Page:Popular Mechanics 1928 01.pdf/144

 



Blowing big soap bubbles is a lot of fun, especially if the novel method of blowing them by means of an inner tube is used, as shown in the accompanying drawing. Make a small slit in an inner tube directly opposite the valve stem. Then push a second valve stem through this slit and take up on the nuts so that no air will leak out. Remove the inner section of the valve and force the end of a length of rubber tubing over the end. Insert the stem of a clay pipe in the other end of the tubing. The tube should be held closed with a spring clothespin or clip. Pump up the inner tube with an air pump so that it will be well filled but not so far as to blow out the extra valve stem. Dip the pipe bowl in the solution, and hold it steadily down on a table, bowl up. Then release the air from the inner tube by easing up on the spring clip. When the bubble has formed and is growing nicely under a small stream of air, leave the clip in that position. In this way the bubble will grow without jarring or shaking and reach its maximum size. Use a good soap solution into which a little glycerin has been dropped.—L. B. Robbins, Harwich. Mass.

 

I have had several cars of the same make and somehow none of them could be started easily in cold weather. The trouble was, however, readily overcome by connecting the natural-gas house line to the intake, as shown in the illustration. Set the choke and turn on the gasoline line for starting and also turn on the gas. A few turns of the engine is all that is necessary to start it. This method saves both battery and temper. The gas connection may be made at any convenient place so that it will suck through the manifold. A convenient way to do this is to replace the elbow on the intake, on the vacuum-tank suction tube, with a tee; into this screw an ordinary gas cock, and above this a nipple, onto which the rubber tube from the house line can be forced. Note the small $1/16$-in. hole in the nipple to allow air to be taken in with the gas.—Louis F. Busch, Cincinnati, Ohio.



