Surviving on Junk

No, not junk food, using found junk, trash and the usual detritus of civilization as survival items.

Course_TheTarp by DKR posted Jul 27, 2017 at 18:33

Bed1 by DKR posted Jul 27, 2017 at 18:33

In the top photo, a plastic painters drop cloth is upcycled into a shelter with some cord and a couple of rounded rocks.
The bottom photos shows a window shade and trash bags as ground cover/insulation for ground cloth.

Tins cans can be used as pots and a hobo stove and so on.

Now on another site (Bushcraft USA) they have a contest for overnighting with the lowest cost of all equipment and food winning a prize. It does bring up some good ideas. (Hoko style knife using a broken glass shard as the blade, for example)
Might be worth stopping by when you are finished here to see other items and bits of kit made with/from junk. I've always thought the ability to improvise with found materials is one of the most important skills a person could develop in their PAAS 101 level skill set.

(Post Atomic Attack Survival = PAAS)

(see Cheapest Gear overnight challenge GAW 2017 (TOPS HOG 4.5))

By having some rules about sourcing of gear and such, it gives a real incentive for out of the box thinking and some incentive for folks to participate & post images..

 

A thread after my own heart. I have so much scrounged crap around that I re-purpose that other folks come by for pieces.

 

Yep, it's a good to be what used to be called, "handy!"

 

I've taken things that companies have discarded or obsoleted out and built stuff out of it. Love repurposing things if still in usable condition.

 

Two places I could never work for a living a hard ware store and a scrap/recycle yard.

 

In 2013 a portion of my junk collection was stolen.
Someone decided my junk is worth more than their life.

 

The "Red Green Philosophy".

"If the ladies don't find you handsome, they should at least find you handy!"

 

Problem with some creations is, only the creator understands the value of his work.
I have made tools for companies I've worked for that literally saved thousands on labor costs, and gotten little appreciation for it .
Till I was no longer there to fix their screw ups.

 

"Nobody knows what they've got - 'till its gone...."

 

After SHTFDay, the man who possesses a junkyard might be king......

 

I plan to have minions. Can't be a proper post-apocalyptic warlord without minions! We have several good junkyards in my AO.

 

Seeing these apocalyptic movies and their inventions ,people have no idea how much work and resources go into making things.
"Just In Time" manufacturing has whittled resources to the minimum ,much like grocery stores only have what's on the shelf ,there is no store room things get stocked from .
What can and will be scavenged won't be much, seeing people will be using up every thing they have to survive starting with food , fuel and all other resources we have become accustomed to .
For working steel, If you haven't the resources for making oxygen and acetylene for cutting and welding ,nor the electrical energy and consumables for running a plasma cutter ,that leaves a hammer an chisel and basic black smithing ,but you still need coal and coke and the skills and tools for that .
Carpentry and masonry too, need their own resources for building an making repairs . If you don't know the resources for making cement or even harvesting clay for that matter , or you have no resource for nails or screws ,much less the saws and tools for processing/or repurposing wood, your just as lost as the rest.
How many cobblers do we have here and those that sew and those with electronics skills ?
And that's not the half of it.
Every thing you scavenge needs a place to organize and store it out of the elements and away from view of other scavengers.
It would take an army of people ,an organized sophisticated disciplined community to make things work.
But just a hand full of people , it will be all they can to to keep the wolves from the door.

 

A Then and Now comparison. A Hallicrafters SB40 on the left, a You Kits HB-1B on the right.

Guess which one requires very special tools and equipment to work on. Guess which one you would be hard pressed to take parts from other junked out stuff to get working.

While obviously staged for the most part, I got a real kick out of the show Junkyard Wars because real on the fly fabrication was taking place. I have no idea why it was dropped, likely because it had reached the end of suspended disbelief. Still, quite fun.

So, could you make a working radio receiver from found junk?

 

Like a Foxhole radio?

BTW - The Gillette company produced Blued razor blades for the war effort. Interestingly enough, if you look at one of those, it includes a small arrow printed on each side of the blade, ostensibly to indicate the way to insert it into the razor. (The blade used in this Fox Hole Radio was not made by Gillette). Gillette manufactured these blades and then voluntarily magnetized them for use by POW’s as a field-expedient magnetic compass. When suspended by a thread, the arrow pointed North. (“The Escape Factory”, Reference 6). Different times, different people.

 

I built one of them for a seince project back when I was younger and it did not even get a second look now they sell kits for them

 

I call it road shopping I have found some really good stuff I've the years including money I found a wallet that had 168$ and a kids med card called the number told the lady the number she called the kids mom she called me told me what was in the wallet and I told her where she could pick it up at

 

I at one time lived in Panaca Nv - work was at a mobile radar site on the UT/NV border.used for training pilots.

I would walk along Hy 319 on the way to the site, when the rest of the crew would drive by, I hopped in the back of the truck

I found all manner of things walking along the road - tools, purses, cans of food (I dunno) some worth keeping - the rest got buried. Nothing quite like a nice long walk in the morning along a road, stick in hand, watching for what present itself
while having a bit of good exercise.

 

My dad worked for the county in NE Nevada and was on the road a lot. A natural scavenger he was always bringing home the booty of the road. Best was a Hi Standard, HD Military w/ bull barrel, in perfect condition! A suggestion from me that maybe it was a murder weapon elicited a grunt and the look! My dad was a law abiding man, generally but he was also a charter subscriber to "Disturbed Loner Magazine."