Preparing for Uncertainty and Self Reliance

[Speaker to Animals]

BTW are there any Africanized honey bees to speak of up in the mountains now, or are they still all down in the coastal swamps?

That's a bunch of 1970s media hype. Most bees in the southern United States have some of the African subspecies mixed in with them. Apis mellifera scutellata differs only from the kinds of hybrids that were here in that, when the colony is threatened, a larger percentage of the workers come out to fight. Honeybees are not really aggressive buggers by nature no matter what subspecies.

While pretty much all our honeybees are hybrids in North America, here in the higher latitudes of the Southland the predominant subspecies is Italian (apis mellifera ligustica). They are more golden in color.


I just read through the Wikipedia entry for these things, and it has some serious bullshit in parts of it. I would not read that shit.

[Speaker to Animals]

There's even total bullshit shows on the History channel or some such nonsense channel where these guys deliberately provoke hives to make a big show of fighting the "killer bees". It's all total bs.

You'd think beekeepers everywhere stay up at night worrying that their newly hatched queens are going to get jungle fever and load up on that dark continent sperm.

[Fife]

I was just cracking wise.

But I do know an apiary dude who is an absolutely insane conspiracy theorist....

[C-Mag]

[brewster]

Is that David Bowie's cat?

[Montegriffo]

Is that David Bowie's cat?

Do you know why Bowie had different colour eyes?

[Otern]

Do you know why Bowie had different colour eyes?

He got punched as a kid?

Anyway, anyone here got any experience forging knives and such? I've made a small simple forge at my family's farm this summer, using some bricks, a cheap hairdryer, a beer can, a barbeque grate, and lots of coal. My anvil is an old tractor weight (don't know the english word, but it's a thick steel plate you put on the front of a tractor to balance it). Had an old powerful vacuum at first, but it burned up after I modified it for more power. I'd love to get it even hotter, as so far, I can get it red, and orange hot, for maybe 5-10 centimeters. But I can't get it yellow hot, like the folks on youtube, and thicker steel pieces are really difficult to form, and I really want to make a tomahawk or a small viking axe from a hammer or something.

So far, I've almost made a barber knife from some rebar, but I probably fucked up the quenching by not getting it hot enough before quenching it.

[Speaker to Animals]

Do you know why Bowie had different colour eyes?

He got punched as a kid?

Anyway, anyone here got any experience forging knives and such? I've made a small simple forge at my family's farm this summer, using some bricks, a cheap hairdryer, a beer can, a barbeque grate, and lots of coal. My anvil is an old tractor weight (don't know the english word, but it's a thick steel plate you put on the front of a tractor to balance it). Had an old powerful vacuum at first, but it burned up after I modified it for more power. I'd love to get it even hotter, as so far, I can get it red, and orange hot, for maybe 5-10 centimeters. But I can't get it yellow hot, like the folks on youtube, and thicker steel pieces are really difficult to form, and I really want to make a tomahawk or a small viking axe from a hammer or something.

So far, I've almost made a barber knife from some rebar, but I probably fucked up the quenching by not getting it hot enough before quenching it.

I want to learn that as well. Upload your progress, especially the equipment you made.

In terms of preparedness, I think far more emphasis should be placed on repairing or recycling old tools than making custom knives. Custom knives are very cool, but if your goal is a general preparedness skill, you may want to focus mostly on repairing and refurbishing tools.


For instance, one of those paper cup seedling planters sells for thousands if dollars because of patents. But you could probably make your own with a little bit of blacksmithing and metalworking skill.

[Montegriffo]

Do you know why Bowie had different colour eyes?

He got punched as a kid?

Anyway, anyone here got any experience forging knives and such? I've made a small simple forge at my family's farm this summer, using some bricks, a cheap hairdryer, a beer can, a barbeque grate, and lots of coal. My anvil is an old tractor weight (don't know the english word, but it's a thick steel plate you put on the front of a tractor to balance it). Had an old powerful vacuum at first, but it burned up after I modified it for more power. I'd love to get it even hotter, as so far, I can get it red, and orange hot, for maybe 5-10 centimeters. But I can't get it yellow hot, like the folks on youtube, and thicker steel pieces are really difficult to form, and I really want to make a tomahawk or a small viking axe from a hammer or something.

So far, I've almost made a barber knife from some rebar, but I probably fucked up the quenching by not getting it hot enough before quenching it.

Yeah, he got punched so hard by his mate in the playground that it changed colour.

Tractor weights is what we call them in Suffolk, I personally call them counterweights and stick them in the trebuchet bucket.
Bit of heavy pig iron like that should make a usable anvil.
There is an old WWI forge in one of the sheds on the farm but I've never seen it used. I'd like to have a go at a bit of blacksmithing to make some nice hinges and catches for the oak dresser I'm making for my truck.

[Speaker to Animals]

@Carlus

I have been exploring your idea of growing barley and hops to make beer as a trade good.

Do you guys have some plan for malting these grains?

After some reading on the science and history of fermentation, and brewing beer, it has become clear to me that brewing beer is by far the most advanced and difficult of alcoholic beverages. When you do this as a home brewer, you are buying the ingredients all pre-processed. The malting process in particular seems as involved and complex as the fermentation process.