100 skills every man should know-Popular Mechanics

Popular Mechanics ^ | 9/8/2008 | The Editors

[Dutchgirl]

Brains and charm are fine, but a real guy needs to know how to do real stuff. After months of debate among PM’s expert editors, here’s our lineup of essential skills, broken down in 10 categories for the competent man—plus 20 tools you need to own.

Automotive 1. Handle a blowout 2. Drive in snow 3. Check trouble codes 4. Replace fan belt 5. Wax a car 6. Conquer an off-road obstacle 7. Use a stick welder 8. Hitch up a trailer 9. Jump start a car

Handling Emergencies 10. Perform the Heimlich 11. Reverse hypothermia 12. Perform hands-only CPR 13. Escape a sinking car

Home 14. Carve a turkey 15. Use a sewing machine 16. Put out a fire 17. Home brew beer 18. Remove bloodstains from fabric 19. Move heavy stuff 20. Grow food 21. Read an electric meter 22. Shovel the right way 23. Solder wire 24. Tape drywall 25. Split firewood 26. Replace a faucet washer 27. Mix concrete 28. Paint a straight line 29. Use a French knife 30. Prune bushes and small trees 31. Iron a shirt 32. Fix a toilet tank flapper 33. Change a single-pole switch 34. Fell a tree 35. Replace a broken windowpane 36. Set up a ladder, safely 37. Fix a faucet cartridge 38. Sweat copper tubing 39. Change a diaper 40. Grill with charcoal 41. Sew a button on a shirt 42. Fold a flag

Medical Myths 43. Treat frostbite 44. Treat a burn 45. Help a seizure victim 46. Treat a snakebite 47. Remove a tick

Military Know-How 48. Shine shoes 49. Make a drum-tight bed 50. Drop and give the perfect pushup

Outdoors 51. Run rapids in a canoe 52. Hang food in the wild 53. Skipper a boat 54. Shoot straight 55. Tackle steep drops on a mountain bike 56. Escape a rip current

Primitive Skills 57. Build a fire in the wilderness 58. Build a shelter 59. Find potable water

Surviving Extremes 60. Floods 61. Tornados 62. Cold 63. Heat 64. Lightning

Teach Your Kids 65. Cast a line 66. Lend a hand 67. Change a tire 68. Throw a spiral 69. Fly a stunt kite 70. Drive a stick shift 71. Parallel park 72. Tie a bowline 73. Tie a necktie 74. Whittle 75. Ride a bike

Technology 76. Install a graphics card 77. Take the perfect portrait 78. Calibrate HDTV settings 79. Shoot a home movie 80. Ditch your hard drive

Master Key Workshop Tools 81. Drill driver 82. Grease gun 83. Coolant hydrometer 84. Socket wrench 85. Test light 86. Brick trowel 87. Framing hammer 88. Wood chisel 89. Spade bit 90. Circular saw 91. Sledge hammer 92. Hacksaw 93. Torque wrench 94. Air wrench 95. Infrared thermometer 96. Sand blaster 97. Crosscut saw 98. Hand plane 99. Multimeter 100. Feeler gauges

[weegee]

“Change a diaper”

WTF does this have to do with “Popular Mechanics”?

The art of the fold?

At least there are pressure forces at work when you perform the Heimlich Maneuver.

[mylife]

Lift that bale! Tow that barge, and bake a cherry pie!

[KarlInOhio]

I have replaced a hard drive in my laptop.

What did you do with your old hard drive? Did you destroy it sufficiently that it would take the NSA to recover some of it?

[gridlock]

Next issue will be updated to include instructions on how to field-dress a moose.

The only requirement is that you be able to field dress a moose better than your wife. I think Todd has that one covered...

[nevergore]

Ok...I missed brew beer and I don’t have an infrared thermomentor in my shop.....

[TMSuchman]

I USED to do much of that list.

But after being run over by an ILLIGAL alien I have lost a lot of my memory on how to a lot of these things... ;>(

[mylife]

Who the hell whitewaters in a canoe?

These dopes never heard of a kayak?

[gridlock]

Did you destroy it sufficiently that it would take the NSA to recover some of it?

My last hard drive, I drilled through the platters and hammered them until they were bent. Will that do?

[KarlInOhio]

How about Organize a Community? What type of man are you if you cant organize a community?

Military Know-How 48. Shine shoes 49. Make a drum-tight bed 50. Drop and give the perfect pushup

I would put shooting and hand to hand combat a little higher than making a drum-tight bed.

[Mr. Brightside]

Geez. I hope they grade on a curve or I flunked.

[Centurion2000]

bump

[Manic_Episode]

98 out of 100 aint bad.

Not too big on snake bites or rip tides in Minnesota but I think I read somewhere the southern part of the State does have rattlers.

I'll be doing #17 this afternoon. Have 5 gallons to bottle up.

[nascarnation]

I took it apart just for fun, and wolloped the platter with sledge, LOL

[Condor51]

29. Use a French knife

Does a Switchblade count?

(not that I have any as they're ... uh ... like illegal)

[from occupied ga]

well maybe 99% rather than 99.9999999%

[KarlInOhio]

That should keep 99.99% of the people from doing anything with it. I don't know what the military does to get rid of one. The last one I destroyed I took it apart to its platters and then ran an orbital sander over their surfaces, but it had a lot of other people's financial information on them from a business so I wanted it destroyed.

[Unassuaged]

“I just take off the diaper and put the rug rat in the dishwasher. They’re top-rack safe, you know.
“

PLEASE, for safety’s sake: turn off the heated dry option.

[mylife]

refer to #7 Use a stick welder(or better yet, a cutting torch)

[IYAS9YAS]

My last hard drive, I drilled through the platters and hammered them until they were bent. Will that do?

When I was in the Air Force, we were supposed to take a belt sander to the disk (we're talking 10-12 inch disks and a 40-pound portable sander with 80-grit paper). The lights would dim when you hit the trigger. That'd probably do it, too.

[snuffy smiff]

I had to google that one:

http://www.laguiole-france.com/laguiole_french_knife.html

check out the pocket knives-they look like something a frenchman would carry...