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Post by nancy1340 on Aug 18, 2011 21:24:53 GMT -6
Dang 06, what do you do in your spare time ol' son? LOL
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moldy
New Member
Posts: 48
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Post by moldy on Aug 19, 2011 16:39:20 GMT -6
Having to work a couple nights... man, I hate how having to go to work interferes with prepping!! LOL! Trying to do up some pickles in between working and sleep.
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Post by jimbiggunboys on Sept 23, 2011 20:37:11 GMT -6
Today I loaded 50 rounds of 30-06 ammo. I've committed to loading every night when I get home from work. I need to get my stocks back up. I've been lazy this summer and have tons of components sitting around waiting to be reloaded. Jim
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Post by rvm45 on Sept 24, 2011 13:41:48 GMT -6
jim--I see that you came in posting. I like to see that. You ever watch Boxing? They have a saying that Matches makes Matches. Alphonso fights Gonzales--he loses narrowly, but puts up a good fight. All of a sudden, folks are willing to pay to see Alphonso fight Smith--who also lost a close Match to Gonzales..... And so forth, and so on. On a Forum, Posts make Posts. Maybe I didn't have any burning message to give to the World--But then some dude says that he intends to survive the collapse in a Gypsy Caravan Wagon Pulled by eighteen Goats.... Defending himself with Airsoft Guns and Bamboo Shafted Frog Gigs..... And all of a Sudden, I have a bunch to say..... (Good thought-provoking Posts work almost as well ) .....RVM45
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Post by nancy1340 on Sept 26, 2011 21:17:27 GMT -6
I ordered a new Excalibur 5 Tray 2500 Food dehydrator. Next is a Royal Berkley.
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Post by patience on Oct 3, 2011 16:52:19 GMT -6
Today I met with a buddy who turned me onto a deal for a shop tool cabinet--one of those WWII items, OD paint, all steel with 27 big drawers for tools. Even got the little holders for labels on the drawers.
This came from a bankrupt business that had made specialty jackets, like the sports jackets for high schools and fan jackets for college teams. Mexico undercut them on price and they lost their Wal Mart contract. Now, they have to clean out the building.
I also scored a bunch of 54" bolts of cloth, 6 colors and about 3 to 5 yards on each one, a total of maybe 25 yards of material for 5 BUCKS! Got thread to match, huge industrial spools of it, and the chance to buy more fabric. It is 65% polyester, 35% cotton, like the stuff good windbreakers are made of.
When my wife saw the stuff, she started planning our next run to get more. ;D The guy has a truckload of the stuff.
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Post by patience on Oct 7, 2011 13:39:28 GMT -6
We went back and met the business owner to buy more fabric. Wife and daughter did the selecting and of course I got stuck with the loading and paying for it....
It was one heckuva deal. $125 bought a pickup load of big ROLLS of fabric, matching thread and zippers and even a big roll of elastic. The bad part was the sadness of seeing this man who has lost his entire business. He once employed anywhere from a dozen to 2 dozen people, and had hundreds of thousands of dollars invested, all gone now. What he can salvage after the bankrupcy now is all he has left of a lifetime of work.
Our town lost that many jobs to Mexico, and some US town lost jobs making the fabric that is now imported from China to the Mexican factory. They bid lower on making the specialty jackets than our local man's cost for the fabric alone!
This whole experience made me feel like I was part of a PAW story. Had me looking over my shoulder for zombies, almost. This could be the reality of a PAW situation where we live, just because of the economy.
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Post by jimbiggunboys on Oct 8, 2011 23:40:55 GMT -6
Spent some time at the loading bench last night. Not only did I wind up with 100 rounds of .357 and 100 rounds of .223, I was very relaxed when I was finished. Its a much more productive way to spend a couple of hours compared to sitting in front of the TV. Jim
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Post by patience on Oct 10, 2011 19:46:48 GMT -6
Got some help to clean and paint our LP storage tank today, so that is finished. Checked our usage today. Our 500 gallon tank, which can only be filled to 80%, will hold 400 gallons. A gallon of propane weighs about 4 pounds, so that is 1,600 pounds of LP, or equal to 16 of the 100 pound tanks that are considered "portable".
We have used it down to about 76% on the guage, so that is only about 4% used, or 16 gallons = 64 pounds used. Not bad, for a year of baking bread and canning! That means we have many years of cooking and baking left in that tank. A sigh of relief here.
I got started sorting out electrical stuff for our solar PV project. I had bought stuff in a big hurry, based on the design I came up with a couple years ago, and it is all still in boxes and cartons in the shop. I'm getting it organized now, a big job by itself, before I can begin permanent installation. Contrary to what many think, this sort of thing doesn't happen overnight, especially if one guy has to do it all.
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Post by Jerry D Young on Oct 10, 2011 22:35:31 GMT -6
I've mostly just been getting things ready for bad weather that I think is coming this winter and in the future. One of the mountains here still had snow on it from last year as the season started with a skiff of snow up high. I take that as a bad sign of things to come.
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Post by patience on Oct 11, 2011 17:59:00 GMT -6
I have been slowly draining our irrigation tank, since the outlet pipe would freeze in cold weather. I was foolish enough to NOT put in a buried valve that would allow me to drain only the outlet pipe. Oh well, the tank itself would be at risk when deep winter hits with temps in the low teens down to zero. I put the 2,500 gallons on two of the garden plots a week before I plowed them and both were still pretty dry. No rain here to speak of throughout July and most of August. I normally don't plow inthe Fall, but did this year to help the soil absorb as much of the Fall rains as possible. Growing weather is simply not as reliable as I remember from 50 years ago. My other preps for winter include doing all the maintenance I can think of on our 2 old S-10 pickups. Over the past year I have practically rebuilt them from the ground up. Whatever parts they needed, they got. I saved a lot of the old parts that were still serviceable, some of which I will repair myself, like bearings in alternators and belt tensioner pulleys. A couple weeks ago, I put heavy duty rear shocks on my work truck, with "helper" coil springs on them. The rear leaf springs were a bit tired, so that means I can put some weight in there to help traction in bad weather, or haul a heavier load.
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Post by bunyip on Oct 14, 2011 0:48:14 GMT -6
Wife likes old lamps (kero lamps).
It was her birthday recently, so one of her presents was 2 new oil lamps from Lehmans (posted to Oz).
Having trouble finding oil at a good price for them though (kerosine actually burns pretty smoky if you've tried it).
You can get special smoke free oil, if you look, and I've found it is often ~$12/litre. Citronella (ie anti bug) oil is in the chain stores - but that is more for outdoor use.
Anyways, we now have upgraded emergency lighting. We had used her old lamps when we lost power for a few days a couple of months ago due to a bad storm).
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Post by patience on Oct 15, 2011 8:52:49 GMT -6
Going looking today for some mud and snow tires for my older truck. I plan to get some spare rims to mount them on so it will be a simple matter to change them out. That will save the pair I take off the rear for later use on the front.
Although tire chains aren't sold here now (could be illegal, for all I know, due to road damage), I think I have some around here somewhere if I dig a little. That would get me emergency transportation in about any weather we have ever had here in the past. I have broken through 3 foot snow drifts with a half ton truck with chains and load in the back. Hafta stop and clear the snow out of the radiator, but it works.
Weather has been strange for the past few years here in Indiana, so I want to be ready for it. A few years ago we had 30"+ of snow--unheard of here. It melted off fast, but for about 3 days, nothing moved except heavy equipment. I want to be ready for that sort of thing.
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Post by patience on Oct 20, 2011 14:21:43 GMT -6
SCORE! I hit the junkyard on the way out of town today and bought a like new wheelchair for 25 bucks. This one: www.spinlife.com/Invacare-Tracer-SX5-Quick-Ship-Lightweight-Wheelchair/spec.cfm?productID=79398Actually, not all that great a deal, since everybody tries to get insurance or Medicare to buy them a wheelchair and that is only for new ones. So, used ones go cheap. I'd rather have one on hand though, than expect to be able to get one "free" later and have to jump through all the hoops to get insurance to pay for it, which typically costs you a fortune in Doctor visits to have it "prescribed" for you. To heck with all that. My wife has Multiple Sclerosis (nerve degeneration) and will someday need this, most likely. Over the past year I also found a 4 footed cane, which helps when she has balance problems, a walker and a couple pairs of crutches, all for $18. Those things show up regularly at the Goodwill stores and flea markets. I figured it would be nice to have on hand WTSHTF. I have a trick knee that sometimes gives me fits, so having a crutch, a bottle of Dit Da Jow (martial arts liniment), and some Ace elastic bandages takes care of that, too, until it gets finished being aggravated at whatever I did to p___ it off. bunyip, I found that if I let kerosene sit for a year or so in a clear glass jug, some black, asphalt looking stuff settles to the bottom. Seems like it isn't so smokey after that. Near impossible to get the black stuff out of the jug, though! That's okay, I just refill it and let the next batch settle in it. It is still not as good as lamp oil, which I read somewhere is a more highly refined grade.
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Post by rvm45 on Oct 23, 2011 7:02:46 GMT -6
Way back when I was a child (The 60's) I heard a Excellent Story about Scrounging. This Dude was a College Professor--perhaps an Anthropologist..... Wish that I could remember his name, or the books name. Anyway, he decided to spend his Sabbatical working at twelve Blue Collar jobs for a month each, undercover. Nowadays it wouldn't be that Outre', but back then there seemed to be a bigger divide between the classes. Anyway, one job was being a Garbage Man. He found a new pair of $150 Alligator Shoes, apparently never worn, still in their box. {$150 was his term--remember this was in the 60's.....} He kept them. One of his coworkers asked, "Are those in your size?" No. "Are you saving them for someone?" He implied that each of the men on the truck had several friends and relatives "On Order". "Well then, why did you save them?" Because they're Nice, Perfectly Good and Expensive. Punchline Guys: "You're going to have to get over saving stuff from the trash, just because its good, or you'll have a houseful of 'Good Stuff' that you have no use for." .....RVM45
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Post by nancy1340 on Oct 25, 2011 17:31:05 GMT -6
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Post by patience on Oct 26, 2011 18:10:51 GMT -6
RVM45 said: ""You're going to have to get over saving stuff from the trash, just because its good, or you'll have a houseful of 'Good Stuff' that you have no use for." " Heh, heh. Already there, my friend! I tell folks that I collect all this stuff just to drive my kids nuts when I die. They are gonna have at least 2 auctioneers going to for 3 or 4 days to get rid of it all. At least I have most of it labelled and organized. Today we shopped, in an effort to evaluate our preps. That works for both of us, since we both know what we have in each of our areas of expertise, and can tell you in a heartbeat if we have enough of whatever we SEE in a store, since we are visual people. I took my wife to the fabric store to get patterns, pinking shears (can't find her old ones), and some narrow elastic. She's making some Hallowe'en costumes for her triplet nieces. Then, I suggested we stop at Gordon Food Supply (restaurant supply) for spices? No, she says she has everything she needs (cool!) and besides, she would order what she wants online from Monterey Bay Spice Co. to get it cheaper. So, off to Wally World. All I could find there that I thought we needed was an elastic knee wrap for my trick knee. She found some sewing notions. So, we left and went to one of those multi-booth flea markets in an old K Mart building. All we found there that made sense to buy was some generic Cheerios (15 ounces for $1.49) and 28 pounds of sugar for $10.98. I splurged on a cat poster for 2 bucks. Bottom line is, we didn't need much of anything in the way of consumer goods, which is GREAT! Of course, there are a lot of other things that we need to deal with, like a new garage door, a woodshed, and THAT list goes on and on...
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Post by patience on Oct 27, 2011 14:30:37 GMT -6
I just got a line on a REALLY cheap camper trailer--a 30+ footer for $1500 or less, the guy said. He's supposed to put me in touch with this deal.
This could become a sort of instant bugout place for us, since we already have access to a place to park it. We'll see if the deal goes anywhere.
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Post by patience on Oct 30, 2011 20:24:56 GMT -6
Cleaning and organizing around the place all weekend, trying to make room. My shop is overrun with unfinished projects and parts of them. When I get most of the mess out, then the priorities are:
-Clear out the drying produce around the wood stove so I can build a fire in it! Getting chilly, and I don't want to use the electric heat. -Finish the stainless steel cabinet and hang it in the canning area of the sun room. That will make some badly needed room in the welding shop. And, it will make some room in the sun room by storing away all those big canners and kettles overhead. THAT, in turn, will clear out room under a cabinet in the sunroom for the lard kettle that is stored in the basement shop, making some badly needed room in there.
(Can you tell we are a little packed up around here?)
-Clear out more room in the basement shop. This invloves several projects: >Make a battery cart and move the solar batteries to the shack I built for them 2 years ago. >Install the cheap solar panels I have stacked in the basement garage bay, for use above the sun room. >Make another battery cart and move one of the forklift batteries from the basement to the sunroom. Hook that up to the cheap solar panels and get some DC lights going on that setup. Use one of the Xantrex C60 charge controllers there, left over from when I converted the main system from C60's to MPPT controllers.
Take a deep breath, and look over the situation.
-If all goes well, mount the 4 new 200 watt panels on the welding shop roof and hook up that system. This is contingent upon getting enough room made in the welding shop to allow fabricating the panel mounts.
Everything I need to do has something else in the way of getting it done! AAARGH!!
Somday, I need to build a woodshed. But, of course, the firewood supply is stacked RIGHT where the shed needs to go.... Duh.
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Post by bunyip on Oct 31, 2011 1:32:26 GMT -6
[quote author=patience board=prepping thread=53 post=1031 .....Everything I need to do has something else in the way of getting it done! AAARGH!!
Somday, I need to build a woodshed. But, of course, the firewood supply is stacked RIGHT where the shed needs to go.... Duh. [/quote]
If it helps patience, I made a simple woodshed, I know you have snoe to worry about, but I don't (so it's different for you, but).
On the basis that it usually only rains for a few days at a time, what i want s a weeks wood dry in reserv minimum.
So I made a basic wood shed out of 3 150mm treated pine posts (6 inch to you guys who still measure in cubits). and 3 2400mm (2.4m or 8 foot) sleepers (railroad ties to you) bolted front and back to the posts about a foot off the ground at the bottom, and one sleeper at top, with a single sheet of metal roofing at top
Like thus in plan;
---------------- 0 0 0 ----------------
Elevation;
Roof ========= | | | | | | |oo |ooo | |oooo|ooooo| ========= | | | ~~~~~~~~~~~
Which gives me 2 bays to stack wood, off the ground, and covered.
Works for me and simple to build. (You could do 2 back to back with a common roof easily too I'd think).
{Edit } Ahhhhh Can't get the spaces to take - hope you get the idea.
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Post by patience on Oct 31, 2011 17:46:20 GMT -6
bunyip,
That sounds like an easy way to get it done! My present stack is far more crude. I just drove some steel Tee posts at each end of a stack, and laid down some junk lumber on the ground to stack on. When the stack is high enough, I top it off with a sheet of old used roofing metal and hold that on with whatever junk firewood that I couldn't split.
It is fine until I need to get the ends of the stack, then the metal has to come off. But I can use most of the wood by taking out of the center of the stack--until it falls down like that game of stacking blocks and removing one at a time. (Jenga?)
If I put off making the shed for a year, I won't have so much firewood to move! ;D
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Post by patience on Nov 26, 2011 16:56:39 GMT -6
Today my daughter and I worked on our everlasting metal cabinet project. This thing has been lying around the shop for a couple years now. It is all stainless steel because it goes above the stove in the summer kitchen/canning area. Stainless is tough to work, and this is 100% salvage materials, so it has been a real job.
We got the back on it and the shelving finished today, and she got the last of the 3 doors made. Now, I have to fit and hang the doors, install magnetic catches, and figure out how to hang this thing from the ceiling.
This will hold all our collection of stainless bowls, kettles, and steam table pans, plus three pressure canners. Only one pressure canner was bought new. Everything else is junkyard salvage! Paid under 2 bucks a POUND for the stuff! We use it all processing garden produce and homegrown fruits for preserving.
I have also salvaged 2 hospital medicine carts, a 6 ft. long table, and enough material to build the cabinet beside the stove for this room, all stainless steel. The room is all masonry and also has our homemade wood heating stove in it, where we slow cook in the heating season.
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Post by rvm45 on Nov 27, 2011 11:27:32 GMT -6
Patience--Can you weld Stainless? If you can, my hat's off to you. I almost got a second Associate's Degree in Welding (The first was Industrial Maintenance)--but for a number of reasons, I felt pressed to stop a few classes short of a Degree..... {I am fair to good at it--provided that I can take my time, and am not on a Production Schedule.} At any rate--There was only so much Lab time in each class, and one choose whether to specialize in Aluminum or Stainless Steel after completing the Regular Steel Section (which was two thirds, or more, of the class). And I choose to do Aluminum with both MIG and TIG. Then my first and only Maintenance job was in a Food Processing Plant where every piece of metal in the building was Stainless Steel..... And all their Welding was done with a Scratch-Start TIG..... And all my attempts to Weld ended in disaster..... I came to the conclusion, that as much as I loved TIG, if I can't have a variable power foot control and starter, that I'd rather stay away from TIG altogether..... But Stainless Steel is Wicked!{To Weld--No reflection on its moral character...} .....RVM45
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Post by patience on Nov 27, 2011 21:36:33 GMT -6
rvm45, My welding education was all from the school of hard knocks. Started with an old Lincoln buzz-box about 40 years ago, and progressed through the other processes. Ran a repair shop fixing farm equipment and whatever came in the door for the past 10 years before I retired. Done cast iron, cast and wrought aluminum and cast and wrought stainless, assorted tool steels, springs, structural steel, etc.. Had very few come-backs in those last 10 years. But I have picked the brains of every welder I met. Don't know if i have personally ever had any good ideas about welding, but I have STOLEN ideas from the best people on earth! I have a small MIG that welds stainless easily, using .023" wire and 75% Argon/25% CO2 gas. I have a really good old Miller TIG outfit, foot control and all, but I am not coordinated enough to weld with it. My eye-hand coordination is very poor, so manipulating the filler rod with one hand and the TIG torch with the other is impossible for me, when I have to watch the heat build up so closely. Now, with oxy-acetylene, I can weld anything. Cast iron is best done with OA, using cast iron filler rod and Anti Borax brand flux along with a blue filter in the goggles to reduce the bright yellow sodium flare of the flux. Otherwise, you can't see what you're doing. The guys at www.metalmeet.com/ turned me onto the filter lens. (Just go to their website and click on "forums"--you have to join to read some of it, but it's no hassle, and the photos you can see after you join are awesome!) Those guys build anything out of sheet metal--mostly car bodies. They have a big get together each Fall in October at Oblong, Illinois fairgrounds, and believe me, the tech expertise there is staggering! I bought the MIG to do sheet metal for our repair shop and have been happy with it. Using the smaller .023" wire is a big help, allowing you to turn the heat down for thin stuff and still melt the wire in well. Any relatively thin stainless is difficult due to heat build up. My answer to that is to stitch it, and back-step on a long joint. This is particluarly important with sheet materials. Clamp everything solid, then tack both ends and a couple places inthe middle of a long joint. Then, start at one end of the long joint and go in say, an inch, and drag back toward yourself to the edge. Step ahead about 4" and weld another "stitch" back toward yourself an inch long. (Called back-stepping.) Go ahead another 4" and weld a 3rd stitch back toward yourself, and so on to the end. Let it cool a while. Then, start at you original end and repeat the process, welding only a short distance and stop, jump ahead for another "stitch", etc., until you get to the end of the joint again. This should leave a series of unwelded "stitches" remaining. Let it cool again. Repeat the process to fill in the last remaining gaps. If you are stick welding, of course you have to clean slag between passes, but the stitching process is the same, no matter if it is stick, MIG, TIG, or anything else. TIG welding stainless requires a lot of post-flow gas time to cool the metal so it doesn't oxidize so badly at the weld. Set the post-flow timer to at least 10 seconds, if you have the timer, or, if you are using a manual gas control torch, leave the gas knob on for that long atfer you break the arc. This will help reduce the melt-through problem if you are building up too much heat. And, of course, when you see heat building up you back off that pedal, too! If the heat builds up too much anyway and the weld is starting to melt through, just stop, let the gas cool it, then step ahead, etc.. This is all a lot easier for me with an Oxy Acetylene torch, since I can just wave the torch away for a bit and not have to worry about breaking an arc. That makes it dead simple to weld most anything, or do body leading, brazing, or whatever, once you get the hang of it. For welding some oddball stuff, I bought a Cobra torch. it is far more controllable than the old junkyard style. But it ain't cheap. a full set cost me about $400 and that was about 6 years ago. The mixer is far superior to traditional torches and makes a pinpoint flame, greatly reducing the heat affected zone like TIG, only it is MUCH easier to control than TIG! This thing makes welding sheet metal dirt-simple with some practice after learning the proper heat to use. It comes with a variety of welding tips that can go down to a pencil point flame for welding really thin stuff, if you buy the whole kit. Link: www.cobratorches.com/They sell the Cobalt (blue) lens for you goggles, too. Too heck with scratch start! If they won't supply a welder with hi-freq. they deserve whatever they get for welds. I never had any luck with MIG on aluminum without either a spool gun or a push-pull rig. NEVER been able to feed aluminum wire through a standard MIG torch. Made a lot of bird's nests trying, and wasted a lot of wire, spent a lot of time fiddling with half tips, and other BS, but never any success. I use the Cobra on aluminum, with a flux they sell, and TIG rod. See the video on the Cobra site.
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Post by rvm45 on Nov 28, 2011 0:00:05 GMT -6
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