriously going to make a water
wheel?
If the sh-- goes down, yeah.

But youd need water. Youre in L.A.
[Giggle] Id have to head north.

The following day, I met Nick and his crew
at Augustus F. Hawkins High School in a less
affluent neighborhood of South Central Los
Angeles. They were there to install some
flower beds the shop had made out of red-
WHY ARE
THEY AT A
HIGH
SCHOOL?
Whenever possible, Popular Mechanics likes to pair

people who build things with
organizations in their communities that need things built. In
this case, Offerman and his crew
donated their time and the necessary materials to make six raised
redwood flower beds for the
students at Augustus F. Hawkins
High School in South Central Los
Angeles. Not only did the kids get
the chance to learn basic woodworking skills, improvisation, and
problem-solving from professionals, now they have a great place to
grow vegetables.
wood. (See page 70 to learn how to build them yourself.)

The students would use them to grow vegetables. This
type of community involvement is a regular thing for the
Offerman Woodshop. (In fact, when Popular Mechanics suggested the possibility of building something for a
local group, the woodshop suggested Hawkins High. They
already had a relationship with the school.) As I watched
these tradespeople instruct the kids in basic skills such as
using a handsaw, and demonstrate the spirit of improvisation and problem-solving, I was reminded of something
Nick had said the day before. He was describing the ancient
practice of coppicing, which means managing a stand of
trees with a view to eventually harvesting the wood for
building. Its a long game, he said. Theres a stewardship involved. Youre part of a cycle that hopefully will be
unending. There was no giggle.
A B OU T
THE
AU T HOR
Matthew
Crawford
is the author of
Shop Class as
Soulcraft: An
Inquiry Into the
Value of Work,
which explores
the diminishing
popularity of
trades in favor
of office jobs. A
former electrician, Crawford
is now a motorcycle-parts
fabricator and
a research
fellow at the
University of
Virginia. Offerman has listed
Shop Class as
Soulcraft as
one of his alltime favorite
books, so we
thought the
two of them
might get
along.
To learn how
to build these
flower beds
yourself, turn to
PAGE 70.
69
Sure, you dont have to make anything anymore, what with 3D printing,
apps that instantly hire handymen, and online stores that sell nearly everything.
But then youd miss out on one of the greatest joys of being human:
the satisfaction that comes with standing back, wiping the sweat from your brow,
and admiring something you created out of nothing. Whether its as ambitious
as a 4,000-pound telescope (page 72) or as simple as a lamp made out of an old whiskey
bottle (page 79), go out and build something. That rush of pride you get when
you use something you made yourself just doesnt come with one-click shopping.
MATERIALS
RAISED
FLOWER BED
70
SHOPPING LIST
QTY
DESCRIPTION
USE
QTY
DESCRIPTION
2" x 4" x 94"

redwood cap
sides
2" x 4" x 10' redwood
2" x 4" x 50"

redwood cap
ends
2" x 6" x 96"

redwood
side
panels
32
2" x 6" x 48"

redwood
end
panels
Spax No. 10 x 3"

exterior/deck screws,
flat-head
4" x 4" x 24"

redwood
posts
6' x 10' length of

filter fabric
box " galvanized

staples
T Y P O G R A P H Y BY S P O O K Y P O O K A ; I L LU S T R AT I O N S BY J O N G R A N T
BY JAMES SCHADEWALD
Spindle sanders are indispensable tools

for fine woodwork with curved surfaces.
But they can be unnecessarily pricey,
especially considering that the motor in
a $30 blender can match the motor in a $100
spindle sander in horsepower and rpm. A
blender even has prewired speed controls.
MATERIALS
blender
1" drum sanding kit
4' of 1" x 10" x 8' poplar
board
" plywood project sheet
laminate (optional)
shaft coupler
J-B Weld
wood glue
finishing nails
1. Remove the control panel

(speed-control buttons) and
motor (in its mounting bracket)
from the blender. Keep track
of any disconnected wires and
save the fasteners that held the
motor in place. Use a coping
saw or a hot knife to cut out the

faceplate for the control panel.
2. Cut four ten-inch lengths of

poplar. On one piece, trace and
cut out the shape of the control
panel. On another, drill a hole
large enough to fit the power
cord, then drill additional holes
for ventilation.
3. The control panel is often

wider than the faceplate, so
cut a piece of laminate to put
between the controls and
faceplate. Mount both in the
control-panel hole. Use wood
glue and finishing nails to
assemble the four pieces of
poplar into a box.
4. Determine the size of the
motor and sanding-drum shaft,
1. To form a side panel, place two 24-inch

lengths of 4 x 4 parallel to each other on the
ground, 96 inches apart. Rest an eight-foot
2 x 6 across both boards so that the side of
the 2 x 6 is flush with the end grain of the
4 x 4 at the top and the end grain of the 2 x 6
is flush with the side of the 4 x 4. Affix the
2 x 6 to the 4 x 4s using two lag screws per
side, 1 inches from the top or bottom of
the board. Repeat with a second 2 x 6, adding a quarter-inch below the first. Do this
process again to form the other side panel.
2. Place the two side panels parallel to

each other, 48 inches apart, with the 4 x 4s
P H OTO G R A P H BY L E V I B R O W N
then attach them with a screwon shaft coupler of appropriate

size. For added strength, put a
little J-B Weld on each shaft.
5. Cut a 16-by-16-inch piece

from the 3/4-inch plywood and
drill a two-inch hole on center
for the sanding drum to protrude through. Hold the motor/
sander assembly in position and
measure the distance from the
motor-mounting bracket to the
plywood. Cut wood spacers to
this size and attach them to the
plywood.
6. Use the original mounting

hardware to mount the motor
on the spacers, making sure the
sander is centered in the twoinch hole. Reconnect all wiring,
securing loose or hanging wires
pointing up. Attach the 48-inch 2 x 6s to the

4 x 4s using lag screws to form the other
sides of the planter. Make sure the end grain
of the 2 x 6 is flush with the side of the 4 x 4.
to the side of the box, where

they wont interfere with the
motor. Glue the plywood top
onto the poplar box.
staple along the top of the upper 2 x 6s.

Remove any excess with a utility knife.
4. Place the planter in the holes. Grade as
6. Place the 50-inch 2 x 4s on top of the

shorter sides of the planter. Their sides and
ends should hang one inch over the sides of
the planter, creating a lip. Place the 94-inch
2 x 4s on the longer sides of the planter in
a similar fashion. After ensuring that the
boards meet neatly, attach to the frame
using exterior-grade wood screws.
necessary so that the bottom 2 x 6s rest on

the ground and fill in the holes.
7. Fill the planter with slightly less than
5. Line the planter with filter fabric and
one cubic yard (0.8) of topsoil or planting

mixture.
3. Flip the planter so it rests on the 4 x 4 feet

and place it in the desired location. Mark the
feet in the dirt, move the planter, and dig
four holes, approximately 12 inches deep.
71

2016
BY JUSTIN NOBEL
stronomers call it first lightthe moment when

someone looks into a new telescope and up into
the heavens for the very first time. Its a huge
deal. And for multimillion-dollar telescopes, its
treated that way. Back in 2012, the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona, threw a sold-out gala
with a keynote speech by Neil Armstrong to show
off the first-light photos taken with its new $53
million telescope. And when the first-light pho-
72
tos from the Hubble were released in May 1990,

it was international news.
Yet there were no champagne toasts on that
summer night in suburban Salt Lake City in
2013. No black ties or guests of honor. Just Mike
Clements, then a 50-year-old man with messy
gray hair, dressed in a work shirt and blue jeans,
standing in an overgrown field next to the telescope hed spent the last two years building.
T Y P O G R A P H Y BY S P O O K Y P O O K A ; P H OTO G R A P H BY R YA N S C H U D E
With its 70-inch

mirror, Clements's
telescope is the
largest ever built
by a lone amateur.
Not that anyone would have recognized it as a

telescope. It looked more like a jury-rigged oil
derrick. Thirty-five feet tall. Four thousand
pounds1,000 of those for the collapsible steel
frame, cut by a local fabricator, and 900 for the
70-inch mirror. Clements drove a truck for a living. He had no physics or astronomy training,
no formal engineering skills. He didnt even
have blueprints for the telescopejust one tiny
I L LU S T R AT I O N BY J O N G R A N T
model he made out of Popsicle sticks. But if the

damn thing worked, if he climbed his 14-foottall orchard ladder and looked into the eyepiece
and actually saw something 5,000 light-years
away, he would make history: the largest amateur telescope ever built by a single individual.
(In 1845, an Irish earl built a telescope with
a 72-inch mirror. But that was with a team of
hired workmen.)
There was no complicated tracking system.
The telescope sat on a round metal disk, like a
gigantic lazy Susan. Clements spun it by hand
to the desired position. Then, using two handles
made out of bicycle handlebar grips, he pointed
it at the Swan Nebula, a star nursery in the Sagittarius region of the Milky Way.
I couldnt even speak, he says. The view
was staggering. Tiny intense star images
marooned in a lagoon of nebulosity. I thought,
If I never look through this telescope again my
journey has been worth it.
That journey began in Los Angeles in the late
1960s, when Clementss parents took him to
the Griffith Observatory. He built his first telescope out of a toilet-paper tube and his fathers
eyeglasses, and at the age of 22 joined the Santa
Monica Amateur Astronomy Club. The groups
100-plus members gathered in the remote mountains northwest of L.A. and blasted new age
music from their cars as they pointed their telescopes at the night sky. Even by the standards
of that group, Mike stood out as an interesting
character, says club member Joshua Roth, who
at the time was pursuing a Ph.D. at Caltech. Roth
still remembers the day Clements drove up in his
Toyota Corolla, opened the trunk, and assembled
a telescope with a 22-inch-diameter mirror. The
typical mirror for an amateur reflecting telescope is around ten inches.
Getting big glass to build big telescopes takes
money. Clements had dropped out of a UCLA
Ph.D. programWhile the professor was
droning on, I would be sitting there designing
telescopes in my head, he saysand was without a steady paycheck until a friend suggested
truck driving. It turned out to be the perfect
jobgood pay and all those hours with nothing
to do but steer and dream up telescope plans.
Envisioning a machine that could transport
him to the outer depths of the solar system, that
could outdo all those insanely expensive telescopes built by teams of engineers with fancy
titles after their names. Amazing what the
human mind is capable of when freed up behind
the wheel of a truck hauling frozen tater tots.
Clements eventually built a 41-incher, nearly
half the size of the Hubbles 94.5-inch mirror
and about as large a telescope mirror as an amateur can buy. Then in 2004 he got a call from an
astronomer friend in Utah. The guy had gotten
WN
R O OPE
U
YO E S C
L
TE
BY JOHN WEIS, NASA
EDUCATOR PROFESSIONAL
DEVELOPMENT SPECIALIST
AT TEXAS STATE UNIVERSITY
1 THE LENSES
Buy two lensesone convex with a

focal length of 20 cm, and one concave
with a focal length of 5 cm. (Available
at amazon.com.) The concave lens
should have a smaller diameter.
2 THE TUBE
Buy a telescoping mailing tubethe

kind with an inner tube that slides out
for larger documents. (Available at
most office-supply stores.) Cut the
inner and outer tubes to six inches
each. This will put your lenses near the
correct position to focus.*
3 THE LENS FRAMES
Cut a circle of manila paper to the

diameter of each tube. Cut out the
center of the circles so that the lenses
fit in them. Using rubber cement, glue
the paper onto the lenses.
4 THE EYEPIECE
Glue the smaller lens to the end of

the interior tube. This is the eyepiece.
Glue the larger lens to the other end,
with the curve to the outside. To focus,
look at a distant object through the
eyepiece and slide the tubes until the
image is clear.
Convex lens
with 20 cm
focal length
Manilapaper lens
frames
Telescoping
mailing tube
Concave lens
with 5 cm
focal length
*For a stronger telescope, buy

a convex lens with a larger focal
length. Add this length to the 5 cm
of the concave lens, divide the
number by 2 and add 1 to it. That
number, in inches, is the length of
the inner and outer tubes.
73

2016
hold of a 70-inch, footthick mirror that was
supposed to be used in a Cold War spy satellite
but had been chipped in manufacturing and
mothballed ever since.
Clements wont say how much the mirror cost
him, but it was enough that it took him two years
to pay it off. It took another six for him to save the
money to build the rest of the telescope. Finally,
in early 2012, he got to work. Clements lived in a
small apartment complex, so a pair of married
friends let him use their garage and driveway for
his workshop. For 18 months, every Sundayhis
only day offhe was out there. Blazing heat, bitter cold, pouring rain. Every Sunday.
The project became a whirling set of logistical hurdles. I didnt just build a telescope, he
says. I built a telescope assembly and disassembly system. To make the 1,000-pound frame, he
also had to make his own crane, secured to the
hitch of his rusty Chevy pickup. To attach the
1,300-pound, seven-by-seven-foot steel box that
holds the mirror, he first had to teach himself to
weld. To apply the reflective silver nitrate solution to the mirrora procedure that wouldve
cost thousands of dollars if done professionallyhe used a weed sprayer. For the precarious
job of attaching the mirror to the frame, he built
a second cranea ten-foot-tall wooden gantry.
One wrong move and the whole thing would fall
to the ground and shatterClementss dreams
with it. My heart stopped a number of times
during that, he says.
While its first light went uncelebrated, the
telescope was soon hailed by astronomy experts
like David DeVorkin, senior curator at the
National Air and Space Museum, who called it
wonderfully ingenious. And if its optics fall
short of the Hubble and other multimilliondollar telescopes, well, it can do something that
those instruments (which are designed solely for
capturing far-off photographs) cannot: allow a
person to look through it. Direct visual observation of the universe with human eyeballs,
Clements says. That is what its all about.
And so he plans to take the telescope on the
road, letting people see lagoons of nebulosity
for themselves. First, though, he needs a special
trailer. Hes building it right now.
TELESCOPE continued
Rocket stoves are highly efficient, thanks to a strong

draft. Sticks and leaves produce a flame hot enough to
boil water or cook breakfast. And they can be easily
built with three concrete blocks, two pavers, and a brick.
Just add a trivet or burner grate as a cooking surface.
1. On flat ground, lay one block with the holes facing out.
2. Stand another block vertically against the end of that first block.
3. Form an H-shape with the brick and pavers on top of the first block.
The brick standing on end should be the same height as the pavers
standing on their sides. (Approximately eight inches for standard bricks.)
4. Stack the final block on top of the H-shape.
5. Build your fire in the top hole nearest the vertical block.
A shot glass of whiskey dropped into a beer is a corner-bar classic. But with so many craft breweries and distilleries, the
boilermaker deserves an update. Guy Smith, bartender at the Good King Tavern in Philadelphia, offers three new templates.
BOI
74
LER
K
MA
ER
Wheaty beer
+ bittersweet
aperitif
Salty and sour

gose beer + grassy,
peppery tequila
T RY Allagash White
T RY Anderson Valley
and Aperol. Tart flavor

with a full-bodied
richness from the beer.
and Espoln Blanco.

Salty and citrusy. Drink
with oysters.
Piney, hoppy IPA

+ juniper-heavy gin
T RY Stillwater Stereo
and Bluecoat. The
resinous similarities
build on each other.
Perfect for summer.
A lot of porch swings involve elaborate woodworking with dado joints, half-laps, and
the like. But not this one. We tried to make it as simple as possible. Just cut the pieces,
and assemble as shown. The only tools youll need are a circular saw and a drill.
MATERIALS
KEY
QTY
DESCRIPTION
11
1" x 4" x 47" slat
2" x 4" x 26"

back support
5/4" x 4" x 19"

armrest
2" x 4" x 12"

armrest support
2" x 4" x 61"

bottom support
1" x 4" x 45" front

rail
2" x 4" x 211/4"

seat support
No. 8 x 11/2"
wood screw
A
B
No. 10 x 3"
wood screw
Eyebolt
Slat
overlaps
3/4"
G
C
SHOPPING LIST
QTY
DESCRIPTION
1" x 4" x 8' cedar
2" x 4" x 8' cedar
5/4" x 4" x 8' cedar
-20 x 5" wire eyebolt
" x 1" fender washer
-20 nut
21/2" open S-hook
5/16" quick-link chain

connector
2-bolt swing hangers
5/16-18 x 3" hex bolts,

washers, and nuts
3/8" x 4" carriage bolts
3/0 chain, length

to suit
box Spax No. 8 x 11/2" flathead exterior wood screw
box Spax No. 10 x 3" flathead exterior wood screw
quart exterior wood stain
bottle exterior wood glue
1. Crosscut supports for the seat back

and seat. Bore holes for bolts and
screws as shown. Spread glue at connection points between the supports,
F
D
Eyebolt
then bolt together to form the frame.

Apply stain.
E
Notch 11/2 x 4"
2. Crosscut seat slats, arms, arm supports, front rail, and bottom support.
Apply stain on all surfaces.
3. Fasten seat slats, arm supports,

arms, and bottom support as
shown.
4. Mount the ceiling supports on

rafters or floor joists above your
swing. Depending on the amount of
weight you want your swing to
support, you can use lag screws and
swing swivels screwed vertically
into the joists. But for optimal safety,
we recommend through-bolting to
2 x 6 blocking. Over time, a lag screw
can loosen. A through-bolted
connection never will.
Back tilts at 83
5. Install swing hangers and mounting

hardware on the swing as shown. To
estimate your chain length, test-hang
the swing using rope.
6. Take the swing down, cut the chain

to length, and install.
75

2016
BY BEN KAUFMAN, BEVERAGE DIRECTOR AT BARANO RESTAURANT IN BROOKLYN
Like root beer? No, you dont. Because youve never had it. The stuff
that comes in cans in the grocery store, with the high fructose corn
syrup, sodium benzoate, and caramel colorthat isnt the real thing.
INGREDIENTS
1 licorice root
(1/8-inch)*
1 tsp sassafras extract
1/2 cup sarsaparilla root*
3 cups demerara sugar
1 vanilla bean
1/8 cup chopped
golden raisins
1/16 tsp nutmeg
1/4 cup juniper berries
1/2 cup cherry bark*
1/2 cup dried wintergreen leaves
tsp salt
11/3 cup honey
2/3 cup grade-A darkamber maple syrup
cup molasses
tsp yeast
5 flip-top 500-ml
bottles
INSTRUCTIONS
1. In a ten-quart stockpot, bring 30 cups
sealed, move them to a dark, cool (55 to

68 degrees) room.
water to a boil.
2. Add dry ingredients and reduce temperature to a slow simmer.
3. Add honey, syrup, and molasses and stir.

Simmer for 30 minutes.
4. Turn off the stove and allow the liquid to
cool for 11/2 to two hours.
5. Add yeast, stirring well.
6. Line a funnel with cheesecloth. Ladle the
liquid through the funnel and into the fliptop bottles.
7. Once all the bottles are filled and
8. The yeast will activate and ferment

the sugars in the bottles while they rest.
In 2 to 3 days the fermentation process
will have created natural carbonation.
(Note: Fermenting does create very small
amounts of alcoholless than that found
in nonalcoholic beer.)
9. Pop open a bottle at the end of the

second day. If you detect carbonation
a consistent fizzle soundmove the
bottles to the refrigerator. The cold air
will neutralize the yeast and stop the
fermentation.
10. Let the bottles chill to drinking temperature and enjoy.
AW
S
G
JI ZZLE
PU
1.
Choose an image for
your puzzle. Keep in
mind that images without major variations
in color or texture are
harder to solve. Print
the image on an 8 x 10
sheet of photo paper
using your home printer.
(For printing larger or
high-resolution puzzles,
you're better off going
to an office-supply
store.)
2.
Using a light layer of
spray adhesive, paste
the image to a samesize piece of 1/8-inch
chipboarda dense,
recycle-friendly cardboard. Let the adhesive
dry, then seal the image
to the chipboard with
protective photo-safe
coating such as Krylons
Preserve It spray.
3.
Let the lacquer set
for a few hours. In the
meantime, create the
puzzle template. On
another piece of 8 x 10
paper draw a grid of
1 x 1-inch squares.
(This equals about 80
pieces. Puzzles under
100 pieces are easy
to solve. For more of
a challenge, make the
squares smaller.) Use
dotted lines for the
squares. Then, in solid
lines, draw ball-andsocket shapes on the
borders of the squares.
4.
Attach the template
to the back of the
chipboard with doublesided tape. Then use an
X-Acto knife to cut out
the puzzle pieces.
*Available at starwest-botanicals.com Available at amazon.com
76
Using found supplies and a few basics

from the hardware store, we built a live
baitwell for a season of fishing in the
lake behind our house. BY C.J. CHIVERS
A S L ONGER DAYS A N D
rising temperatures warmed the
lake behind our house this spring,
and the lakes fish, frogs, and reptiles gathered in the nearest cove,
three of my boys began scouring
the shallows for prey, using dip
nets and minnow traps to capture all manner of life. Soon they
had an assortment of creatures
in aquariums in one of their bedrooms and a proposal for their
parents to consider: Can we build
large outdoor tanks to keep bait
alive and ready for fishing season? The lakes largemouth bass
and pickerel, they said, would be
more likely to strike fish from
their own habitatbait that also
happens to be free.
The idea had merit, as long as
costs could be contained. And so
we took it on.
Mick, who is 14, did the planning. First he took stock of what
was already available at home or
on our next-door neighbors propertya pair of plastic lobster-bait
barrels that we had picked up over
the years, several old pressuretreated 4 x 4s, an abundance of
six-foot slats from a fallen cedar
fence, a rectangular plastic basin
about 16 inches deep, boxes of
varied fasteners, a slightly bent
roll of galvanized wire mesh,
about four feet of white polymer
trim board, and a small pile of
30-inch lichen-encrusted drops
from a dock built years ago with
composite deck boards.
He then set to sketching a
design and compiling a list of
what we would need to finish the
job. His plan called for shortening the height of the barrels
and securing them in a simple
wooden-and-composite-board
frame. The rectangular basin
would be seated between them.
It would be divided into three
chambers and serve as the sys-
Water flowing out now matched water

flowing inan important point,
or the center basin would end
up dry and the pump dead.
tems heart. One chamber would

receive outflow from the bait barrels, another would be filled with
gravel for filtering, and a third
would house a pump, which would
send freshly filtered water back
into the two barrels via hoses
joined at a T-junction. The system
would run in a figure-eight loop,
with the pump powered by an
outdoor outlet at a tool shed, next
to which the apparatus would be
built. I offered one modification:
Why not place a portion of the
tanks below grade, in the cooler
earth, to keep the water from
overheating on hot days? My wife
required another: a child-safe top.
To complete such a system,
we bought several items from
the lumberyard and pet-supply

storea pair of pressure-treated
studs (rated for ground contact), a
bag of clean gravel, a 500-gallonsper-hour electric pump, and a
tube of aquarium-grade silicone. A stop in the plumbing aisle
yielded hoses and fittings to connect it all together.
The early stages of the project went smoothly. I trust Mick
with tools, and he knows how
to use many of them quite well.
With a jigsaw he reduced the barrel heights, then measured their
diameters, and with the miter
saw cut pieces of pressure-treated
studs for a frame. The dock drops
were refashioned as side braces
that matched the barrels con-
tours, holding things snug. Next

he cut the composite trim board
into panels to divide the basins
interior. Once he secured them
with silicone, the filter was in
place, with gravel in the center
compartment.
The work became trickier as
Mick shifted to the plumbing. In
a perfect world everything would
fit and be level, allowing the pump
and gravity to work in practice as
they had in design. But as we dug
the holes where the tanks would
sit we were surprised by what we
should have expected: a thick tree
root. This caused one tank to sit
higher than the other. The plumbing holes were no longer level with
each other. An afternoon of juryrigging ensued, as we cut fresh
drainage with a holesaw and
tinkered with hose lengths and
placement until the flow into the
barrels was equalized. We added
another pair of drainage pipes to
achieve equilibrium between the
pump and the barrels drainage.
Water flowing out now matched
water flowing inan important
point, or the center basin would
end up dry and the pump dead.
The child-safe top was formed
by making a lattice with fence
slats, which sandwiched the
wire mesh, and then building
a 2 x6 pressure-treated frame
that stood on post legs just above
the height of the tanks. A pair of
aged door hinges provided the last
touch, allowing the lattice lid to be
opened and closed like the lid on
a huge cooler. This would do more
than stop small children, it would
discourage thieving raccoons.
Our bait tanks were done,
ready for use.
The next day, when I checked
on the pump, I saw the first fish
swimming inside, along with
a painted turtle. The boys had
already been busy.
77

2016
Each batch of steel
was heated to 2,800
degrees at the Beaver
Valley Alloy Foundry in
Monaca, Pennsylvania.
BY KEVIN DUPZYK
torpedo on land. That was

the Pennsylvania Railroad
T1 steam locomotive. The
dual-engine, 6,110-hp train
could hit 140 mph, only 10
mph slower than the fastest American passenger trains today. Then diesel came along,
cheaper and lower maintenance, and the
steam era suddenly ended. In the 1950s the
T1s were scrapped. In 2013, a group of people who call themselves railfans formed the
nonprofit T1 Steam Locomotive Trust. Their
mission is to build a new T1and to give it
the attention and place in history they say it
deserves. But to resurrect the train, they first
78
had to resurrect the steel that built it.

The alloy originally used to build the T1s
was a nickel steel cast by a now-defunct Pennsylvania company, General Steel Castings.
The trust was able to find the recipe, but no one
had poured it in 40 years, so they resorted to
trial and error. A foundry outside Pittsburgh,
Beaver Valley Alloy, had the expertise and
the Pennsylvania heritage for the job. It heattreated the original recipe with a two-part
process of normalizingheating the steel to
a critical point, then letting it air cooland
drawing (a second, lower-temperature heating). Then it tested the results for hardness by
pressing a diamond-tipped rod into the steel
and measuring the resulting indentations. To

fine-tune tensile strength and elongation rate
(how much the steel stretches before breaking), a separate lab put foot-long test bars of the
steel through a battery of medieval tortures.
Over six long months, samples went to the
lab and were tested. The steel was constantly
repoured and heat-treated in slight variations
until it was perfect: held at a peak normalization temperature of 1,310 degrees Fahrenheit.
The train wont be finished until 2030, but in
February the trust cast the first of eight drivewheels. It was an impressive specimen: 80
inches in diameter. Its the first such drivewheel made in America in 70 years.
P H OTO G R A P H BY R YA N S C H U D E ; T Y P O G R A P H Y BY S P O O K Y P O O K A
STRAIGHT LINE
A simple guide to the tools used for one of the most

fundamental steps of anything you make.
NO. 2 PENCIL
Used on: Paper,
wood, concrete
Hold the pencil at a
45-degree angle from
the surface you need
to mark. Keeping the
pencil perpendicular
to your straightedge,
with your hand resting
on the surface, slide
your hand toward you.
MARKING
GAUGE
Used on: Wood
A sliding fence rides
along a rod with a steel
pin in it. The distance
from the fence to the pin is how far
the line will be from a boards edge.
Loosen the thumbscrew that holds
the fence to the rod. Move the
fence until the pin is at the desired
distance and lock the thumbscrew. Butt the fence against the
board and pull toward you. The pin
will want to move with the grain,
forcing the fence away from the
boards edge, so youll need to apply
pressure against the fence to keep it
sliding smoothly.
E
ISK
WH RCH
TO
When youve polished

off a nicely shaped bottle
of whiskey (or your preferred drink), wash it and
peel off the label. Fill it
halfway with tiki-torch
fuel. Feed a fiberglass
tiki wick through a small
copper coupling (1/2 to 5/8
inch). Fit this into a larger
coupling (5/8 to 3/4 inch).
Place this in the mouth of
the bottle. Set it on your
patio table, light the wick,
and open another bottle.
TO R C H : P H OTO G R A P H BY L E V I B R O W N
LASER
Used on: Floors
and walls
Lasers are useful for marking
longer spans or, if
the laser rotates quickly enough
on its tripod, projecting a line
around an entire room. This is
helpful for setting a chair rail or
suspended ceiling, even if the
floor is not perfectly level.
MARKING KNIFE
Used on: Wood
Its lines cant be
smudged, and the
groove of the line gives
you a place to rest a
chisel or seat a saw.
Place the tip of the marking knife
against a square. The flat side
should face the finished side of the
cut, and the bevel should face the
waste side. Draw the knife along
the square to mark your line.
CHALK LINE
Used on: Wood,
concrete
A chalk line is an
enclosed spool of string
with a hook at one end.
Every time you pull the
line off the spool, you run it through
a powdered chalk reservoir.
First, use a carpenters pencil to
make two marks where you want
the line. Place the hook of the line on
the mark at the edge of the surface,
or tap in a nail and hook the line over
that. Pay out the line to the other
mark and hold it tightly against the
surface. Pluck the line straight up.
When you let go, it will snap down
and leave a crisp straight line.
LAYOUT
DYE AND A
CARBIDE-TIPPED
SCRIBE
Used on: Metal
Layout dye is a fast-drying blue,
black, or red ink. When you cut
through it, the scratched metal
leaves a bright, high-contrast line
against the dye.
To use it, first brush on the fluid.
Then cut through the dye and
down to the metal by running a
carbide-tipped scribe along a metal
straightedge. The carbide tip is
hard and sharp enough to mark any
metal, even hardened steel and cast
iron. If youre marking aluminum, an
ordinary steel awl also works.
GUITAR
Or, in this case, have one made for you

by one of the best guitar-makers in the
world. Musician Ben Harper describes
the work that will go into the guitar
currently being made for him by John
Monteleone in Islip, New York.
John Monteleones instruments are like hens teeth

out in the wild. This will be the first carved-top lap
steel guitar that I know of. The difference between
a flat-topped and a carved-topped guitar is the effort that goes into making the carved top. A
good guitar top should be in the vicinity of an eighth of an inch thick. With a flat top, you plane
the wood flat. A carved top starts with the same block of wood, but the contour is meticulously
shaped with chisels and sandpaper.
The top should be made of cedar or spruce. Spruce is a magical wood. Its a soft, sponge-like
wood. It breathes. Maple and rosewood are more rigid, so theyre better for the body. They make a
great resonance chamber, but for the top, they cant move with the strings like spruce can. Spruce
is hard enough to withstand the 100-plus pounds of pressure that the strings exert, but soft
enough to move and vibrate with them.
The process, which will take the better part of a year, starts with the backside, top, and single
board. For the backside, maple is a go-to for projection, clarity, and resonance. You can also use
Brazilian rosewood, but that is protected and hard to get. The wood for the sides of the guitar is
soaked and steamed so it is as hot and damp as you can get it. Then it is bent with a mold that is
the outer shape of the instrument. Boy, that is a task.
As told to Mark Warren
79

2016
K
C
E
D AY
TR
Increase the
usable space
on your deck by
making a tray
for your railing,
with rotating
tabs to secure
it underneath.
BY JAMES
SCHADEWALD
A good wall is two things: straight and flat.

Heres how to make yours both.
1. Use a level to mark a plumb line
on the existing wall at the point
at which the new wall will meet it.
Have a helper hold a tape measure
where the line hits the floor and,
using a framing square to ensure a
90-degree corner, extend the tape
measure to the point on the floor
where the new wall will end. Mark
that end point and a few spots along
the tape measure on the floor.
MATERIALS
QTY
DESCRIPTION
1" x 2" x 8' poplar board, cut

to one 36" length, two 10"
lengths, and four 2" lengths
1" x 12" x 8' poplar board,

cut to two 36" lengths
2" x 2" x 48" board, cut to

two 24" lengths
32
2" round-head wood screws
1. Measure your railing width, then center

the two 2 x 2 x 24-inch boards lengthwise
along the underside of the 1 x 12, with
enough room to accommodate the railing.
(If the railing is capped with a 2 x 6, then
space the boards 5 inches apart.) Attach
with wood glue from the bottom and finishing nails from the top.
2. Use the 1 x 2 lengths to create a ledge

around the rear and sides of the tray.
Glue in place, then round the edges of the
ledge on the open side of the tray with
sandpaper.
2. Use a stud sensor to locate the

direction of the ceiling joists relative to the new wall. If the wall runs
parallel to them, youll deal with that
later. If it runs directly under a joist,
mark the sides of the joist in a few
places along the length of your new
wall. If the wall is perpendicular to
the ceiling joists, mark a couple.
3. Stand on a ladder and sight along
the ceiling where your new wall will
run for any dips or bulges. Place a
levels edge on the plumb line to
see if the existing wall is plumb. The
more irregularities you find, the
more airspace youll need to leave
around the wall. And the more creative you'll have to get with your
drywall work to cover these gaps.
4. Crosscut two 2 x 3s to match the

new walls length. These will be the
top and bottom plates of the wall.
Clamp the plates together, face to
face, so that their ends are flush,
3. Measure 5 inches in from each end of the

2 x 2 boards, and predrill a hole through the
2-inch tabs and the 2 x 2 board. Attach the
tabs to the 2 x 2 board using 2-inch roundhead wood screws. Tighten enough so that
the tabs are secure but still able to rotate.
Bottom
view
JERKY
1.
then measure 15 inches from one

end. (This allows you to neatly mark
and nail studs 16 inches on center.)
Use a square to draw a line across
the two plates. Mark an X on the
right side of the line.
5. Drive a stubby nail or screw in that

spot. Hook the end of a tape measure to it and stretch the tape down
the length of the plates. Mark every
16 inches until you reach the plates
end, then go back and use a square
to draw a neat line at every mark,
across both plates. Mark an X on the
right side of each line.
6. Separate the two plates and turn
them so that their 3-inch width is
facing you. Align their ends with a
square, clamp them together, and
continue the edge marks you made
across the face of each plate.
7. Separate the plates. Measure the
floor-to-ceiling height at the corner and end of the new wall. Take
the shorter dimension of the two
and subtract 3 inches (the thickness of the two plates and a small
airspace). This is the length of your
studs.
8. Crosscut the studs to length.

Place each one to the right of every
line, on the X. Since all studs have a
small bow, place the bow face up to
ensure a uniformly shaped wall.
MAKE THE MARINADE

Combine the following in a bowl and mix
until fully dissolved.
cup molasses
cup maple syrup
1 cup soy sauce
1 tbsp Liquid Smoke
cup
Worcestershire
2 tbsp fine-ground
black pepper
1 tbsp garlic powder
1 tbsp onion
powder
BY FRANCINE MAROUKIAN AND TONY AIAZZI
80
I L LU S T R AT I O N S BY J O N G R A N T
9. Nail through each plate and into the end of each

stud with two 16d common nails.
10. With the studs in place, measure the new walls
diagonals. Normally, theres a small difference
between the two, causing the wall to be shaped
slightly like a parallelogram. To correct this, move
the top or bottom plate left or right (youll really
have to shove it) as required to make the dimensions match.
1. Pick a hardcover book that has at least 300 pages, one that people
arent so likely to pick off the shelf. Like the dictionary.
2. Open the cover and first few pages and secure the remaining
11. Stand the wall up and align it with the plumb
pages with clamps.
line on the wall and the marks on the floor. Hold it in

place with a pair of wood shims above the top plate,
about two feet apart. Hold a level in the center of the
wall and at both ends to check the wall for plumb.
3. Use a ruler and carpenters pencil to mark your cutting area. The
border should be at least one inch wide, measured from the pages edge.
12. If the wall is under joists, attach it to them with

screws. If not, use large hollow wall anchors or toggle bolts to attach it to the ceiling sheetrock.
13. Anchor the wall through the bottom plate into

the floor. Use concrete screws for a basement floor
and wood screws for a wood floor.
14. Cover with drywall. Use paper tape and drywall

compound at the intersection of the new wall and
the ceiling or adjacent wall. The wavier the intersection, the wider the taped joint youll have to make.
15. After drywall is complete, trim and paint.
2.
S L I C E T H E M E AT
Put 4 pounds (yields 11/3

pounds jerky) of flank
steak in the freezer for an
hour. This makes it easier
to cut. Slice each steak
across the grain in -inch
strips, holding the blade at
a 45-degree angle.
3.
M A R I N AT E
T H E M E AT
Fully submerge
the meat in the
marinade in a
container. Cover
with plastic wrap
and refrigerate
for 24 hours.
4. Cut the rectangle out with an X-Acto knife, removing about

20pages at a time. Or if you really want to have fun, put on safety
glasses and a dust mask and use an oscillating tool with a semicircular blade to saw along the perimeter of the rectangle. Stop once the
cuts are -inch deep. Switch to a straight blade to get the corners.
5. Flip the book upside down to dump out the cut-out pages. Remove
dust with a brush or shop vac. Clean the edges with an X-Acto knife.
6. Mix white glue with water to create a brushable mixture. (It

should be roughly 70 percent glue, as too much water will cause the
pages to pucker.) Paint the edges of the clamped section of pages as
well as inside the cut surface. Remove the clamps and let the glue dry
under a weighted object (at least ten pounds).
4.
D RY T H E M E AT
Turn the oven to its lowest setting, which should be somewhere around
200 degrees. Drain the meat, then lay it out on paper towels and blot dry
on both sides. After lining the bottom of your oven with aluminum foil to
protect against drips, lightly oil the baking racks and set the strips of meat
directly on the racks, leaving space between each strip. Leave the oven
door cracked to allow humidity to escape as you cook. Every two hours, flip
the meat and rotate the racks from top to bottom. When the jerky is done
(between 6 to 8 hours), the strips will be pliable enough to bend without
breaking. Remove from the rack and let cool for 2 to 3 hours.
81

2016
BY BILLY LOSLEBEN,
CONCRETE-PROJECT.COM
MATERIALS
QTY
DESCRIPTION
bag Rapid Set Cement All or

other quick-setting mix
without gravel
mixing bucket
stir stick
roll 2"-wide packing tape
roll double-sided tape
sheet 1/4" foam core

or cardboard
acrylic sheet at least 50

percent larger than the
frame youre making
X-Acto knife
2.7 x 1.5-cm single-hole

triangle-ring pictureframe hanger hooks
1. Set a sheet of acrylic on your

workstation. This will be your casting
surface.
2. Cut a piece of foam core to the

dimensions of the art you wish to
frame. Subtract inch from the length
and width of that piece, and cut two
more pieces of foam core to those new
dimensions.
3. Use double-sided tape to stack the
two smaller pieces. Seal the edges
with packing tape, then fasten the
resulting block to the casting surface with more double-sided tape.
Seal the edges of the larger piece of
foam core and affix it squarely over
the block on the casting surface with
double-sided tape.
4. The dimensions of your frame will
be determined by where you set the
edges of your mold. To create the
edges, mark where you want your
frame to end on the acrylic, then cut
out three two-inch-wide strips of foam
core to length for each of the four
sides. To create the edges, stack three
pieces of foam core using doublesided tape. Seal the strips with packing
tape and affix them to the acrylic with
double-sided tape.
82
5. Slowly add water to the mix until

you reach a consistency of pancake
batter. (If possible, do this on a cool,
humid day so the mix doesnt begin
to set in the bucket.)
6. Slowly pour the mix into the

mold, taking breaks to pick up the
acrylic base and shake it to eliminate
bubbles. Continue pouring until
youve just reached the top of the
mold. Shake the mold one last time
to level the mix.
7. After 5 to 20 minutes, when the mix

is slightly stiff, screw a single triangle-
ring hanger to the back of the frame.

The mix will harden around the screw
to create a strong bond.
8. As soon as the mix begins to firm

up, cover it with plastic wrap to help
it cure. Dont touch it for at least
24 hours.
9. Once the frame is dry, remove

the foam-core pieces, then gently
lift the mix off the plastic. Use
120-grit sandpaper to clean up
any sharp edges or imperfections.
Attach art using tape and a piece of
foam-core backing.
P H OTO G R A P H BY L E V I B R O W N ; T Y P O G R A P H Y BY S P O O K Y P O O K A
U N USE D FI REWO RKS

Law enforcement ignites a big
pile of them in controlled explosions. If you need to disarm them
yourself, submerge them in water
overnight, wrap them in plastic
bags, and throw them in the trash.
A D IAM O N D
A S PACECR AFT
Once fuel runs out, NASA
sends the vessel straight
into the planet its orbiting
to avoid creating dangerous
floating space junk or damaging a planet or moon that
could potentially support
life. Some hardy microbes
could survive and potentially
contaminate an otherwise pristine environment,
Cassini project manager Earl
Maize says. One benefit of
this method: The craft sometimes relays images and data
moments before impact.
For unknown reasons, concentrated UV-C light, which our

atmosphere filters out, breaks the
carbon atoms off a diamond. Or
you can heat it with a blowtorch,
then expose it to oxygen to make
it evaporate into carbon dioxide.
GUNS
Guns confiscated or collected in buy-back programs are typically sent to a metal-smelting plant. Technicians remove any
batteries and ammunition, then dump the weapons into a
21-foot-wide furnace where three 28-inch graphite electrodes
send electricity from a transformer to the metal like a big welding rod. The furnace heats up to 3,100 degrees Fahrenheitwell
beyond the 2,750 it takes to turn most guns to gelatin. The metal
gets used for things like construction rebar and hand tools.
B O D I LY WA S T E O N
T H E S PAC E S TAT I O N
A humidity system
collects sweat and
exhalations and makes
it into potable water.
Urine is also converted
to drinking water.
Excrement and other
trash from the station
is launched toward
Earth where it burns
up in the atmosphere.
DRUGS
Customs, the DEA,

and border patrol
will pay private
businesses, like
a crematorium, to incinerate seized narcotics at
1,500 degrees when they
are no longer needed as
evidence. Most drugs dont
release toxic gases, but for
substances like methamphetamine, which release
ether and methanol, the
incinerator has a separate
chamber where the gas is
rendered harmless.
When you hit Empty Trash on your computer,

those photos and Word documents dont get
destroyed. Theyre just more difficult to access.
Operating systems use a master information
table to find your files. Hitting Empty Trash
deletes only the master-file table reference for
that file. The actual data is still on your phone or laptop, just
hidden away somewhere. Heres how to get rid of sensitive
information, in ascending level of paranoia:
After youve
backed up
everything or
extracted the
important files,
before you
donate or give
your laptop or
phone away, set
a really complicated admin
password. Dont
worry about
remembering it.
Do a factory
reset. The laptop
or phone runs
like its fresh out
of the box. At this

point, your old
files are still in
there, only now
theyre protected
by that complicated password
you set, which
turns them into
illegible nonsense to anyone
trying to get
access.
If youre still
worried, fill the
device with new
data to overwrite
your files. Try
With thanks to Brandon Gregg at Seagate and James Nguyen at Symantec.
high-definition
TV seasons.
If even that
isnt enough,
a rare-earth
magnet distorts hard-drive
data beyond
reconstruction.
Fine. Now
you can get out
the drill. Aside
from the obvious destruction,
the heat it creates will further
degrade any
remaining data.
SU PE RG LU E
Apply nail-polish remover to the
bond. The acetone will soften it
so you can scrape, shave, peel, or
sand off whats left.
GUM
Polyisobutene, the base synthetic
polymer in most gum, doesnt
biodegrade. Steam cleaners with
detergent and steel brushes can
vaporize it, and researchers have
made a caustic enzyme solution
used in some cities in Europe. But
for now, most just sits in landfills.
Every year, the Federal

Reserve destroys 7 billion damaged bills. Stacks
of cash go into a giant
paper shredder with
carbon-steel blades that
turn the bills into 0.08- by
0.75-inch slivers. Employees use small fishnets to
confirm that the bills are
cut to the appropriate
size. The scraps are then
hauled off to be used for
curing cement or lining
insulation.
83
Andrew Wakefield,
leader of the antivaccine movement and
one of the marquee
lecturers on the
Conspira-Sea Cruise.
84
Conspiracy theories are more

popular than ever. Over half of all
Americans believe in one. So what
do you get when you stick some
of the conspiracy worlds biggest
celebrities and their die-hard fans
on a cruise ship in the middle of the
Pacific Ocean for a week? Some
fascinating insight into our strange
times. And one near fistfight.
BY BRONWEN DICKEY
P H OTO
O T O G R A P H /SI LBY
LUD
SITNRAAT
LIT
OOV
N BY
SKY
T E E K AY N A M E
@
@PPooppuullaarrM
Mee cc h
h a n i c s _ SEPTEMBER 2016
85
It was a bit after seven, and I should

have been downstairs on Plaza Deck,
dressed in formal attire and enjoying
dinner with the conspiracy theorists.
There were about a hundred of them,
and they were nearing the end of their
weekthe last week in January
aboard the Ruby Princess. Many of
them were older people, and each of
them had paid $3,000 (not including
airfare and beverages on board) to
participate in the first-ever ConspiraSea Cruise, a weeklong celebration
of alternative science hosted by a
tour company called Divine Travels. For the past five days, they had
debated UFOs, GMOs, government
mind-control programs, vaccines,
chemtrails, crop circles, and the Illuminatis plan for world domination,
all while soaking up the mystical
energies of three Mexican tourist
towns known mainly for wet T-shirt
contests and Seor Frogs.
But I was not on Plaza Deck. I was
locked in my stateroom on Baja Deck,
picking at a room-service cheeseburger. Earlier that afternoon, a
pair of Conspira-Sea presenters had
chased mechased mefrom a conference room. This wasnt our first
confrontation, and now I feared they
were tracking me around the ship,
waiting to spring out from blind corners and empty doorways.
Understand that I dont consider
myself the paranoid type. Although
when I had come across the Conspira-Sea Cruise on a science blog
a few months earlier, Id known I
wanted to go, but not because I fear
dark forces are out to get me. I used to
love The X-Files, and the prospect of
discussing Roswell and JFK over pia
coladas sounded like fun. So did getting to know some devoted conspiracy
wonks. Wondering whether the world
is actually as it seems is a uniquely
American sport, and theres plenty
of evidence thats worth wondering
86
aboutthis is the country of Watergate and the Tuskegee experiments

and the NSA tapping your phone.
But the Ruby Princess was no
place for casual wonderers. The
Ruby Princess was for people who
scraped together three grand to be
reassured that their fears and suspicions and theories arent the lonely
fever dreams of basement-dwelling
outcasts, that those fears and suspicions are valid, and that others share
them. It would be like a weeklong, inperson internet chat room.
Not that thats necessarily a good
thing. Chat rooms can be terrifying
(virtual) places, rabbit holes of selfreinforcing misinformation. Dip your
toe into Reddit or Disqus and you will
be bombarded with proof that Bigfoot
lives in the mountains of the Pacific
Northwest and that our government
is run by giant lizards posing as politicians. Charlatans with slick websites
can now manipulate data, doctor
images, and fabricate documents,
collecting thousands of followers.
But its not fair to dismiss all conspiracy theorists as web-dependent
crackpots, and theres a difference
between caution and paranoia
between reasonable skepticism and
a wholesale rejection of scientific
method. I didnt know what Id find
on this cruise. One of the great blessings of the internet is that it helps us
find people who are like us, or who
seem to be like us. For example, there
ON A BRIGHTER, happier afternoon five days earlier, I boarded
the Ruby Princess in San Pedro, California. Flanked by the

ports grimy regiment of industrial smokestacks, the ship
gleamed majestic white and soared almost two hundred
feet into the air. She could accommodate more than three
thousand passengers, occupying them with four swimming
pools, twelve dining rooms and restaurants, an outdoor
movie screen, two nightclubs, a full-service spa, and enough
rococo baubles to satisfy Liberace. The ships central atrium
and its giant spiral staircase glittered like a pageant crown.
Every corridor stretched into eternity, with identical stairwells crosshatching all nineteen decks.
Im so glad you made it! said Adele McIntosh, the tour
companys travel agent, when I finally located the ConspiraSea check-in desk. She gave me a tight hug, then handed me
my name tag and an orientation packet. When I wrote Popular Mechanics on my sign-in form, a woman to Adeles
right shuffled some papers and nodded approvingly.
Wonderful to have you with us, the woman said. Were
only now beginning to understand the quantum realm.
The weeks seminars appeared to be split into two
broad categories. There were those with a magical or
highly new age component: Astral Possession, Psychic
Vampirism, and Exorcism, Gaia-Sophia, Timelines
and Global Alchemy, How to Control the World with
Mind Machines. And then there were those that detailed
concrete, terrestrial dangers: Are GMOs and Roundup
Causing Disease in Millions? Vaccinations: Do You
Really Know Whats Coming Through That Needle? A
subset of the second group concerned itself with the U.S.
legal and banking systems. Unfortunately, the nightly
UFO watches had to be canceled because the man who was
to lead them had recently suffered a stroke.
Inside my orientation tote bag was a shiny blue bracelet I was supposed to wear at all times. Makes it easier to
find members of the group, Adele said. But that wasnt
necessary. Most of the cruisersthe vacationers, not our
groupwere generally outfitted in bright colors and loud
DEATH IS NOT REAL, HE SAID. THATS

THE BIGGEST BUNCH OF CRAP ON EARTH.
are casual Phillies fans, and then
there are the kind of Phillies fans
who spend endless hours on Phillies
fan websites e-conversing with the
equally obsessed. Likewise there are
people who kind of wonder, fleetingly,
whether Lee Harvey Oswald acted
alone before their thoughts return
to work and family and whether to
take the freeway or the local roads.
And then there are people who fly far
from home, at great expense, to spend
a week on the Conspira-Sea Cruise.
Somewhere in the middle was me,
deadbolted in my room. Paranoid.
prints. As the days passed, a lot of them began wearing

novelty captains hats from the gift shop. The conspiracy
group, on the other hand, was mostly serious-looking senior
citizens in Infowars T-shirts. Some of them wore casts,
others walked with canes. Two relied on motorized scooters. None looked like he or she could afford to spend money
frivolously. One eighty-year-old mans toes poked through
the tops of his worn leather loafers.
I headed to the windowless conference room that had
been temporarily renamed the Liberty Lab.
Welcome everyone, said Dr. Susan Shumsky, the
founder of Divine Travels and (claim to fame) one-time
A predinner prayer in the ships Michelangelo Dining Room; one of
the maze-like hallways on the Ruby Princess.
personal staff member of Beatles guru Maharishi Mahesh

Yogi. (Her doctorate in divinity is from the Teaching of
Intuitional Metaphysics in San Diego.) Id like to begin
with a prayer. Nearly everything the woman wore was
either bright pink or sparkled. Breathe in divine light!
she said. We closed our eyes and inhaled. Across the hall,
in Gatsbys Casino, slot machines clanged to a piped-in
soundtrack of Taylor Swift and Rihanna.
Then sixteen presenters introduced themselves and
gave brief synopses of their seminars. Laura Eisenhower
great-granddaughter of Dwight!said she had been
invited in 2006 to join a secret American colony on Mars
and that aliens, including some prominent U.S. politicians,
are already living on earth in disguise. Dannion Brinkley,
a New York Times best-selling author, announced that he
had risen from the dead three times, the first after a lightning strike that sent him on a twenty-eight-minute sojourn
through the afterlife. Death is not real, he said. Thats
the biggest bunch of crap on earth. Winston Shrout spoke
of commercial redemption, a philosophy that promises
each American citizen access to giant piles of secret money.
Generally I do speak from a little bit of a higher level,
Shrout drawled in a thick Kentucky accent. Because to
understand commercial redemption, you have to go into
the fifth, and even sixth, dimensions.
The attendees scribbled in their notebooks and eagerly
circled items on the schedule. There were pitches for wishing machines, astrological charts, and dowsing rods,
followed by screeds against Big Pharma and Monsanto.
Sean David Morton, whom AM radio host Art Bell called
Americas Prophet, vowed to help us get out of debt while
sticking it to the American court system. (He did not
mention that in 2010 he was sued by the Securities and
Exchange Commission for telling a group of investors
that he could psychically predict the stock market or that
he tried to escape fraud charges by declaring himself the
ambassador of a nonexistent country called the Republic
of New Lemuria.)
The biggest name on the program was Andrew Wakefield, the discredited former British gastroenterologist
who wrote a highly controversial (and since retracted)
1998 paper that claimed to find an association between
the measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine and autism
in twelve children. After the U.K.s General Medical Council stripped Wakefield of his license, he moved to the U.S.,
where he has assumed rock-star status among the growing American anti-vaccine movement.
Wakefield was superficially charming, if a bit weary.
The story of my life is basically how to take a perfectly
good career and flush it down the toilet, he said.
LATER THAT NIGHT, in the Michelangelo Dining Room, Dannion Brinkley was sitting under an airbrushed painting of
Poseidon. He is six-foot-four, and the flowing scarf under
his sport coat gave him the appearance of an aging linebacker who had just returned from an ashram. Several
fans were gathered around him. He motioned me over
warmly and I sat down.
What is your motive for being here, he asked, and
what is your intention?
Puzzled, I looked to the young man on my left, who
said he was an orthodontist from Calgary named Leo. He
leaned over and whispered in my ear, Dannion can imme88
THE ROCK STARS OF CONSPIRACY THEORY

Other than Andrew Wakefield (pictured on page 84), a few of the
biggest draws on the Conspira-Sea Cruise.
LEONARD HOROWITZ
LAURA EISENHOWER
Theorizes AIDS is a genocidal weapon created by the

government. Sells crystal
pyramids for pain relief.
Has a degree in public
health from Harvard.
UFO fanatics think her

great-grandfather Dwight
held meetings with aliens
in the White House. She
claims many current politicians are aliens.
DANNION BRINKLEY
SEAN DAVID MORTON
Doesnt believe in death.

His book about getting
struck by lightning and
meeting angels in the
afterlife was a New York
Times best seller.
Called Americas Prophet. Psychically predicts

the stock market. Recently
arrested on charges to defraud the IRS. Has amazing
taste in neckties.
diately tell if people are on the right

frequency, like tuning a radio. Hes
trying to figure out what frequency
youre on.
Im a reporter for Popular
Mechanics, I told Dannion, and
Im here to learn about the conspiracy community.
He beamed and started telling me
about his lightning strike. Whether
or not you believe me doesnt matter,
Dannion said. Because ultimately
Im going to win the argument. You
are not going to die, and some of us
can get up from the dead.
Before he could elaborate, a pair
of presenters, Leonard Len Horowitz and his girlfriend, Sherri Kane,
breezed into the room and sat down
at our table. Online, they call them-
selves The Horokane. Len bore a

strong resemblance to the Count from
Sesame Street, if you had frozen the
Count in 1974 and dressed him in
Hawaiian shirts. A former dentist
from New Jersey with a degree in public health from Harvard, he is most
well-known for writing a 1996 book
that theorized the AIDS and Ebola
viruses are genocidal weapons engineered by the U.S. government to
depopulate the planet through vaccination programs. On the cruise,
however, he would be lecturing on the
key to lifelong health and world peace:
the miracle frequency of 528 hertz.
According to Len, everything
in the universe emits vibrations,
and all the positive, life-affirming
forces (including the green/yellow
light in rainbows) resonate at a frequency of 528 hertz. Therefore, all

music should be tuned in 528 hertz,
rather than the 440 hertz of standard
tuning, which he asserted was an
evil plot imposed by the Rockefeller
Foundation to militarize the worlds
populace. Len believes that standard
tuning aggravates the pineal gland,
making all of us emotionally distressed, sicker, and more destructive.
He called this musical cult control.
You, he said to me, and then
paused. Are...a...digital, bio-holograph-ic, precipitation, crystallization...mi-rac-ulous manifestation!
Of divine frequency vibrations, forming harmonically in hydrospace.
Okay, I said.
Thats the frequency that monks
used to chant in while making
brandy, Dannion added.
Lens face lit up. When was that?
In the 1340s, Dannion said.
And how do you know that?
Len asked.
Dannion dabbed at the corners of
his mouth with his napkin and said,
Because when you die, you know
these things. I saw it when I crossed
over.
Sherri introduced herself as an
investigative reporter who defected
from Fox News. A pretty blond much
younger than Len, she seemed to be
the great love of his life. If it werent
for her, Len said, I might not have
known that my ex-wife was working with the CIA to undermine me.
(Reached by email, Lens ex-wife
denied these allegations.)
How do you know Im not work-
THE
TRUTH
IS IN
HERE
Popular
Mechanics has
a long history
of covering
conspiracy
theories. Some
of our more
notable work:
Cruisegoers paid around $3,000 for the weeklong trip. Not including umbrella drinks.
ing for the CIA? I joked.

Sherri waved the question off,
laughing. Because trust me, it would
be obvious. If you were a plant, I
would know.
When the ship lurched away from
the dock and the ice cubes in our water
glasses chimed under the drone of the
propellers, Dannion requested that
we all join hands to pray. Len lowered
his voice and leaned across the table.
The real question, he said, is
whether, after youve learned the
truth about all this stuff, your editors at Popular Mechanics will even
let you write it.
T H E N E X T M O R N I N G , shortly before
Wakefields lecture Whistleblowing
in the Public Interest, a tall, lean
man wearing a shiny blue bracelet stood near the elevators.

His name was Larry Cook. A soft-spoken fifty-one-yearold anti-vaccination activist from Los Angeles, he said he
had joined the trip specifically to meet Wakefield, whom
he regarded as something of a personal hero.
The media has tried to destroy Andy, Larry said as
he walked toward the back of a dining room where about
fifteen other people were clustered. But its all lies and
character assassination. We dont need drugs and vaccines. If we adopt a healthier lifestyle, we can regain our
health without using them. Think about it: If vaccines actually worked, then why do these diseases still exist at all?
The seminar began. For an hour, Wakefield paced in
front of a projection screen, which ballooned his shadow
to giant proportions. Slides of children born without arms
and others screaming in pain flashed behind him.
Your bodies are owned by Big Pharma, he said. Its
turning into a science-fiction movie. The audience gasped
and shook their heads in disbelief. This will be the end of
the United States of America. During the Q&A portion,
JUNE 1907
JUNE 1961
MAY 2001
JANUARY 2005
MARCH 2005
The Truth About

Burning Ashes
According to a
popular rumor, you
could mix a compound with ashes
to make a fuel with
more energy than
anthracite coal.
Uh, no.
Facts and Myths

About When to
Change Oil
Stop trusting your
dipstick.
When UFOs Land

Most scientists
tell you theres no
evidence of UFOs.
Turns out
thats not true.
Whos Spying on
You?
An exploration of
the fragile state of
personal privacy
with the rise of GPS,
sensors, and data
aggregation.
9/11: Debunking
the Myths
We consulted more
than 70 professionals
in aviation, engineering, and the military
to disprove 16 common 9/11 conspiracy
theories. We still get
crazy emails.
89
Wakefield added, This is a deliberate eugenics program,

a deliberate population-control program.
I looked around the room. People were sitting and listening attentively. For the first two days, I was heartened by how
open and friendly most of the group was, even if they sometimes said surprising things. They told me about their lives
and how they were drawn to the conspiracy community.
Ever since I was little, Ive just known that something
was off, a fit, stylish forty-seven-year-old office manager
named Cary told me. That we arent being told everything. My family doesnt believe me, but they are totally
brainwashed.
I asked her why she thought the government was poisoning its own citizens with vaccines and GMOs.
Because they want to f--king kill us! she said.
Not everyone was as cynical. Missy and Ron Hill were a
married couple from Florida. Missy had a tousled thatch
of short blond hair and wore a black leather jacket. Ron
wore sandals and floppy fishing hats. The two had met
in church roughly fifteen years ago. When Ron, a truck
driver for a cryogenics company, was assigned longer runs,
Missy went to truck-driving school so that they could see
the country together. It was out on the open road that the
couple began listening to the late-night AM radio show
Coast to Coast AM, hosted by Art Bell, who is best known
for broadcasting interviews with UFO researchers from a
remote station in the middle of the Nevada desert.
There was so much stuff I had never realized was
going on, Ron said. After that, we were kind of hooked,
I guess. The couples interest in star gates and global
energy fields inspired them to travel to places like Ireland,
France, and Spain. Unlike some of the other cruisers, they
explored the world rather than hiding from it.
As the week went on, word spread among the participants that I was writing for a magazine that often covered
the world of science. First, Susan Shumsky informed me and
Dina Litovsky, the photographer on the story, that Wakefield had requested we not attend the preliminary screening
of his documentary, Injecting Lies, which alleges that the
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has ironclad
evidence that vaccines are linked to autism but has chosen
to hide this alarming connection from the public. (Months
later, the filmits title changed to Vaxxed: From Cover-Up
to Catastrophewould cause a heated national debate when
it was accepted, then rejected, by the Tribeca Film Festival.
In reviews, Variety called it a scientifically dubious hodgepodge of free-floating paranoia while The Guardian said
it was probably headed straight to the junkheap with all
the other conspiracy films. Only when contacted by Popular Mechanics research department five months later
did Wakefieldthrough his publicistoffer to send me a
link to the film.) Then we were asked by Jeffrey Smith, an
anti-GMO activist whose previous career involved yogic flying, to leave two other panels. After that, attendees began
ducking out of photos and complaining about Dinas flash.
On Tuesday morning, we sat down in the front row
of a presentation we had not yet been barred from: Len
Horowitzs lecture on 528 hertz. While Len fussed with the
projector, Sherri set out boxes of nutritional supplements
and crystal pyramids for sale. Their flagship product, OxySilver, retailed for $49.40. It contained one listed ingredient:
purified water, though its nutritional table also included
5 micrograms of colloidal silver.
90
Despite widespread seasickness,

most of the weeks presentations in
the Liberty Lab were full.
I took some OxySilver, and Im

already feeling better! a woman in
a scooter whod suffered a recent bout
of cancer announced to the room.
Dressed in a black velour jacket
and white shirt with a butterfly collar, Len walked over to me. I just
want you to know that if you degrade
and disparage me and libel me in your

article, he said, I will devote everything I have to exposing Popular
Mechanics and the people behind it.
Im not here to degrade anyone, Len, I said. I was somewhat in
shock, because our conversation at
dinner the first night had been so
pleasant. And certainly not to libel

them. What is going on?
I am living a nightmare! he
sputtered, his voice rising like water
starting to boil. Every day of my life
is like a roller coaster in The Twilight
Zone. But I do this because I will not
stand by and watch this genocide!
His eyes began to fill with tears. I

think that people should be able to
choose how they are going to die, and
not be wiped out by the government!
THE INITIAL THRILL of a tropical vacation soon curdled into tension and
distrust.
Maybe it was the claustrophobia of all those small, windowless rooms. Or the seasickness that seemed to claim
more Conspira-Sea participants by the day. I saw fewer
of them relaxing by the pool or playing Texas Holdem. At
breakfast one morning, a woman whose father had survived the Holocaust told me that she broke down in tears
when another cruiser claimed it never happened.
(One bright spot: During a day trip to the Las Labra@ P o p u l a r M e c h a n i c s _ SEPTEMBER 2016
91
Attendee Larry Cook (left) defends the

Popular Mechanics team from presenters
Len Horowitz and Sherri Kane.
das petroglyphscarvings etched into large boulders on

a beach near MazatlnLarry Cook calmly mentioned
that the reason few people were now talking to me was that
I was pro-vaccine. We had a civil conversation about the
issueme conceding I was swayed by scientific consensus
and the mountain of rigorously controlled peer-reviewed
studies that have proved vaccines to be safe and effective,
Larry remaining skeptical. Neither of us changed our
minds, but we didnt get into a heated shouting match or
assault each others motives. In the two-dimensional world
of the internet, it is easy for people on the opposite sides of
a controversy to become ciphers to be vanquished rather
than human beings with legitimate questions and concerns. Its much harder to dismiss someone right in front
of you, a person whose story you know.)
That night the ocean whipped itself into twelve-foot
swells. Even more people grew seasick. Still, there were
enough to pack the Liberty Lab for the Horokanes screening of their documentary about the Paris terrorist attack
on the Bataclan concert hall in November 2015, which they
maintained was part of one large false-flag operation. It
turned out to be a plotless pastiche of Hollywood movie
trailers (Wag the Dog, Our Brand Is Crisis), interview
segments with survivors of the Bataclan theater attack
downloaded from YouTube, and clips of Sherri and Len
talking in front of a green screen that had been digitally
rendered to look like a news desk. Drawings of Satan and
banners denouncing the militant media scrolled behind
Sherris head, as did several advertisements for Lens supplement company, Healthy World Organization.
The films central thesis went like this: Hollywood
92
superagent Ari Emanuel (who represents Eagles of Death Metal, the band
that was playing at the Bataclan when
it was attacked) was in cahoots with
the Lagardre Group, a French media
conglomerate that had purchased
the Bataclan in September 2015.
Because Qatar Holding has a stake
in Lagardre, and because the government of Qatar has been criticized
for tacitly allowing terrorist groups
to do their banking in the United
Arab Emirates, and becauseand
this is where they totally lost me
Ari Emanuel is the brother of Rahm
Emanuel, the mayor of Chicago, the
Horokane believed that Lagardre
must have orchestrated the attack
with the help of Ari Emanuel.
When the film ended, Sherri
grabbed the microphone. Her face
had turned into a grim, ugly mask,
the corners of her mouth pulled
downward as if by strings.
I dont want anybody to leave the
room right now, she said. I have a
question. She pointed at Dina, our
photographer, who was circling the
room taking pictures.
Come up here, Sherri said. I
want you to tell everybody who you
work for.
Im with Popular Mechanics,
Dina said. Everybody knows that.
As though she were talking to a
small child, Sherri continued, And
can you tell everybody what Popular
Mechanics has to do with a conspiracy cruise?
S om e on e i n t h e a u d i e n c e
interrupted, You know shes the
photographer, not the reporter?
Let me ask the questions, okay!
Sherri snapped, turning back to
Dina. And can you tell everyone why
Popular Mechanics would be interested in people like us?
Dina just smiled. What, you
dont think you are interesting?
Youre taking photos so that you
can label us conspiracy theorists!
Dannion Brinkley groaned. Lets
keep it in 528, yall, he said.
A woman named Abbie, who
taught free yoga classes every morning, also stepped in. Thats enough,
guys, she said.
And who are you? Sherri said.
Shes a plant! someone yelled
from the audience.
Eyes rolled. Heads shook. People
filtered out.
Someone muttered, Shes the

yoga teacher.
WHEN WE AR RIV ED at the Liberty Lab

the next afternoon, Len accosted
Dina in the doorway. His eyes were
the size of dinner plates.
I want you to see something! he
shouted as he tried to force a packet
of papers into her hands, then mine.
They were articles from Popular
Mechanics debunking bad science.
Apparently Len and Sherri had been
up all night Googling the magazine
and printing out documents in the
ships computer center. There was
also a Wikipedia entry that linked
the magazines parent company,
Hearst, to the Lagardre Group.
I tried to laugh it off and go around
him, but Len wouldnt let me pass.
Look at this! he shouted, his
face contorting with rage. Look at
this! This is why youre here! Youre
here in bad faith!
Larry Cook, who had also been
milling around in the hallway,
stepped in front of Len to keep him
from lunging at me.
Get your hands off me! Len
shouted at him. Get your f--king
hands off me!
Armed with a camera, Sherri
darted out from behind Len and
chased me around the hallway,
demanding that I explain myself. As
I tried to block my face from the camera, I got trapped against the wall
between Len and Larry, who seemed
seconds away from a full-on brawl.
If you dont stop this, Im calling security, Larry said. Len then
challenged Larry to a fistfight in the
ships gym.
Thats when I ducked out of the
corridor, fled Fiesta Deck, and deadbolted myself in my cabin for the rest
of the night. We had sailed far from
the Mexican coast, over reasons horizon. We were now bobbing around on
the waters of pure insanity.
T H E H A L LWAY S H O W D O W N turned the
rest of the trip into a blur. Wakefield

chummily invited me and Dina to
his third presentation, which we
declined, only to learn from others
who attended that he had planned
to ambush us by reading aloud from
Popular Mechanics. Dannion Brinkley read my energies by giving me
a long hug. You were flowing beautifully just then, he said. But youre
putting love out there to someone

who isnt giving it back. Youre giving this person too much power. You
need someone who can appreciate
you...like me! Winston Shrout, in
his farewell lecture, reasserted his
position as the third-dimensional
delegate to the Galactic Roundtable,
noting that many of his clients were
of $2,809,921. If convicted, the two face more than six

hundred years in prison. (Both have pleaded not guilty.)
A couple months later, Winston Shrout was indicted for
allegedly printing more than $1trillion in fake financial documents. (He has also pleaded not guilty.) Len and
Sherri returned to their home in Hawaii and wrote a long,
angry blog post charging me with war crimes and claiming I was part of a top-secret cell of Pharma Trolls. They
also charged Larry, who tried to protect me, as being a dou-
WE WERE BOBBING ON THE

WATERS OF PURE INSANITY .
fairies and elves. I learned from
Laura Eisenhower that Hillary Clinton may have a supernatural agenda
for world domination. Shes not even
human, Eisenhower said. You dont
want to know what she is.
I also witnessed something called
the Baked Alaska Parade. It was the
final night of the cruise. I was eating dinner with Dina in the Da Vinci
Dining Room, taking long pulls on
overpriced beer. The lights dimmed.
The waitstaff, holding LED-lit trays
of meringue cakes over their heads,
formed a conga line and began snaking around the tables to the song Hot
Hot Hot. Someone with a microphone
shouted, Ladies and gentleman, get
those napkins up! And they did.
Everybody in the dining room except
Dina and I twirled their napkins in
the air while singing along. Ol, o-l,
ol, o-l. It was kind of silly, but I think
the point was to make people feel they
were a part of something bigger.
The conspiracy community does
the same thing. Its emotional power
is much stronger than facts. It offers
a worldview in which chaos, randomness, happenstancethe messy,
frightening qualities of life that science depends upon and our minds
find so hard to acceptsimply do not
exist. For some, a sinister reason for
lifes disappointments is more satisfying than no reason at all.
When we finally disembarked,
after Dina and I had driven away, a
team of special agents with the Internal Revenue Service arrived at the
port and arrested Sean David Morton and his wife, Melissa, on fifty-six
counts of fraud, including filing a
false tax return that sought a refund
ble agent for Big Pharma.

Even then, I had a hard time feeling angry at Len.
I had a brilliant mother who scrubbed the streets at
Nazi gunpoint in Vienna, he revealed during one of his last
panels, which I attended only after Adeles assurance that
she would call security if the Horokane caused any more
scenes. By miracle my mother made it onto one of the last
ships out of Europe. By a miracle I am sitting here today.
My mother used to say, Lenny, you have no idea. Corporate fascism and neo-Nazism could arise at any time and
anywhere, in any country. And I said, Mom, I understand
your pathology. Youre neurotic. Had I been through what
you went through, I certainly would feel the same way. You
see Nazis everywhere. But Im sorry, I cant go along with
that agenda. I would recommend some good therapy.
Then Lens mother received the 1976 swine flu vaccine.
After that, she developed Guillain-Barr syndrome, a disease that attacks the peripheral nervous system. She also
developed uterine cancer. When she died, Len became
convinced that the vaccinewhich was linked to a small
uptick in Guillain-Barr, according to the CDCwas
responsible for her illness and subsequent death.
Len Horowitz saw something troubling in the world.
When bad things happen without cause, some people turn
to religion for comfort. Some look for a scientific reason.
Some conclude that bad things happen and theres nothing we can do. Not Len. Len wanted a direct explanation.
There had to be one. You just had to know where to look.
A sign that was held up to presenters to keep them on schedule.

93
THE WAR TRUNK
How my grandfathers old Army trunk became a history lessonand my new coffee table.
BY JACQU ELI N E DET WI LER
hen I was casting around for furniture to take to college, I found a

red Army footlocker Id never seen
before. It probably came from the
garage. My mom, who once bought
a truck just to bring home tables and chests
of drawers left on the side of the road, helped
me paint and stencil it so it would match my
dorm-room decor. In the fifteen years since,
the footlocker followed me to nine apartments in three citiesfilled with Halloween
costumes, old photo albums, Christmas
ornaments. Eventually I learned that it once
P H OTO G R A P H BY CO RY DAW S O N
belonged to my stepdads father, Richard Purnell, who had done a tour at Osan Air Base in
Korea as an Army corporal in the early 1960s,
after the signing of the armistice that unofficially ended the Korean War in 1953. Apart
from an insignia he had misplaced somewhere, the footlocker was the only artifact
from that time that hadnt been thrown away.
And Id put it in storage. I felt a bit ashamed
about that, so I started asking questions.
Every antique is a catalog of the past, and
in that way refurbishing an old footlocker is
much like doing construction in, say, Rome,
where you must proceed carefully lest you

encounter a subterranean landmark you dont
want destroyed. I had no idea what Id find
under the trunks layers and layers of paint,
which were so deep in places that theyd dried
in globs. I didnt want to use a heat gun and
fry through wood, if that was what was under
there, and I didnt want to accidentally grind
the rivets flat with a power sander.
That was a long time ago, my grandpa
said when I called to ask about the trunks
original condition. He didnt remember what
it was made of, but he did remember getting
97
PEDAL
DOWN.
PULSE
UP.
The starting point. The author
had added her own coat of paint

before taking the trunk to college.
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it on the sly from a friend who worked in the

supply division when he came home in 1963.
They expected you to pack your stuff in
boxes and duffel bags, he said. It was much
simpler to know somebody and get them to
give you a footlocker.
He told me he was about to take a
weeklong vacation to California with my
grandma to visit my great-uncles farm.
Ill just give you a call when I get to the
bottom of all the paint, I said.
Oh, youll still be doing that when we
get back.
I knocked on each of the trunks surfaces
but, not being MacGyver, couldnt tell what
materials the sounds might indicate. Then
I asked senior home editor Roy Berendsohn
for help. Roy got a magnet, which was how
we learned that the corners, handles, and
rivets were steel. The panel and edge banding materials remained a mystery.
Roy advised taking the restoration slowly
so as to catch any markings that might
appear along the way, so I dipped wet-ordry 220-grit sandpaper in a bucket of water,
folded the paper in thirds, and sanded away.
Folding in thirds gives you three sanding surfaces to work with before you have
to replace your sandpaper. You just flip
or refold whenever the grit wears down.
Underneath the top layer of paint, the trunk
was red, and then yellow. I wiped away the
muddy mix of colors from the center panel,
and an image of a toy soldier appeared.
My grandma filled me in: My stepdad
was born in 1966, three years after his
dad came home from Korea. My grandma
painted the trunk yellow and covered it with
decals of toy soldiers to make it a toy box for
her son. In one generation it had gone from
a tool of war to a container for playthings.
At this point, Id gotten through only
two layers, and on only one panel. I could
be sanding for weeks. It was time to employ
paint stripper, which Id hoped to avoid
The trunk had six different paint colors, at least

two moon stencils, and a sticker of a toy soldier
spanning fifty-three years of use.
After four coats of stripper and a few hours of

scraping, nearly a gallon of old paint came off of
the trunk.
The banding around the edges turned out to be

some sort of soft composite, possibly cardboard
or plastic. It needed to be painted over.
THE WAR TRUNK

because its nasty stuff that requires
gloves, a respirator, and eye protection. I found something much more
gentle called 3M Safest Stripper, which
is as thick as Elmers glue, biodegradable, and creates no fumes. They say
you can use it without gloves, but I put
them on anyway. I globbed it on with a
metal scraper and waited.
Three hours later, the footlocker
looked like it had erupted in hives. I
scraped fistfuls of bubbling paint off
the panels with the scraper and used
a thin steel pry bar and a pentalobe
screwdriver from a cellphone-repair kit
to clean the crevices around the hardware. I repeated this process again and
again. There were six colors of paint in
all: the light green with bronze moon
stencils Id added before taking the
trunk to college in 2001; the red my
stepdad added before taking it to camp
in 1976; the yellow from the toy-box era;
two layers of Army green that came off
in a slime; and a dusty reddish primer.
The biggest clue as to the trunks
original manufacture appeared on
the lid after the very first stripping.
An oval stamped with Purves Manufacturing Corp. 1948 sat above the
front lock. I contacted Luther Hanson, a historian with the U.S. Army
Quartermaster Museum in Fort Lee,
Virginia, which catalogs the history of
the Army branch that provides soldiers
with clothes, food, and equipment.
Hanson told me that Purves had been
based in Indianapolis and had Army
contracts from World War II through
Korea. So even though my grandfather
hadnt been to war, the trunk probably had. It might have even belonged
to someone who didnt come home.
After four doses of the stripper, Id
hauled more than a gallon of soggy
paint out of the workshop. Most of
the trunk was a patchy green-brown,
but the hardware had gotten down
to the primer. I found that brushing the metal with a steel-wire brush
removed most of the red and imparted
a dull, antiqued sheen. The flexible
wet-or-dry sandpaper Id used earlier
was crucial for handles and crevices
where the primer wouldnt come off.
In places where the primer was thick,
I used sandpaper with a rougher grit,
though nothing lower than 100, to
avoid scratching the metal.
The edge bandings, once fully
exposed, had been crafted out of some
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sort of composite that was too soft and oddly

colored to leave bare. It might have been a
thick cardboard or plastic. Regardless, Id
have to paint it. To remove the remainder of
the paint stripper and any flakes, I sanded
the entire trunk with wet 220-grit paper and
wiped it with a rag. Then I sanded it again
with dry 220-grit and wiped off the dust
with a tack cloth.
The trunk at this point looked like it
could fit in on the set of M*A*S*H. It didnt
look awful, but it would fit in at my Brooklyn apartment about as well as a tommy
gun. Though I wanted to respect the trunk,
I knew that if I left it a patchy Army green it
would just end up back in a closet.
To make it work as a coffee table, I masked
the metal hardware with ScotchBlue outdoor
painters tape. (Its stickier than the indoor
kind and wont slip off even after multiple
coats.) Then I primed the whole trunk with
Rust-Oleums Clean Metal primer to protect the rivets and any other metal. I taped
off the trim and painted two coats of whiteeggshell finish on the body of the trunk with
a four-inch paint roller. Then I taped off the
body and painted two coats of black eggshell
finish on the trim. Finally, I protected the
painted parts and sprayed an acrylic over the
metal hardware. The final product looked as
neat as a bunk in an Army barracks.
One of the times I talked to my grandfather about the footlocker, he told me he had
worked as an air-ground liaison in Korea,
watching his friends fly out over the DMZ
almost every day or going out himself. The
DMZ wasnt straight, he said. The very day
before he left to come home, his captain was
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in a helicopter that zigged when it should

have zagged. It was shot down in North Korea
and soldiers hauled the captain off in something called a deuce-and-a-half. I looked that
up. Its one of those hooded trucks you see in
old war movies. The captain made it home,
but not for another six months.
That made me think about how often luck
determines who comes home from dangerous places and who doesnt. It was lucky that
my grandfather was in Korea ten years after
the war and not during it. And it was lucky
again that he made it home safe. I felt fortunate to have an old trunk that had been
through so much. And I felt proud of the hard
work that made it look this good again.
A VE RY BRIE F GU I D E T O PAIN T RE M OVAL

THE OPTIONS
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HEAT GUN
WHEN TO USE IT
HOW TO USE IT
You need to sand on a broad

flat area, and you want to
have some fun.
Wear a dust mask. Always

keep the sander moving to
avoid depressions.
When the surface is ornate

or difficult to get at with
sandpaper.
Gear upeye, breathing,

and skin protectionand be
patient. It takes a while.
Youre working on an area with

details or a lot of damaged
areas or chipped paint.
On a sanding block or folded

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Never. In most cases, heat

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Box it up and hope the store

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PROJECT TITLE
BEDROOM DOORBELL!
Difficulty:
EASY
REASONABLE
Time: 1 hour
HARD
Ages: 10+
A project to build with your children.

D E S I G N E D B Y J A M E S S C H A D E WA L D
Shopping List
CHANICS FO
KID
S
ME
POPULAR
QTY
DESCRIPTION
Altoids container
9-volt snap connector

(No. 2700324*)
9-volt push-button
switch (No. 2750646*)
Piezo buzzer
(No. 2730066*)
spool 22-gauge solid

hookup wire
9-volt battery
package 3M Command
Medium Picture
Hanging Strips
*RadioShack item number

DIAGRAM
Connector
Switch
Battery
Altoids
container
Hookup wire
Buzzer
PROJECT NOTES
OUR BUILDER:
Nicolas Serapiglia
is a 12-year-old
from Pennsylvania.
102
APRIL 2016 2016

SEPTEMBER
_ P O _P U
P OPUL
L A R MARM
E C HEC
A NHANIC
I C S . C S.COM
OM
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a 9-volt battery and wiring. This
base serves as the platform for a
push-button switch that we wired
to a nearby low-voltage buzzer.
The results are surprising. And
loud. When you tire of the noise,
and you will, you can reduce the
buzzers harshness by covering it
with a piece of Scotch tape.
OTO
G RN
A ;PIH
/ I L LU
T RI O
ATNI O
NG
BY
E EEK R
AY
ME
PH OTO G R A PH BY R EB ECCPAH M
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BEDROOM DOORBELL
Instructions
kid only
parent only
parent and kid
1. Use a drill and -inch twist drill

bit to make a hole in the lid of the
Altoids container. Position the
hole as shown in the diagram.
2. Secure the Altoids container in
a vise, then drill a hole in its side
with a 3/16-inch bit. Sand or file
away any rough edges left from
drilling.
3. Decorate the lid with patterned duct tape, paint, or decals.
Remove the locknut from the
switch, insert the switch into the
hole in the lid, and tighten the
locknut on the other side.
4. Cut two 4-foot pieces of wire.

Strip inch of insulation from
each end. Chuck two ends of the
wires into your drill and slowly
rotate it to braid the wires, leaving a foot unbraided at the end.
5. Hook the two free ends of the
braided wire to the buzzer wires
and wrap with electrical tape.
2
6. Pass the other end of the

braided wires through the Altoids
container. Attach one wire to the
push button and the other to the
snap connector.
7. Cut a 6-inch piece of wire and
strip inch of insulation from its
ends. Twist one end of the wire
around the free contact on the
switch and the other around the
open wire on the battery snap
connector. Insert a 9-volt battery
into the snap connector and test
your work. If the buzzer doesnt
sound, check each connection
for tightness. If the buzzer works
but is too loud, cover one or
more of the speaker holes with
Scotch tape.
INSTALLATION
G IV E
104
Start a child you know on a lifetime of projects with a gift subscription to Popular Mechanics.
GO TO PO PU L AR M ECHAN I CS .CO M/G I FT.
Affix the Altoids box with

adhesive strips. Use thumbtacks every 6 inches to run
the buzzer wires down the
wall and under the door.
Mount the buzzer low on the
wall on the opposite side of
the door with more adhesive
strips and thumbtacks.
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CREDITS
Cover: Offerman: Emily Shur/Giant Artist;
styling: Jesse Cohan; grooming: Sydney Sollod/
The Wall Group; props and set: Faeth Gruppe;
eagle: A-list Animals; still life: Ben Goldstein/
Studio D; p. 3 Offerman: Emily Shur; telescope:
Ryan Schude; sander: Levi Brown; people:
Dina Litovsky; p. 4 Berendsohns: Matthew
Monteith; p. 6 Harley and the Davidsons:
Discovery; Sully: Warner Bros.; football, seeds,
tools, beer glasses, Mars, telescope, submarine:
Getty Images; Luke Cage: Netflix; p. 10 Conti:
Getty Images; p. 13 Richard Kalvar/Magnum
Photos; p. 14 girl: Courtesy VRSE; UN,
Gaddafi: Getty Images; p. 16 food styling:
Susan Ottavino/Halley Resources; p. 18
Courtesy Dyson; p. 22 Aroh: Joe Buglewicz;
p. 32 Devon Jarvis/Studio D; pp. 3435 Jon
Patterson/Studio D; p. 36 photos: J Muckle/
Studio D; p. 41 Getty Images; p. 43 squirrel,
biker, snake, mountain lion, bear: Getty
Images; p. 50 VehiCROSS: John Eaton; p. 52
before and after paint: Jamie Wilson; cans,
sandpaper: Ida Garland; pp. 6465, 67, 6869
styling: Jesse Cohan; grooming: Sydney Sollod/
The Wall Group; props and set: Faeth Gruppe;
eagle: A-list Animals; p. 66 Parks and
Recreation: NBC Universal; Fargo, American
Ham: Everett Collection; p. 67 The Founder:
The Weinstein Company; p. 69 portrait:
Cynthia Henebry; flower beds: Michael Wilson;
p. 79 Harper: Getty Images; p. 80 jerky: Getty
Images; p. 83 guns, cash: Getty Images; p. 98
trunk: J Muckle/Studio D; paint stripping: Ida
Garland; p. 100 boots: Ida Garland.
POPULAR MECHANICS (ISSN 0032-4558) is published
monthly except for combined July/August and December/
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300 West 57th Street, New York, NY 10019 U.S.A. Steven R.
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David Carey, President; John A. Rohan, Jr., Senior Vice
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rights reserved. Popular Mechanics is a registered trademark
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PID
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S
or
AMAZING
Instagram on...GMOs
THIS MONTH
GMOs
BY JESSE HIRSCH
to be as simple as blowing out the acreage of

low-nutrient GM corn, as Monsanto would
have you believe).
STUPID
A M AZING
Is this wizardry a bridge too far? With
culinary obsessions skewing simple and
natural (e.g., the new Kraft Mac & Cheese,
IF YOU WANT to completely upend your next
now without weird, multisyllabic chemdinner party, bring up genetically modified
icals), GMOs can seem the ultimate in
organisms. On one side youll have the die-hard
mealtime dark arts. Theres something
skeptics holding court about how Monsanto
unsettling about the notion that the buildand big government are conspiring to poison
ing blocks of life have been upended just so
our bodies with frankenfoods. On the other
your avocado will keep its luster.
side will be the pro-science crowd ready to
But consider that in a rare, near-unaniaccuse the opposition of willful ignorance and
mous consensus among the global scientific
flat-earth looney-ism. In the meantime, amid
community, GMOs have shown no disthe deeply polarized din, plated innocently on
cernible health effects on the human body.
the table, are the genetically modified organAbsolutely none. The one well-publicized
isms themselves. Seventy to 80 percent of the
study that linked GM foods
food we eat today contains them.
to cancer in 2012 was roundly
A quick primer: GMOs are
Amid the deeply debunked the following year
organisms that have been tinkered
polarized din,
as agenda-driven pseudowith on the most fundamental
plated innoscience. Though this doesnt
leveltheir DNA. The goal is to
cently on the
mean that GMOs have always
tweak the basic cellular structure
been a force for good. Monto eliminate some undesirable
table, are the
santo has amassed much of its
trait, maybe add some benefit.
GMOs themIn 1994, the first GM food to gain
selves. Seventy bad reputation by creating a
twin dependence in farmers
approval in the U.S. was a tomato
to 80 percent
Buy our herbicide and our
called the Flavr Savr, designed to
of the food
herbicide-resistant GM seeds
stay ripe longer. One of the most
we eat today
together, forever! Like any
recent approvals came last spring,
contains them. powerful technology, GMOs
for a non-browning apple called
need to be managed effectively
the Arctic Apple. Research is curand implemented responsibly. Until were
rently being done on everything from tear-free
sure they are, precedent-setting legislation
onions to pigs without noxious odors.
like that in Vermontforcing producers to
GMOs go far beyond the nifty and the novel,
label groceries containing GMOsseems
though. They have already proven to be an
more than fair.
immeasurably helpful asset in the toolbox
But when you consider the scope of how
of science. When a virus started decimating
beneficial GM technology is (and could grow
global papaya crops, a GM papaya was created
to become), paired with the lack of provable
in Hawaii that virtually rescued the indushealth consequences, you cant help but
try. Similar research is being conducted on
hope the vitriol will subside. It would be nice
oranges that can stand up to the ravages of
to have a polite, reasonable dinner convercitrus greening and grapes that will not sucsation without hurt feelings and sore egos.
cumb to fungus. Experts say the planet will
Now could someone please pass the
have nine billion mouths to feed by 2050;
Innate mashed potatoes? They dont
amped-up GMO crops could even help with the
bruise.
impending hunger crisis (though its not going
108
@emily_finch
Follow
Someones been roiding.

#attackofthegiantbrusselssprouts
#geneticallymodified #eww
Add a comment...
@vellodesign
Follow
Costco doesnt mess around with their

Avocados... I hope this thing ripens correctly... Or births a dragon...
Add a comment...
@charlieshoegirl
Follow
I do not have an unusually small hand

#lemon #bigfruit #food #isthisnormal
#monsterfruit
Add a comment...
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HOW

The Reader Page

HOW YOUR WORLD

The noncriminals guide to

One truck to rule them all

In the Shop, On the

HOW TO MAKE ANYTHING

THE WORLDS FUNNIEST WOODWORKER

The Reader Page

ich Wickstroms 13-year-old son wanted a xylophone for Christmas.

importantly, I witnessed bravery

it took Wickstrom another

REMEMBER: We give $100 for reader projects that we publish,

ONE SURVIVAL SKILL WE FORGOT TO MENTION?

Letters to the editor can be emailed to

IN NEXT MONTHS ISSUE

The first submarine attack

Sully, out today,

Tennis U.S. Open

Why not tidy up

Joseph GordonLevitt plays NSA

The first day of

Elon Musk said he

If youve built the

Though the first submersible ships

The Emmys air

Labor Day. Plus,

How to get the most

HOW TO SAVE SEEDS

WE build AMERICAN FACTORIES

WE buy AMERICAN MACHINERY

WE use AMERICAN RAW MATERIALS

WHICH COVER IS WEIRDER?

were privileged to have lots of special guests regularly swinging by Popular

Cast your vote now for Cover A or

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Email your vote to editor@

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WHERE ELSE YOU CAN FIND US

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BOURBON | FOOTBALL | HAIR DRYERS | LOUISVILLE

Gabo Arora, second

The Future of Humanitarianism

On the eve of the annual General Assembly, the U.N.s first

o the left is a set of garish plastic storage bins. Green,

immersed, able to look at the asphalt soccer field or up at the bare,

Total number of interpreters

Each translator speaks three

Interpreters translate in real time, so

We worked with regional

Kentucky will always supply the legacy, but

ust as barbecue and

specialty malted barley, which

the column couldnt be brought

Many craft distillers use

After the barrels are poured

Soft and velvety,

WINE ENTHUSIAST RATINGS

My American vodka beats

BY ALEX AN DER GEORGE

ve been told that my inch-and-a-half

Air shoots out an annular