Cagliostro's Catalogue of Post-Apoc Life Hacks

a reply to: CagliostroTheGreat

I once went on a canoe trip with my dog on the Great Slave Lake. In several places, "we" chose to sleep on the lake,adrift, rather than go ashore. The mozzies were legion. I was actually scared. I thought if I went ashore to sleep, the dog would wake up the next morning, pawing my shriveled husk, wanting breakfast.

A person can always smear their exposed skin with mud as an emergency block. I've tried this, and it works until the mud dries and there was me, thinking I was protected, but discovered several square inches that were not.

a reply to: argentus

Ouch! I have done the mud trick too and I know how you felt by missing some spots.

a reply to: Quantum12

I grew up in Idaho with nearby Shoshone. They mixed (I believe) Mountain Dogwood with animal fat for when the bugs were thick. I could be wrong about the Mountain Dogwood. It has quinine in it, and was commonly used by folks in the area for other things.

a reply to: argentus

Quinine is used to prevent and treat malaria. I was hiking in the Phillipines without sunblock. The people I was with said your white skin is red like a roasted pig. Lol. They made me put mud all over. As it dried I felt like a tight skinned person with a bad sunburn.

Your right, it worked on most spots.

a reply to: Quantum12

As it dried I felt like a tight skinned person with a bad sunburn.

I know that feeling!

My mother is a healer. She was always mixing up herbs, or boiling various decoctions, drying herbs, rendering tinctures, etc.

This pertains to this thread: A mixture of quinine sulfate with witch hazel makes a perfect treatment -- topically applied -- for Poison Oak, Poison Ivy, and a myriad of other skin ailments, such as bug bites. It dries and cures the ailment much better than, say, cortisone cream.

Along those lines, I have a small case of calamine. In a SHTF, calamine is gold. It won't be gold right away, but when skin ailments become profound, it might be more valuable than booze.

a reply to: argentus

Your mom is a pure angel for helping people and I have high respect for the healers of this world. I thank her. I love witch hazel. It has really helped me and others. Have a great weekend!

argentus

I spent most of my childhood and adolescence in southern Idaho , specifically Twin Falls/ Buhl. I love Idaho and would like to go back one day.

Very cool idea for a thread.

The info in this thread could save your life someday.

a reply to: crazyeddie68

Your a cool person who gets it. I agree, his thread could save people!

Simple portable clay pot heater:




One of these is great for keeping you toasty inside a tent or lean-to shelter where you're not able to have a small fire right next to where you're sleeping. These things radiate heat far better than what a small pitfire would kick off.

They're also perfect for heating a small room in your house.

You don't have to use the washers and bolts/nuts for this clay pot heater trick to work. You can also just use one smaller pot and one very large pot on top that will allow the heat to circulate all around the smaller pot inside - you don't want the two pots touching each other. Use a piece of aluminim foil or some other fireproof material to block the holes on both the small and large pot.

The reason why you want to block the holes on the clay pots is to force the heat to radiate through the ceramic material, otherwise the heat would just rise up through the holes and out resulting in much less radiative effect.

Setting it on a metal cookie sheet pan is a good way to keep the surface you're sitting it on safe from heat damage. And be sure to keep this far enough away from anything that can scorch and catch fire. The temp of these pots gets extremely high !



I've actually tried this trick in my small home office just to see if it really can heat up a room, and I can attest that it does work. It takes the chill out of the air enough to make the room temp quite comfortable after a couple hours of burning.

And even after you blow out the candles, the pots will continue to kick off heat for another hour or so until they've cooled down.

a reply to: CagliostroTheGreat

Salmon, Idaho. I remember Twin Falls. That was "the big City" to us, along with Idaho Falls. We spoke of Boise with reverence, as though it were akin to heaven. Down by you were the Bannock, Shoshone and Blood (Blackfoot), if I'm not mistaken. I learned so much from living near the Shoshone/Shoshoni. From them I learned that nearly every furry animal has just enough brains to tan their own hide. I don't know what chemical compound it is in brains that tans hides, but it works-- significantly better than ammonia/urine.

That may be a topic I will touch upon in this thread -- the processing and tanning of hides.

And here's one more great trick with clay pots:


Portable clay pot oven:




And just like the clay pot heater, this little gadget can be used inside a small tent or lean-to without worrying about burning down the fort !

a reply to: CranialSponge

With both the clay pot methods you illustrate above, as well as any oxygen consuming idea or trick, one must be absolutely sure that one does not suffocate oneself inside ones tent. If you are burning something, you are bonding oxygen in the air with carbon, replacing oxygen with carbon monoxide or dioxide and other chemical compounds.

It is ESSENTIAL that whatever you burn does not have enough fuel in it, to suffocate the people inside the tent. That's obvious, but it is the obvious things that mess us up, so I have noticed.

a reply to: CagliostroTheGreat

So you found a knife or a blade. You managed to clean it up. But the best you can do with it is carry it around in front of you like you are compensating, because it didn't come with a sheath. You lack the equipment or know how for tanning?

How about rubber?

My sheath died the death. I have a grand old Bowie style knife that has been around so long that it is shorter than it was when it was first forged. It's sheath was leather, but had denatured by the time I got a hold of it years ago. But today, after sharpening the blade, the sheath just died. There was a rivet in the leather, around which the leather had collapsed, meaning that my freshly honed blade was rubbing against a crappy, corroded rivet.

I couldn't have that!

But I had no leather to hand. I did however have some left over rubber sheeting. Now, cheap rubber car mats, the thin sort, or damaged, holed and otherwise unusable Wellington boots would be a great source of rubber sheet at the end of the world. Anyway, I drew out my knife onto the rubber, flipped it over, drew out its mirror image next to it, cut my material, grabbed a fistful of small nuts and bolts, a wrench, a nail (for penetrating the rubber to allow bolts to pass through), and bolted together a pretty decent little sheath. It's my first attempt at making one, and it didn't take too long at all. Once I had an idea of what I was about, it came together nicely. There are things I might have done differently, given another shot, but I'm pretty pleased with it. I am putting a belt loop and retaining strap on tomorrow!

Adding photograph now...


Sorry for the low image quality everyone!

a reply to: TrueBrit

And here it is with the belt loop put on.

a reply to: TrueBrit

That is the essence of adaptability. Well done! I have kept a supply of leather since we've move to the Caribbean, and I'm perfectly capable of tanning, however your solution is really appropriate for this thread, as it utilizes the resources often available to us in a post-SHTF situation. AND! your sheath is flat black, which is not only non-reflective, but disaster-sexy.

Along those lines, something to consider is cannibalizing the interior of a derelict vehicle. Carpeting..... plastic parts, pleather (in some cases), the hide of the endangered nauga, all can be used for various tools, footware, and accoutrements such as sheaths, quivers, and possible cordage. ETA: Not to mention the yards of wiring, which could be useful for snares, fasteners, etc.

a reply to: argentus

Thanks argentus!

The flat black of the soft side of the rubber was preferable I thought, for the very reason you state. Also, the side which wound up being the inner part of the sheath is finely gridded, which means that water which might get into the sheath, will run out down the grid lines, rather than getting caught up, as it surely would if I had used the softest side for the inner.

Also, although it is harder to get hold of hex head bolts if the crap hits the fan, the bolt heads are black as well, which means that the object is less eye catching at a glance, meaning it is easier to camouflage, especially at night time. Another beneficial feature of my sheath, although it is by no means the prettiest thing in the world, is that it is ridiculously quiet. Kydex, hardened leathers, PVC, aluminium, wood and other typical materials for sheath making, are all far noisier affairs, when it comes to taking out ones knife from its sheath. If things get REALLY bad, it may be necessary for one to...pre-emptively remove a threat. Say a bandit or gang member, guarding a trail or area you need to move through. If you announce your presence with a noisy knife draw, you will almost certainly have the alarm raised on you. You might still get a neck shot in, but by then, the enemy will have yelled for help already. With a rubber sheath like this one, you would have to draw the knife right by the head of your enemy or prey (also works for hunting of course), to have them hear it at all.

Put another way, I would try and record the draw sound on a YouTube video for you, but I have recorded a video, and it literally cannot pick up the sound of the blade leaving, or entering the sheath.

I am not going to lie, I had not even considered that particular advantage until I did a few test draws to get a feel for the thing.

a reply to: TrueBrit

Rivets are also good for such fastenings. I have both steel and aluminium* rivets and two guns for those high strangeness fastenings.



*British spelling, in deference to you. ;o)


ETA: in a SHTF, the stealth factor will become much more important than we give it credit for now. Good on you for considering such a thing; I would not have thought of it.

a reply to: argentus

Indeed they are.

I simply had no rivets at the time. Also, just while I think about it, the bolts I went with can be re-used if the rubber splits or is damaged in some way, where as rivets cannot.

The bolts also add a little weight to the sheath, making one handed draws smoother. I favour drawing a knife with the blade pointing out of the bottom of my right fist. If I had used rivets, there is a possibility that drawing the knife in such a way, would have meant the sheath would move with the draw motion, making the process somewhat less clean. With those bolts weighting down the leading edge of the sheath, pulling the knife is a clean motion, involving no movement of the sheath itself, no tugging motion to get the thing free, just one smooth, clean, quiet operation.

I think, if tomorrow is a slow day, that I might attempt to make some sort of retaining strap, and locking mechanism. At the moment, the blade is kept in place with a brown leather thong, fed through the belt loop and tied round the handle.

We shall see. Time is my arch nemesis at the moment!

Also, thank you so much for using the correct number of i's in the word aluminium! I feel quite sure that I would have had not the faintest clue what you were talking about, if too few had been present!

a reply to: TrueBrit

Also, thank you so much for using the correct number of i's in the word aluminium! I feel quite sure that I would have had not the faintest clue what you were talking about, if too few had been present!

I knew you'd like that.

I can surely see how rivets might create a situation eventually where the blade (God forbid!) might drag against them. Agree with you that weight is good in the sheath when drawing a knife. As a lad, I wore a straight knife when in the wild. I wore it on my right side, since I'm a leftie. Cross-drawing tends to put enough pressure on a proper sheath such that it doesn't bind. Bad form that, shealth binding. I would sometimes wear a hatchet on my left side. Didn't really see a reason for fast-draw with it, given that the trees were pretty much still and nothreatened.