3. Tools
Information on In the Wake:
Booklet #1: Tools for Gridcrash:
[Jan 14, 05]
For information on turning industrial garbage into useful things,
see the DIY Recycling
index.
From the practical Q&A series
see:
Q&A #1: Toothpastes, soaps, and razors
Q&A #2: Strategies for shortages
Q&A #4: Communications
Q&A #5: Transportation
Q&A #7: Tobacco and Fermentation
Q&A #8: Condoms and Birth Control
Q&A #9: Medical Supplies
Information from other sources:
Further Reading, Bibliography
and Links
Related posts from the blog:
Wednesday, April 19, 2006
Steven F. Scharff has retyped and contributed an old Extension
service primer on soap making, which includes a number of recipies.
There is also some interesting background information. For example,
one of the reasons that people stopped making their own soap is
that as cities grew they switched to coal instead of wood for
heating, and burning coal doesn't produce the wood ash for lye
you need to make soap.
You can read the primer here
online. (Thanks, Steven!)
Thursday, April 6, 2006
Here are 10
classic bushcraft books by Richard Graves available online.
Subjects include Ropes
& Cords, Huts
& Thatching, Campcraft,
Food
& Water, Firemaking,
Knots
& Lashings, Tracks
& Lures, Snares
& Traps, Travel
& Gear, and Time
& Direction. There are great illustrations.
Tuesday, March 28, 2006
Take it apart .net
is a blog about how to take various pieces of technology apart.
Pretty useful if you plan on modifying them or scavenging parts
to improvise something else.
Tuesday, March 21, 2006
From the Scoutmaster
blog, fire
by friction: an set of instructions for rapid fire-starting
with a bow drill from an old-time award-winning fire-starter.
Monday, March 20, 2006 (Spring Equinox)
Vintage Projects
is an online collection of vintage how-to plans dedicated to preserving
" the inspired DIY spirit of the past."
Our free project reprints cover farm machines,
the woodshop, machine shop, boats, archery and more. These vintage
plans come from a half-century ago when do-it-yourself enthusiasts
turned wood, metal and old motors into useful workhorses, functional
tools, and toys.
They've got everything from boats
and sailboats to bows
and crossbows.
Friday, March 17, 2006
Previously I've recommended Instructables.com,
a great user-contributed collection of how-to articles online.
Also available at that resource are the Howtoons,
a wonderful collection of illustrated short how-to's aimed at
children:
Howtoons are cartoons showing kids of all ages
"How To" build things. Each illustrated episode is a stand-alone
fun adventure accessible to all. Our Howtoons are designed to
encourage children to be active participants in discovering the
world through Play-that-Matters -- fun, creative, and inventive
-- and to rely a lot less on mass-consumable entertainment. [...]
In big-picture terms, we see Howtoons as fast-spreading
"Tools of Mass Construction" inspiring kids everywhere to think
about hopeful futures while giving them both practical skills
and nurturing the creative savvy needed to solve their own very
real problems.
Skills that are important now, and especially important in a
collapse context.
Tuesday, March 14, 2006
Some handy online books via the Scoutmaster
blog: An
Ax to Grind: A Practical Ax Manual by Bernie Weisgerber (in
both PDF and HTML formats), and also several sections of the classic
Axe Manual of Peter McLaren (in PDF and scanned image formats).
Also from the Scoutmaster blog, this handy online
book on knots and lashings.
If you like knots and lashings you might also appreciate these
very clear online video tutorials
on knot-tying.
Wednesday, March 8, 2006
I posted a link earlier today about a homebuilt generator made
from disassembled computer hard drives. If you are interested
in learning more about such homebuilt permanent magnet generators
there is a very handy Permanent Magnet Generator Construction
Manual in
PDF format here. It it includes more on the theory behind
such generators, and tips on how to built jigs and moulds to construct
them.
That PDF is from the Scoraig
Wind Electric site, which also has other related information
on homebuilt wind devices about half-way down the home page.
TheWorkshop.ca is a
neat resource about tools and rural skills that often involve
reconstructing or reusing old junk into something useful.
There's a five-part series on making a hard
disk generator which involves dismantling old computer hard
drives and making an electrical generator (among other useful
things) out of them. There are also how-tos for building things
like a simple wind generator (part of a
series), battery
desulfators (to extend lead-acid battery life), and a way
to increase solar panel power generation by using reflectors
made out of scavenged hard drive platters. A lot of it fits
into the kind of strategy I wrote about in Metal
theft and industrial decomposition.
There are also sections on metal
casting and some other rural
skills.
The site has been around since 1999 but has a number of recent
updates so it is definitely something to watch.
Sunday, February 26, 2006
There is some good information at Green
Mountain Solar about one person's experience of going off
the grid, with a particular focus on electricity. (via greenInk)
Wednesday, February 8, 2006
I'm always trying to piece together a better picture of the industrial
system and how it will respond to different events and changes
in the world. How Products are
Made is a site that outlines the manufacturing processes for
a wide variety of different industrial items, and discusses raw
materials, machinery and manufacturing for various products. (It
sometimes also has a section on by-products of the manufacturing
process, but unfortunately this isn't usually very detailed.)
Wednesday, February 1, 2006
There are some neat do-it-yourself wind generator projects at
GotWind.org.
Lately I've been getting ready to turn an old bicycle into a wind
generator / water pump, and when I figure that out later this
year I'll post designs of what I come up with. If you have any
good ones, please let me know.
Tuesday, January 31, 2006
I think one of the reasons that kids are apparently getting dumber
(see post below) is
that so much of their time is taken up with school, TV, and video
games and diversions that inhibit their ability to creatively
play on their own and with other people.
To help encourage creative play, Toys
from Trash is a great site about improvising kids' toys from
things that would otherwise be thrown away. I think it's really
neat because projects like this require you to actually understand
how things work (instead of just snapping together a Lego set
that is designed to make only one thing).
Many of the projects hear are also fun for adults, and even help
build useful improvisation skills for a collapse context. For
example, the simple
handpump, simple
generator, and the button
wheel car. There aren't step-by-step instructions for every
toy, but making something based on an incomplete picture is also
a pretty handy ability.
Sunday, December 25, 2005
David Butcher's website has some really
interesting different bicycle-tech and off-the-grid electricity
projects. Some of my favourites include his pedal generator, a
bicycle style generator which he has used to generate electricity,
power mechanical pumps and fans directly, and to give electrical
power to a DC chainsaw in realtime (see videos of the device
in action). He's also built a micro photovoltaic
system and a pedal powered canoe.
Friday, December 16, 2005
Instructables is
a relatively new site with a collection of user-made tutorials
in on a great variety of subjects:
Instructables is a step-by-step collaboration
system that helps you record and share your projects with a mixture
of images, text, ingredient lists, CAD files, and more. We hope
to make documentation simple and fast. Show your colleagues how
to operate a machine, show your friends how to build a kayak,
show the world how to make cool stuff.
If you click explore you can find over
200 different neat tutorials for various geeky and DIY projects,
with tonnes of bicycle related technology, as
well furniture and clothing and many other ideas (and off-topic
for this site, even video of a deliciously nerdy 3D
chocolate printer made from LEGO).
Subjects to add, discuss or address:
Suggestions welcome.
Using Remnant Resources: Including how to identify different
metals and common alloys to determine their usefulness, and general
ideas and tips for creative tool-making with leftovers. (For instance,
I have a friend who can chip arrow-heads out of smashed china
plates)
Firearms, types, use and maintenance
Making basic weapons (bows and arrows, blades) and finding the
appropriate materials
Making paper, ink, pens
Chopsticks and basic whittling ? (pretty easy, but some wood
works better than other)
How to weave ?
Fishing nets and traps (construction and use)
Fish lure making
Simple boats / canoes ?
Pottery and clay basics
Twine and rope making, knot typing
Hafted tools (hammers, axes, adzes)
Glue
Discussions of tool and technology choice:
Five reasons not to invest in electric/"renewable"
infrastructure for the collapse. [01/03/04]
|
Return
to top