How to make concrete or mortar that can harden underwater, from scratch.

 

Have you ever wondered how people made concrete before there were bags of ready to mix cement? Well good news, you're about to learn.

 

Concrete is one of the strongest, and most versatile building materials that mankind (or womankind, I irritate them, but I don't discriminate against them) has at its disposal. It's instant rock. "Just add water". Kind of like the Wal-Mart brand corn tortilla mix, only it doesn't smell funny. The problem with concrete is the price. The high price tag stems mainly from the fact that industrial concrete plants require massive amounts of energy. This is no less true of homemade concrete however, due to the smaller scale, it's more manageable. That said, you really need one heck of a bonfire for this one.

 

The main ingredients of cement are quicklime (which is made from limestone), sand, and aggregate, which is normally gravel. To make "hydraulic cement" (cement that can set underwater), you'll need terra-cotta in place of sand.

 

Making Quicklime. Limestone, seashells, bone, and chalk are all made of calcium carbonate. Any of these materials can be used to make quicklime, although limestone is more readily available in large quantities. Limestone occurs all over the world.  You may well have limestone on your property and not even know it. After all, it makes up about 10% of the sedimentary rock this side of the Earth's crust. It is also available at most lawn and garden/home improvement stores relatively cheap for use in landscaping. But with limestone, remember that the whiter the stone the more pure it is. Purity is especially important if you plan on making hydraulic cement. If you only need a small quantity of hydraulic cement, I suggest using chalk for that reason.

To make quicklime, you’re going to need to build a really hot fire. You're going to have to get your material glowing white-hot for this to work.  This is easier in a kiln, but can be done with a bonfire. Take your limestone, seashells, or chalk and place them in the fire. Be sure to keep the fire burning hot around them, while also raking coals around them to get them as hot as you possibly can. If you're using powdered chalk or small pieces of limestone, you may want to place a steel plate in the fire to place your limestone on.  The calcium carbonate (CaCo3 ) will go through a chemical reaction in which carbon dioxide (CO2) will be cooked off, leaving calcium oxide (Ca0), a.k.a. quicklime. Once your quicklime has cooled, use a brush to remove any impurities it may have picked up in the fire. It's important to remember that although you can store quicklime in an airtight moisture-free container, quicklime is highly caustic (so use gloves when handling it) and unstable. (Relax, it's not gonna blow up. I'm not going to teach you how to make anything that blows up for three reasons. One: I'd rather teach you something useful. Two: my family made me promise not to.  In the words of my mother, "Please, don't put some poor parent through what I had to go through when you were growing up". Three: It’s just too easy. So, if you are one of the small contingent of people who know what I do for a living, and are waiting around for me to teach you how to make a bomb….You're a moron, grow up). By unstable, I mean is difficult store to for long periods of time without it slaking.

When water is added to quicklime, it becomes slaked lime. This creates an exothermic (that's fancy talk for it gets hot) chemical reaction in which the water is expelled leaving behind a solid rock. (The hissing and bubbling are not a part of the chemical reaction. That's actually black magic, so draw a cross on your forehead to keep the devil from climbing in through your butt and taking over your body.) This is where the magic happens. By adding aggregate and/or sand, you can create a concrete wall mortar to suit any application. Again, use gloves.  This stuff can take your skin off.

I'm going to give you recipes for several basic mixes; however it is important to remember that different mixes work better in some areas and climates than others. To find out which mix work best in your area, you can look it up on the Internet. (Unless you get extremely lucky, this won't work). You can do some small-scale experiments of your own. The best way I have found to do this is to ask an old-timer. I'm serious.  They have done all this stuff before. In most cultures, the elderly are held in a place of honor. One of the many downfalls of our culture is that we toss them away in "homes" and stop listening to them. They’re old.  They are not children, nor are they stupid…unless they were stupid before they were old. Anyone who is interested in homesteading, survival, self-sufficiency, gardening, building or hell, anything else for that matter, can obtain a wealth of all but forgotten knowledge for the price of a cup of coffee.  Oh wait, most places give seniors free coffee!  Knowledge is, without a doubt, the single greatest resource humankind has access to. To ignore those who have almost a century of that knowledge is completely, and utterly asinine. Young people, let's not forget that they were at one time farmers, construction workers, sailors, soldiers, housewives, welders, cooks and doctors. They were brilliant inventors, brainless jocks, dirty little schoolgirls, and they were that weird guy that everybody likes and nobody understands. They were the loved, the hated, the strong, the weak, the courageous, the cowards.  They were us.

Before we get into actual recipes, it's important that we first discussed the mason's paradox. It is thus, "The more water you add to the mix, the easier it is to work. The less water you add to the mix, the stronger the final product will be." You have to add enough water to get the entire mix at least damp. But beyond that, the choice of how much water to add is up to you.

Basic Cement Mix

1 part quicklime

3 parts sand

3 parts aggregate

Slake the quicklime the first, then add your sand and aggregate.

Basic Mortar Mix

1 part quicklime

3 parts sand

Slake the quicklime first, then add the sand.

Hydraulic cement, or mortar, is a cemented wall mortar that will harden underwater. It's not quite as strong as normal cement or mortar, but when you need hydraulic cement not much else will do. This is good for preparing swimming pools, building ponds, cisterns, or dams. It is important to note that your quicklime must be incredibly pure for this to work. Also, instead of using sand, we will be using crushed terra-cotta. If you don't have enough terra-cotta or really like your flowerpots, you can use fired clay instead. Either way, it must be crushed into a powder.

Hydraulic Cement Mix

1 park quicklime

3 parts crushed terra-cotta

3 parts aggregate

Slake your quicklime, then add your crushed terra-cotta and aggregate

Hydraulic Mortar Mix

1 part quicklime

3 parts crushed terra-cotta

Slake your quicklime, then add your crushed terra-cotta.

 

I'm going to build a concrete Darth Vader statue. But you can build a castle, or dam, or something useful like a patio. Whatever you build, please tell me about it. As always, I hope this tutorial has taught you something and sparked your imagination. I hope you put to use.

Wild Breads, Part Two - How to make great tasting and nutritious breads from the edible plants in your backyard.

A.k.a.: Wild Breads Two, the Quest for More Money…… Wait … What… Oh yeah, I’m not getting paid for this.  Forgot that for a second.  Well in that case, I think I’ll go get a drink, then see if there is any ice cream. I mean, what the heck, I’m not on the clock.

Remember, it is up to you to properly identify the plant in question. I have chosen what I think are easy plants that most everyone should know.  I cannot and will not identify it for you in this blog.  I will help you along on this, but the job of being sure you’ve got the right plant rest squarely on your shoulders. (There wasn't any ice cream.  There's never any ice cream. It was supposed to be under the bag of frozen rats. But my significant other must've eaten it.  I can't, however, complain because, after all, that's my bag of frozen rats in our freezer.  And she puts up with that.  If I was a normal person and had to put up with me, I think I'd shoot me.)

Dandelion flour

If you don’t know what a dandelion looks like, either A: look it up; or B: give up, go back inside “where it’s safe” and  tweet about how much you love the outdoors and how you think we should be as in touch with nature as you are.

The entire dandelion plant is edible and quite nutritious.  Although the leaves can be bitter, they are a good addition to a salad.  But I wouldn’t try a salad of just dandelion leaves, although it would be hard to be worse than iceberg lettuce.  I mean, hey, at least it would have some taste.  The flowers are actually semi –sweet, and that’s what we will be using here. 

When you pick your flowers, be sure to leave as much of the stem behind as possible.  You will fail at this. But don't worry.  After they've been dried, you can pick out the now rock-hard pieces of stem.  There is a green cup at the base of the flower that the petals grow from.  Don’t worry about taking it with the flowers.  I don’t.

Spread the flowers out on a baking sheet and dry them in the oven.  This is the hardest part for me because every fiber in my being wants to batter and fry the flowers.  If you haven’t tried it, you can’t know. If you have tried it, you know how I feel.  Remember, dried flowers equal flour.  Not quite dry flowers equal a pasty mess.

Now grind the flowers into flour.  (Love saying that, and that's coming from a guy who managed to use "peedrinking numbskull" in the literal sense in a previous post.)  You can use a mortar and pestle, grinder, heck you can use hammers and rocks to grind the flowers.  But again, choose your rock well and go easy there, Grog.  It can make your flour gritty.  (Whoa. Two "wild breads one" references in one paragraph.  Okay, no more.)

Uh……..TA DAAAAAAA! I have, to at this point, admit that I haven’t tried dandelion flower , which by going ahead and posting this, I’m breaking a rule of mine.  However, having eaten many a dandelion and made, at this point, quite a bit of flour, I’m confident it will be good.  I have about half as much flour as I need to make a loaf of bread.  I was planning to pick more flowers and grind them, but instead I blew my back out rebuilding a magnetron.  Why is it that old crappy small appliances lasted for decades, yet new crappy small appliances seemed only last a few months?  I don't know, maybe it's because they want to buy a new one. I say, FIGHT THE POWERS THAT BE! Fix your broken stuff!  Let's send a message to these manufacturers of foreign-made, domestically assembled, overpriced, under-engineered kitchen gadgets!  Don't fall into their trap!  Save your hard-earned money, have a little fun, and learn something in the process. After all, it's already broken.  What have you got to lose?  (Yes, that was coffee I got to drink. Why do you ask?)  I plan to finish the flour and make bread as soon as I can.

Clover flour

Now this one I have done many times. Clover flour has a sweet, but subtle vanilla taste.  In my opinion, it tastes better than the "imitation, or more accurately abomination" vanilla and more like the real thing.  But wait, that's not even the best part.  The best part is that it's not made from paper mill waste runoff.  Seriously, that's what "imitation vanilla" is made from.

Again, the whole clover is edible raw, but we will be harvesting just the flowers, because we like flowers.  They make us feel pretty inside.

 

Here goes the recipe, quick and dirty like a waitress at… You know what?  That's just too easy, and there might be kids listening. So I'll just leave that one alone.  Pick the flowers.  Dry the flowers.  Grind the flowers into flour.

Sounds just like the first recipe, doesn’t it?  That’s because it is.  Gonna let you in on a little secret.  Anything that is edible, which you can dry and grind into a powder, can be used as flour.  From wheat grains, to clovers, to locust (Yes, you read right.  People make locust flour.  Not saying I wouldn't try it.  It's just that I really don't want to.), anything can be made into flour.  Heck, if you could dry it enough, I’ll bet you could make flour from leftover bacon.  Bacon bread.   There are no words, no words in the English language, to describe that level of awesome.

With that in mind, here are some wild edible plants to try.

Plantain: the whole plant is edible, but for taste stick to the young leaves.

 Lambsquarters: use the leaves or the seeds.

Daisies: I’d stick with the flowers.

Nettles:  use the young leaves, but watch out for the stinging mature leaves, which you can eat if you get the spikey thingies off.

And so ends "Wild Breads, Part Two," a.k.a. Revenge of the Wild Breads, a.k.a. Wild Breads Two: the Quest for More Money. I hope this has helped teach you the basic idea of making breads from edible wild plants. That said, in the fall I may, perhaps, do a third installment "Wild Breads, Part Three" a.k.a. the Wild Breads Strike Back. Until then, I urge you to try making your own wild bread.  After all, even if you decide you don't like the bread you made, at least you learned something.  And that is a powerful thing.

How to make and mold bio-plastic

Let’s face it.  Ninety-nine percent of everything is made of plastic these days.   I’ve seen multi-million dollar companies come grinding to a halt over a piece of craptastic plastic no bigger than my finger.   Plastic parts are not always synonymous with quality.  And complaining about it ain’t gonna change a thing.  I know.  I’ve tried.  (I’m good at complaining.  After all, I’m a guy.)

To make a long story short, plastic parts break.  Don’t believe me?  Look around your house.  I’d be willing to bet you can find something that is: a) plastic; and b) broken.  If not, I can only conjure two possibilities for this.  You’re either in a prison made before the 1950s and everything around you is steel and concrete, or you’re living in a primitive brush hut somewhere.  Either way, how are you reading this?

So, you have this broken plastic part.  Now you have three options.  You can throw the entire thing away and buy another.  You can search stores and the internet searching for a replacement part.  Or, if you want to save time and money, you can make a replacement part.

 

Bio-plastic from potatoes

You can use potato starch, or corn starch if you’d rather eat your potatoes (I know I would). If you go with corn starch, just skip the blending and straining.

 Take some potatoes.  Wash them.  Peel them.  Then cut them up in cubes the size of a …. well, I don’t guess it matters, so cut them however you feel like.

Throw them in a blender with about a cup of water.  Now, blend the crap out of them, about two minutes on the highest setting should do.  I used a Jim Croce song for my timer.  Yeah, I’m that out of touch with pop culture.

Strain off the cloudy water with a coffee filter, tea strainer, or just dump the mix onto a pair of pantyhose and let it drain. (That’s why I own pantyhose.  They are awesome for projects like this.  The fact that they would actually fit me is purely coincidence, I swear.)

Now, to make your plastic.  Pour about four ounces of cold water into a pot.  Add one tablespoon of the potato that you blended, two teaspoons of white vinegar and two teaspoons of glycerin. This is the time to add food coloring, if you want to color your plastic.

Put the pot on the stove and turn it to a low heat.  Start stirring it with a spatula, raking what mixture gets onto the sides back down into the pot.  Let the mix thicken a bit, then turn the heat up to medium.  Add a half teaspoon of baking soda and keep stirring.  Let the mix boil softly for about 10 minutes until the mix is, for lack of better word, goo.

Pour the goo into the mold of your choice (be sure to oil your mold first or you will never get it out….. ever), or spread it out on wax paper to make a sheet of plastic.  I made a mold of a green toy army man out of play dough.  (Soon as I get a camera, you’ll get to see it.  Sadly though, that’s one of the few things I don’t know how to make.)  Let your mold or sheet dry in the sun for a day or bake it in the oven at 150 degrees for two hours to dry it.

 

Making casein plastic from milk

Believe it or not, this technique for making plastic was developed by Leonardo Da Vinci. (Between the painting, inventing, and fixing all of Ezio’s broken crap, I wonder when he had tome to sleep.)

Heat up a cup of milk until it’s hot, but NOT boiling.  (I nuked mine in the microwave for a minute and a half.)

 Take it off the heat, or out of the microwave.  Stir in four teaspoons of white vinegar and keep stirring for a minute.

Now, pour the milk through a strainer.  Be not alarmed, grasshopper.  The lumpy blobs are not an accident.  It’s what we want.  (I’m torn.  The helpful part of me wants to tell you to do this step over the sink.  The sensitive part of me thinks that is so obvious that it would imply that I think you are a moron, thus insulting you.  The logical part of me feels that by not telling you to do it over a sink, those too stupid to do it over a sink will be unlikely to find a mate with curdled vinegary milk all over their floor, thus bettering the species thru natural selection.  The rest of me wants ice cream…. Cookie dough ice cream.)

Rinse off the blobs and mold them together with your hands.  This is the time to color them, if you so desire.  Mold it into the desired shape and let dry.

Making molds

If the item being molded being mostly two- dimensional, you can simply press the item into Play Dough, if you can stop playing with it long enough, then gently removing it.

Three- dimensional molds get more complex.  The best mold I have found thus far is made from caulk.  Take a box just larger than the item you want to mold, or make one out of a cereal box and tape.  Fill the box with silicone caulk. Take the item you wish to mold and liberally spray it with cooking spray, shaking it to remove the excess.  Suspend the item in the caulk and allow several days to dry.  Once the caulk is dry, cut the box in half with a sharp knife to remove the item. Then tape the box back together and fill with your chosen plastic mix.

 

I think it’s important to realize that although my main focus in this has been to replace broken plastic parts, you can make anything you want - forks, spoons, knives, sculptures, or even pink flamingos for your yard.  The only thing that limits you is your imagination.  Believe it or not, molding plastics is kind of fun.  Give it a try, and let me know what you create.

"Wild breads part one" how to make great tasting and nutritious breads from the edible plants in your backyard.

I’ve been planning to write this tutorial in the late summer, just before acorns start to fall.  However, I changed my mind after being forced to eat a ham sandwich between two slices of a white, tasteless foamy substance that stuck so tightly to the roof of my mouth that I was forced to remove it with my fingernail.  Most Americans somewhat naively refer to this as bread?  Then, I watched a “survival” show where a skinny man with a funny name and a British accent walked through a deciduous forest eating bugs and drinking urine to sustain him, as he literally trod upon all the ingredients needed for a freaking cake!  After an angry rant about pee drinking numbskulls and packing foam masquerading as food that caused everyone in the room to think I was nutty as a squirrel turd and possibly a danger to myself, and the American way of life, I decided to go ahead and post this.

Remember, it is up to you to properly identify the plant in question. I have chosen what I think are easy plants that most everyone should know.  I cannot and will not identify it for you in this blog.  I will help you along on this, but the job of being sure you got the right plant rest squarely on your shoulders.

Acorn Flour

 Acorns have a lot of protein, carbohydrates and fats, not to mention minerals such as calcium, potassium, phosphorus and iron. Plus a few vitamins, niacin being the only one I can remember at the moment. (Ever been hit in the head?  I have.  It hurts, and if you do it enough, it plays with your memory.)  To make a long story short, a handful of acorns have roughly the nutritional equivalent of a pound of ground beef.  They have been the main dietary staple of countless cultures around the world. One mature oak tree can produce almost 1,000 pounds of acorns in a single year.  Paleolithic tribes would even go to war over the best stands of oak trees.  Top that off with the fact that when they are properly prepared, they taste good.  It makes me wonder why so many have forgotten them as a source of food.

Acorns, as they fall from the tree, taste bitter.  This is because they are high in tannins.  These must be leached out in water, but I’ll explain more about that later.

Grabbing some…. I mean gathering your…. nuts…err…acorns, yeah gathering acorns .  Acorns fall from the trees in the fall. (Woo hoo!  We’re learning, huh?  Don’t be scared.  We’ll do it together.)  The exact time depends on the type of oak, weather, and location.  I suggest gathering acorns in the morning as soon as you can and gathering every day.  If you leave them, something else will eat them.  But don’t worry about starving the poor, fuzzy, cute things they will get theirs, trust me.   The  acorns you pick up will be green,  green and tan, or brown. The green ones have just fallen from the tree and aren't ripe yet.  Pick them up too, as they will ripen to a dark brown in a couple of days.  As you are gathering acorns, throw out any acorns that have any holes, cracks or signs of mold. (I also suggest hopping around erratically until you find an acorn, then holding it up to your face while looking around to see if anyone is trying to steal it.  Its good exercise, promotes situational awareness, and seems to work for the squirrels).

Extracting the… uh… acorn… meat.  Take the ripe acorns (the dark brown ones) remove the caps, then crack the shells to remove the meat.  I usually use a nutcracker, but a hammer works fine (as long as you remember it’s an acorn and not that jock or cheerleader that made every day of high school for you a descent in to hell….. it’s just an acorn….. and it’s time to heal).  If you don’t own a nutcracker or a hammer, or just feel the need to go caveman.  You can use a rock, but choose your rock well and go easy there, Grog.  It can make your flour gritty.

 Acorns contain tannins (tannic acid).  This gives them a bitter taste and if you ingest too much of it, can make you sick.  The Native Americans leached acorns by putting them in a sack and placing the sack in flowing water for a few days.  Thank God, there is a quicker way, two of them to my knowledge.  The first is to take the acorn meats and put them in a pot of boiling water for a few minutes until the water is dark brown.  Then, strain out the meats and repeat the process until the acorns have a sweet nutty flavor.  It is important to remember that the water must always be boiling before you put the acorns in.  Putting acorns in cold water seems to lock the tannins in.  The second way is to grind the acorn meat, then place the ground meats in to a colander or sieve and stir them under hot water from a faucet until they have a sweet nutty flavor.  Remember that different types of acorns have different levels of tannins.  White oaks have little and usually only require one boiling, whereas red oaks usually take four.  Leach them to suit your taste, but even if you don’t think they need it, all acorns should be leached at least once.

Drying and grinding your….acorn… meats.  With your acorns leached, dry them out as much as you can with towels.  Then spread them out thinly, but evenly, on a pan. You can place the pan in the sun to dry or bake them in an oven until, you guessed it, dry. Once your acorns are dry, grind them in to a flour.  I use a mortar and pestle, but if you can afford some overpriced kitchen contraption that does the same thing, good for you.

Ta daaa! Acorn flour is very heavy, so for most breads and cakes you will likely want to mix it with a lighter flour such as cattail flour. (Yep, that’s right.  We are making that too.  Aren’t we industrious little bipeds?)  It is also one of the best pork breadings I have ever used.

 

Cattail Flour

Cattails, aka the super WalMart of the swamp,  produce eight different food products. They have countless functional uses and half a dozen medicinal uses.  Seriously, if you kill a roll of duct tape, it comes back as a cattail.  Furthermore, cattails produce more food per acre than any other plant, excluding algae and lichens.  The roots alone can produce 32 tons of finished flour.

Perhaps one day I will devote post to cattails. However, in this post I just don’t have the time. So we will just be dealing with the roots, which are available year round.

 

Cattails do have a few look-alikes.  One of them is poisonous.  Fortunately, none of these have the hotdog -like seed head.  However, as I said, it is up to you to make the proper identification.  Also, because cattails grow in water, toxins in the water collect and concentrate in the plant.  So be sure to harvest cattails from a clean source, preferably in moving water, and certainly away from cities, towns and road sides (unless you want your flour to taste like condoms, cigarette butts, and french fry packets….. and kill you).  You know what?  Just avoid harvesting near people.  People carry diseases,  litter the ground with refuse and chemicals, all while trying to tell you about this “great new reality show” that you simply have to watch.

Once you find a suitable stand of cattails, well, it’s time to wade out in to the water and pull some up. But you can’t just grab the stalk and pull.  If you do, it will break off and you will fall over backwards into the water.  Trust me on this.  Then you will stand up soaking wet and look around to see if any one saw you.  (See, harvesting away from people has other benefits.)  Run your hand down the stalk and into the mud until you feel the roots running horizontally away from the plant.  This is where you pull.  Once you pull the roots up, cut off the stalk if it came with it.

Clean the roots off in the sink, then peel them with a sharp knife or a potato peeler.  Break and crush the roots in a bowl of water.  The starch, soon to be flour, will break up and fall away from the fibrous strands.  Continue this process until the starch has been removed from strands.  Remove the strands and let the bowl sit for a few hours, until the starch settles at the bottom.  Pour off the water and spread the starch out on a pan to dry.  You can let it dry in the sun, but I always dry mine in the oven. Once dry, grind it into a powder.

Warning this flour does contain some gluten.

Now for cattail flour recipe number two.  In the summer, the male pollen head produces an abundance of yellow pollen the constancy of powdered chalk.  Bend the pollen heads over a bucket and shake.  It’s quite easy to collect a pound or two of pollen in an hour, and there you go.  No cutting, no boiling, no nothing.  You have cattail flour.  It has a sweet, corn-like taste, but distinct from corn.

 

Acorn Cattail Sweet Bread

 2 cups of acorn flour

2 cups of cattail flour (you can use wheat flour if you don’t have cattail, or if you hate anything that taste like anything, use white flour)

 3 teaspoons of baking powder

1/3 cup of honey, sugar, or maple syrup

1 egg

1/2 of cup milk

3 tablespoons of acorn oil or olive oil (any oil should do)

 Bake at 375 degrees for about 45 minutes (Even better, bake until done.)

Well, this is enough to get you started.  There are countless other edible plants out there that can be used to create delicious, wholesome breads.  But we’ll talk about them in part two: Revenge of the Wild Breads.  But until then, I’m going to go make a decent ham sandwich.

How to make a survival knife from an old file

A survival knife that can cut a gouge out of other “survival knives”.  How you can make one.

 

Holy second mortgage, Batman!  Have you seen the price of a decent knife?   If you have, you were no doubt as dumbfounded as I was.  Also, it seems that in this age survival this and tactical everything (seriously you can buy tactical t-shirts….. do they even do anything?) people have forgotten what makes a good knife…. a good knife.

If you just want to learn how to make the knife, feel free to skip the following paragraph. 

 A knife is a tool, not a fashion accessory.  All these whirly barbs and flowing spikes are just that, fashion accessories designed to attract adolescent boys from the ages of 5 to about 50.  (Guys, it’s a knife not growth hormones for your penis… it’s going to stay that size forever….. I’m sorry).  Moreover, these Rambo spikes get in the way of any real work.  A knife is also not a flashlight, nor is it a cell phone.  I have a flashlight and a cell phone, and they will be safely out of the way while I use my knife to cut, slash, stab, pry, or chop whatever the job requires, thus preserved until such time as I need them.  Don’t get me wrong.  A good multi-tool is a must.  I carry one everywhere I go.  But for those jobs that require a fixed blade knife, I need a good knife, not a techno-trinket.  The two stupidest features ever to grace a “survival knife” are: 1) the “tactical impact device”.  (Ok guys, love the name, but it’s a butt spike.  That’s all it is.  Just call it a butt spike.)  What this means is that if I need to grab the back of my knife for leverage, control, or to push the blade into something, I can’t.  At least, not without hurting myself.  (Wait, my logic is tingling.  If I needed to use the “tactical impact device” on my knife to defend myself, wouldn’t logic dictate I would … I don’t know, stab them with the knife it’s attached to instead?) But that’s not even the worst knife accessory.  That honor goes to the knives with the: 2) “storage compartment” handle.  First off, the handle.  These are of the poorest ergonomic shape possible, and offer so little “storage” that you’ll be hard pressed to find anything to fit in it.  But these troubles really matter little, seeing as a hollow handle means that the knife has no tang (the piece of blade that extends into the handle) and thus will break almost immediately upon all but the lightest use.

Now, to make the knife.

First, you are going to need is an old file, preferably one that is worn out but of good quality, not to much rust and was, at one point, a good file.  Cheap files are often simply casehardened steel.  The steel on the outsides of the file are hard but the inner portions of the steel are soft. These are better than nothing, but not awesome by any stretch.  The better the file, the better the knife.

As it is now, your file is too hard to be worked.  Don’t try.  You’ll ruin your tools.  It needs to be softened first.  This called annealing.  To do this, you will need to heat the metal until it glows a yellow-orange color, then allow it to cool slowly.  You can do this with a torch, kiln, or forge.  I’ve even been told you can, with some time and effort, use a gas or electric cook top by placing the file directly on it moving it periodically to keep the heat even.  But you could do it the easy way.  Build a fire pit and get the fire good and hot, then place the file in the hot coals.  Then roast hotdogs, make smores and have a grand time with your friends and family… unless you don’t like your friends and family.  If that’s the case, get drunk stare in to the flames and contemplate your life.  Come back tomorrow morning, after the fire has burned out and the ashes cooled (and you are no longer drunk and sobbing), to retrieve your now annealed file.

 

With your file now soft enough to be worked, use a hacksaw to cut the rough shape of the knife you want out of the file.  But first, I suggest you really think about what you need in a knife.  What will you be using it for?  Which will you spend more time doing, chopping tree limbs or cutting string?  Maybe you are a hunter and need a more rounded tip for skinning game.  Or maybe you are a ninja and need a pointy stabby tip to assassinate sleeping samurai.  The point is, now is the time to decide what you need and want in a knife.  Now is the time to make it your own.

Rat tail tangs are the most common type of tang.  They are not as strong as a full tang, but are easier and allow you to make your blade longer.

Full tangs are the strongest type of tang.  Also, these tend to have the best balance.  But it means your blade must be shorter if you are using a file, and they are a bit of a pain in the ass to make.

Tanto tips look like the tip of a katana (samurai sword) and are by far the easiest to make, as once you make your rough cut you don’t need to shape it with a file.  (Also according to some, because it looks like “a ninja sword” it must cut like one and will therefore cut through the engine of an old Chevy truck without losing its edge.  But don’t get me started on the “ninja sword” fan boys.)

Drop point tips are where the edge curves gently up to meet the tip.  One of the oldest tip styles, the curved edge is great for skinning and other delicate tasks while still offering a nice sharp point.  It’s harder to make, but in my opinion, well worth it.

Other tips, whatever you want to do, do it.  Just don’t complain to me if your knife ends up sucking because of it.

Once you have the rough shape cut out, use a file, stone, or grinder to remove the file grooves.  Then file the knife into the desired final shape.  If you need to drill any holes, now is the time to do it.

Ah, and now for the part the sucks, grinding your edge.  If you have a powered grinder, it won’t be so bad.  If you don’t, well, you know what they say no pain no …. aw screw it.  I’ll finish it tomorrow.  Believe me, I have made knives like this with a wet stone and it’s still worth it.

Holding the file at about a 15 degree angle, start putting an edge on your knife.  I find it works best to work a little on one side, then flip it over and work on the other.  That way you meet in the middle, whereas if you work on one side more than the other, the edge ends up being off center.  But remember, you are just building an edge, not sharpening, so the minute you meet in the middle, stop.  It’s too soft to sharpen right now.  We’ll do that later.

Now, time to harden your knife.  You can rebuild your fire for this one, but I suggest burning oak and or charcoal as this fire needs to be hot as hell.  Lay your knife in the coals and heat it up to a nice bright yellow-orange.  Once it reaches that color, use tongs and gloves to pull the blade from the fire and check it with a magnet.  If the magnet sticks, it’s not hot enough.  If it doesn’t, quickly but evenly dip the knife into a bucket of used motor oil and let it cool.  Once it has cooled enough that the metal is black (and not flaming), you can drop it into the oil to cool the rest of the way. Be sure to use a metal bucket for your oil.

If you have trouble getting the knife hot enough, bury a steel pipe under the coals, hook an inflatable mattress pump to the other end and pump air through the pipe.  Also, you might need to hill dirt up around your fire.  Laying a sheet of metal over the coals helps keep the heat in, but don’t cover it completely.

With your knife now hardened, use a fine grit metal sandpaper to clean and smooth out your knife.  Get it all polished and pretty.  Remember, chicks hate an ugly knife.  Once that is done, use the sharpener of your choice and, you guessed it, sharpen your knife.

Tempering “YEAH YEAH COOL COOL FIRE FIRE FIRE HA HA HA HA HA!  You can use a butane lighter, but a torch works better.  Heat along the back of the knife, moving the flame often to heat the metal evenly. Heat the knife to a dull straw color, then allow to cool.

Time to put a handle on your knife.  You can use any wood, antler, bone, plastic whatever you want.

For a rat tail tang drill a hole a little deeper than the length of your tang and a little smaller than the width in your handle.  Drive the handle on the tang.  Then shape your handle however you choose.

For a full tang cut two plates of wood slightly bigger than your handle needs to be.  Drill two holes in each plate that line up with the holes in your tang.  You can bolt or rivet the plates to your knife.  Riveting seems to work better.  Then, take a file and or sand paper and sand the plates until they meet smoothly with the steel.

Uh…. Ta da.  If you followed my instructions, you now have a knife that can cut a 1/8 inch gouge in the blade of most other “survival knives”.  Mine can.  But I don’t suggest trying it as it will dull your blade.  Two things to remember about your new knife: one, it will be harder to sharpen than most other knives, but also sharper and harder to dull; secondly, this is not stainless steel so you will actually have to take care of it.  (Gasps!)  So keep the blade oiled and remember, if you take care of it, it will take care of you.

Files are a good choice for a knife because they are made from good high carbon steel.  However, don’t overlook things like mower blades and worn out hand saws. Most any cutting tool can gain a second life as a good knife.

DIY How to build a cheap greenhouse

In this DIY greenhouse tutorial, I'm going teach you how to your own build relatively large (10'x20') greenhouse for about $50. Your prices will vary, but that’s what it cost me to buy everything new. There are many "cheap greenhouses" on the internet, but most are made of PVC, which becomes brittle in the sunlight or are small which, if you are trying to start or maintain a homestead garden, is not likely to meet your needs.  Most require that you already have some of the materials on hand.  (If you already had the materials to build a greenhouse and wanted a greenhouse, I think it's logical to assume that you would have built it instead of looking up cheap greenhouse plans on the web.  But then, I've been wrong before).

So, without further ado…

Materials

6 eight-foot landscape timbers.

200 feet of 550 Para cord.

A spool of twine or string.  You can buy it at the dollar store.

Fence staples as few as you can buy.  You’ll only need a dozen or so

Peel and stick Velcro

10-foot x100-foot roll of clear plastic.  No, it's not “greenhouse plastic”.  I’ve been growing plants under regular plastic for years.  It works just fine. 

10 heavy things you want bury.  These can be anything… rocks, bricks, tree limbs (these will eventually rot), five-gallon buckets filled with dirt.  These can literally be anything, so use whatever you can find.  I once used washing machine parts. It is important to remember that family members are ill-suited for this as they decay rapidly, smell funny, and pollute the water table.

And, drum roll please………. Duct tape.

 

Yeah, we are going to be making a greenhouse out of post and string.  Sound crazy?  Well, it probably is. But the engineering behind it is quite sound, and I assure, you it works.  I learned of this design from illegal marijuana farmers who often hid out in the forests around my childhood home.  (Ah, potheads, they’re like MacGyver …… with nachos).  The beauty of this design is that the shape, size, and materials are by no means set in stone.   But we’ll take more about that later.

 

First, draw a rectangle on the ground 10 feet wide by 20 feet long.  Mark a post hole at the corners of the rectangle and at the center of each of the long sides of rectangle.  Each post should be 10 feet apart forming two squares side by side.

Three post holes on one side should be dug to a depth of 18 inches. Whereas the three post holes on the opposite side will need to be dug to 30 inches.  Once the posts are in the ground, their height should be about 6’6” on one side and 5’6” on the other.  This will give you a slanted roof to shed water.  If you would rather cut three posts off rather than dig those to 30” feel free.  But I would advise against postholes less than 18 inches.  However I know nothing about your soil or your posthole kung fu.  If you wish to use a shallower post, do so at your own risk.

 

Set the post in the ground (duh) as straight as you can and tamp the dirt around it as tightly as possible.

 

Now for the anchors.  Guess what?  You get to dig ten more holes.  Yaay.  For each corner post you are going to need two anchors in line with the edges of the rectangle on the opposing side.  For the two center posts you will need one anchor on the opposite side of the other center post.  (If you have something to use as stakes, feel free to do so.  But make sure they are strong and drive them deep).  Dig your anchor holes at least 18 inches deep about 6 feet away from the post.

 

Tie a length of 550-cord to the anchor of your choice and drop it in the hole, leaving a foot or two of cord above ground. Tie a loop in the above ground end of the cord.   Fill and tamp the crap out of the anchor hole with the original dirt.  Repeat nine mind-numbing times.

 

Now run some 550-cord from your anchor loop across the building over the tops of the post to the anchor loop on the opposite side. Drive the staples into the post enough to keep the cord from sliding off the sides, but not so tightly that you can’t slide the cord back and forth.  Pull the cord as tight as you can, unless you are really big, like me.  Then just pull it as tight as you dare.  Tie the cord to the opposite anchor loop.  Now on three sides of your greenhouse repeat this process, running the cord about half way down the posts using the staples to hold it in place. On the remaining side, whichever side you want your door, run a line of cord from the anchor to the post at a height of about 5 feet, then angling down to the next post.  When finished, each anchor should have two lines running off it.

 

Next, take your builders’ twine and run it in lines about 18 inches apart, tying to the cords and/or the post, leaving an open space to use as a door.  Tie these snugly but not so tight as to deform the cords.

 

Working from the bottom up, start covering your greenhouse with plastic.  Bury the bottom six inches of the plastic in a trench to keep it in place.  Use the duct tape to connect the plastic together.  Also use the tape to attach the plastic to the frame by taping along the cords, overlapping them on to the plastic sheeting.  Be sure to make all your tape connections are inside the greenhouse and thus out of the elements.   Remember, if you feel the need to use more tape, you most likely do.

Finally cut silt vertically in the plastic to use as a door.  Reinforce the edges of the opening with “dum da da daaaaaa” more duct tape.  Use the peel and stick Velcro to close the gap.

 

As I said, the best thing about this design is how flexible it is.  Any material can be substituted for something else that you may have or find cheaper.  For posts, you can use pipe, scrap lumber, trees (standing or fell) an old broken ladder, literally anything straight and fairly strong.  It can be made smaller or larger to suit your needs (and budget).  In the past, I have spanned as much as 21 feet from post to post with cord and you no doubt can too.  But remember, the wider the span, the tighter the cords have to be and thus, the stronger the anchor and post must be.

 

A few considerations.  Most importantly perhaps is drainage and do you have it.  Will the rain and runoff from watering your plants make your greenhouse to sloppy and muddy to use?  If you answered yes, choose another spot.  (Seriously don’t underestimate this one.  I built my first greenhouse in a low spot in my yard.  It rained once and never dried out.  It was miserable to work in and the dead men and elves with luminous eyes were disturbing and mostly unhelpful, but for the one elf who suggested I move my greenhouse 20 feet to higher ground.  I did.  It worked.   Clouds part.  Ray of light.  Angels “Laaaaa”.)

I suggest laying down a layer of mulch to insulate the greenhouse from the “cold, cold ground”. But for me, sadly, it’s not in the budget right now.

If taped properly, your greenhouse will stand up to a surprising amount of wind. I live in hurricane country.  My last greenhouse survived two category ones with only some minor damage before it was killed by a Volkswagen…. Don’t get me started on that.

 

To my knowledge, this is the cheapest way to build a greenhouse, one bigger than a bottle anyway.  I urge you to think long and hard about this design and either built it as is or improve it to suit your needs.

I hope this has helped you in your quest for a budget greenhouse. And I wish you the best of luck using it to grow a homestead garden to feed your family… or to grow weird South American flowers only you care about and take pictures of so you can clog up everyone you’ve ever in your met in your entire life’s Facebook feed.  Whatever you choose, good luck.