Lately I’ve been downloading maps of my region for bug-out planning and redundancies if the internet goes down. It’s been extremely helpful so far especially when camping in areas without internet access as well as marking points of interest on Alpine Quest for future reference.
However it wasn’t easy to find usable maps to download, especially when I have to “code” the .bsh files myself to make the maps downloadable via MOBAC.
I have uploaded some map files usable with any MOBAC version that can read the .bsh files which is typically version 2.0.0 onwards. This lets you view and download any portion of the map. All you have to do is place them in the “mapsource” folder of MOBAC and restart the program (if it’s open already).
Note: Don’t download more than you need or these services may block all connections from MOBAC and then nobody can download any maps. MOBAC has a built in limit of 500,000 tiles as it is and that already seems a bit too large for people’s needs.
The “z__” number in the file name is the maximum zoom level of that map. So Google Terrain only goes down to zoom level 15, where Google Maps goes to z20.
The map files are as follows and have an example image from Sydney showing what that map looks like:
Have you ever been camping with a new pot and burn yourself on the metal handles due to the lack of heat insulation rubber? Or perhaps you go to grab it and discover it’s extremely hot and you drop your meal all over the ground?
Fig1. – The results of heat shrink wrapping the handles.
Well not any more! I recently devised an elegant solution to partially fix this issue using heat shrink electrical wrap as an insulation material on the handles. Not only does it look slick and fits extremely well once shrunk but it can come in a multitude of colours and it’s almost impossible to get wrong!
To get started all you need is:
• Metal pot handles, which should be between 0-4mm thickness and may be difficult to remove
• 1m+ (3ft) of any coloured 6mm heat-shrink wrap (Depending on the thickness of your handles)
• A heat gun or open flame (Maybe an oven?)
• Scissors to cut the tubing to size
• Pliers to hold the hot handles
You can buy different thicknesses of the shrink wrap but 6mm is the best bet because it shrinks down to 2-3mm diameter. This is also a good choice for size because you need to be able to get it around any bends that may be in the metal unless you want to do some blacksmithing.
Fig2. – Sizing the tubing for the handle. This was a test so don’t actually put the tubing over the hinge!
Once you’ve removed the handles, measure the tubing by eye and cut pieces to size. It may be easier to do it in a few sections if there’s multiple sharp bends. You can then simply overlap the sections to provide thicker coverage. Once you’ve got a few cut sections of tubing you now have to slide them up the handles into position. You can be rough with it as the tubing is resilient and it may be difficult to get it around some bends.
Fig3. – The first application of the tubing complete.
Once a section is in position you can heat it up to shrink it. You shouldn’t do overlapping sections at the same time in case the outer wrap shrinks first and distorts the inner one – but instead finish one layer at a time letting it cool between layers. Use the heat gun until it’s snugly fit around the metal and don’t forget to use pliers to hold the metal. An open flame is harder to control and provides variable heat output so be careful not to put it too close to the flame. Even if you put it in the flame, nothing happens if you pull it out quickly, however if you leave it in the tubing will start to form bubbles.
A point to note is the direction that the text on the wrap is facing. If you wish to try and hide it, ensure it’s facing down. You can see on Fig7 where I got it wrong and the text is facing up, but overall it’s not terribly noticeable.
Fig4. – Shrinking the tubing.
(Yes, I did mine indoors over an open flame, but as I said it’s pretty hard to get wrong if you follow some basic guidelines. I’m sure it would be even easier with an actual heat gun)
When you’ve got it looking how you want let it cool down before applying any additional layers as adding the tubing while it’s still warm may start to shrink it early. You can dip it into water if you’d like to help cool it faster, also known as quenching in blacksmithing (but that’s a little different). If you use the water method, ensure it’s dry before adding more layers. It’s cool enough when you can hold the handle without burning yourself, at which point you can begin to wiggle the next layer of tubing into position.
Fig5. – Cooling the handle faster than air drying.
Then simply repeat the heating step again until you’ve got a handle with a lovely looking layer of wrap over it.
Fig6. – The comparison between un-shrunk tubing and shrunk tubing.
You can apply the same method for any and all of your camping pots with metal handles although some are extremely difficult to remove the handles on such as my stanley pot below (fig.7) which also had a sliding mechanism I had to remove.
Fig7. – My stanley cup with the tubing completed.
Results
Now for the results which is quite a fair improvement over just bare metal. You can definitely hold the handle for longer and feel about a 40% reduction in heat leaving about 60% heat. So with an additional layer you will feel about 36% of the heat down from 100%. You could probably add up to 5 layers if you wish, but each layer will become harder to slip on, but after so many layers I’m sure you won’t be able to feel much (if any) heat. Additional layers will also ass a bit more weight if ultralight backpacking is your thing and where every gram counts.
Below is an estimate of heat felt compared to number of layers:
If you wish to remove the tubing all you have to do is get some scissors and slice it up the side and peel it off. It won’t leave any sticky residue (Unless you melt the stuff over an open flame) and you won’t be able to tell it was even applied.
Fig8. – Letting a handle cool prior to putting them back on.
I only tried this on stainless steel and aluminium but it should work exactly the same for all other metals including titanium, copper, brass etc. Let me know what you think and if you tried this on your pots.
This post is out of date. Check out the latest version of TPE below: Download TPE Here
As you may already know, we live in an extremely fragile world where reliance on the government, nature, water systems, electricity, internet, sewage, trucks etc, etc, etc, can all be disrupted so easily by events such as natural disasters, wars or simply bad luck. Humanity in general has had life pretty easy since WW2 ended with an explosion in technology and countless inventions to make life just that little bit easier. Unfortunately all this dependence has made us less reliant on ourselves and more on these fragile modern networks which are so delicately balanced. Over the years we’ve seen horrific disasters occur in other parts of the world and think that it will never happen here for various reasons, but eventually every region has their disaster and global disasters in particular are ones that nobody can hide from.
Fig1. – The PDF version of TPE on a smart phone.
That’s where TPE comes in. Giving you that vital knowledge to help you survive WHEN disaster strikes on basically every field related to preparedness or survivalism. This however is only the first step in being prepared, knowledge is about 10% of the battle and practise being the other 90%. So don’t think this guide will instantly give you all the skills needed to survive WW3 in the future, you have to start now.
Fig2. – The categories found in the spreadsheet.
The official release of The Preparedness Encyclopedia which I started back in June 2017 is now open to the public. It contains vital information on every conceivable subject related to survival and preparedness which should be of use when the worst does happen whether it’s a local or global event. The guide currently comes in two different formats:
1. The first being the mobile/portable version which is designed to run as fast as possible on handheld devices. It’s a PDF file coming in at about 32mb at the moment.
2. The second type is the file I edit the guide with being the Excel file (.xlsx). It’s much slower than the PDF counterpart and it may lag, or not even open on mobile devices. However this version is editable and has hyperlinks to make it easy to transition between different sections.
(All images can be clicked on for the full size, and then zoomed in to even more)
Fig3. – The start of the preparedness section.
Getting Started
To get started with TPE all you need is:
(For using the PDF version)
• The guide itself
• A smart phone/tablet/pc
• Any PDF reader app
All of these can be obtained free of charge assuming you have a phone already!
Although donations towards the meticulous crafting of the guide are welcome too, where how to instructions can be found under the contact page on my website.
Downloading
You can find TPE on my website by clicking “Main Website” up the top left of this page, and then using the navigation bar to find “TPE” under the “Resources” menu. From there you can download any of the versions I currently have.
Fig4. – Some great preparedness resources can be found listed in the guide in the MEDIA section. Contact me if you’d like your resource to be added.
Categories
There’s 4 primary headings in the guide which can be seen on the far left of any of the images of TPE. Content is divided between these sections to make reading and navigation easier. The first column is the section type such as “MEDIA” in the image above. Then in the same example it goes into “YouTube” > “Other Videos” > Then for this example there’s a blank category because I didn’t need to go any deeper, however other sections make use of all the sections. You can think of these divisions as folders, so inside the “MEDIA” folder are the “YouTube” and “Books” folders, and inside the “YouTube” folder are the “Prepping”, “Survival / Outdoors”, “Gear Reviews” and “Other Videos” folders.
Image Detail
Below is a comparison of screenshots from my phone showing the detail in the map which could come handy in a wide array of opportunities if you don’t have access to internet.
Fig5-7. – A side by side comparison of the quality of imagery in TPE zooming in each shot.
Below are more images to help persuade you to give it a try:
Fig8. – A screenshot of the navigation section.
In the NAVIGATION section you will learn about using compasses, magnetic declination, navigation using the sun, stars and your watch, reading maps and more.
Fig9. – A screenshot of the entertainment section featuring crosswords and many other puzzles.
Lots of entertainment to help keep your mind occupied and in a sane state. If you’re worrying about everything that’s going on around you all the time you will adopt a very negative state of mind over time and that’s exactly what the entertainment section aims to counter, regardless if you’re bugging out alone or have your family with you – there’s something for every situation.
Fig10. – Codes and ciphers can be found in the COMMUNICATION section.
It may be of benefit to communicate in code sometimes so the government or others don’t understand your message and that’s where the COMMUNICATION section comes in handy. It can also be used to decipher codes of others if required and contains most of the commonly used codes today.
Are you convinced to download it yet? Follow the link below or keep scrolling until you are! TPE
Fig11. – The natural disaster section detailing volcano explosivity indexes.
The Volcano subsection is housed within the NATURAL DISASTERS category of the guide. This section discusses any and all types of natural disasters from earthquakes to a tsunamis and how to prepare for them and what to do if they occur.
Fig12. – An excerpt from the fire lighting section found under FIRE. Note: “o” indicates that there’s no information in this cell yet.
The FIRE section is obviously about how to start fires with various methods, tools and equipment, how to extinguish fires and finding natural tinders in the environment. There’s also information on fire types, flame colours and their effects and what is required to start a fire.
Fig13. – Details about landform types and their advantages and disadvantages.
Looking for a location to set up camp or to bug out to may be a challenge when also faced with the overall intensity of a disaster, so this section is aimed at giving pros and cons of each environmental position as well as any hazards you may not realize prior to calling it home.
Fig14. – Signals for communicating with aircraft if you wish to be rescued.
For those times when you’re lost and you need to communicate with rescuers who are unable to land in your area. Also shown on the picture above is a list of ground signals which hikers and other trail-goers may leave for others to take note of, but these are generally used in situations where you want to be found.
Fig15. – Details of types of preppers and their scale on the preparedness index.
An interesting little list which can be fun to try and place yourself on as a prepper as well as understanding the other levels of prepared people out there. Higher is not always better!
Fig16. – There’s an entire fictional novel also included.
The entire novel of Robinson Crusoe is also included as a distraction from the disasters that may be going on around you to try to ease your mind. The entertainment section is arguably one of the most important sections as it can boost your, and your parties morale greatly in those hard times.
Hopefully by now you’ve decided to see what all the fuss is about and download TPE to your device as a “Just In Case” method to help safeguard your existence against end of the world. You will have much greater chance to survive a disaster if you read and hone your skills prior to any disaster happening, so start reading it today! One thing is fact, and that is that you never know when disaster is around the corner…
Is it possible to be both a prepper and a minimalist? At first glance it doesn’t seem like it. Preppers often stockpile mountains of food, water, barter items and supplies which they believe will be required in a time of disaster. This flies directly in the face of minimalism where people try to have as few possessions as possible – typically under 100 items or a single backpack of gear.
Minimalism is about leaving behind a materialistic lifestyle where we live pay-check to pay-check irrelevant of the amount we’re making. Because we’re making more money on promotion we take this new found financial opportunity and stability to upgrade our household items faster, getting that new TV we’ve been waiting to buy and storing the other in another room for the kids. Eventually over a few years of this most families end up with countless electronics, furniture, heirlooms and toys and this is where the minimalism lifestyle comes in.
It seems like two incompatible lifestyles, but I’m giving it a try anyway and logging my findings over multiple posts as I learn more via experience. My theory is that if I have a single backpack of preparedness products I can count that as a single minimalist item, especially if stored out of sight and mind but still easy to reach.
This is where things get a bit difficult as a few of the items included in the BOB may have some overlap between daily use ones such as cutlery, portable stoves and utensils. You’re trying not to double up on items you own, but you also want everything in one backpack which is quick to grab in the event a catastrophic disaster arises. It’s a real pain to take items from the bag, use them, wash and dry them then return them to the bag every use, not to mention that you may have to do some digging to find them in the first place. Due to this I’ve chosen to keep a duplicate item in the backpack so I can just grab it and go if needed and not waste precious moments looking for what I’ve taken out – which could be the difference between life and death.
The ultimate aim of minimalism is to spend less and have the freedom to travel more without being weighed down by all your “stuff”. Therefore if you own something but aren’t attached to it and are prepared to give it up at the drop of a hat you can just abandon it and re-purchase a new one when you’re at your new location. This is the loophole I’m going to use, and as long as they’re neatly stored away they shouldn’t be included in the minimalism item count. Out of sight, out of mind.
Currently it’s only me living alone so I’ll only need enough food for myself to last about 2 months – which is 8x 12.5L decor storage containers. Each of these has on average 18 cans of food in them coming out to about 2.5 cans a day. In a tiny house this will be fairly easy to conceal within a pantry. Having a farm can drastically reduce the amount of food you require if your house is your Bug Out Location (BOL), just be sure to have enough stored for the harsher months.
Water is a little easier especially if you have a quality water filter which has a long lifespan and a river or lake nearby. There should be at least a week of drinking water on hand or a large water tank nearby.
Nothing can replace knowledge in a disaster and knowing how to acquire food and water during a disaster is vital to keeping your item count to a minimum. More Knowledge = Less Things.
There will have to be some form of compromise between prepping and minimalism. You can’t have that huge underground pantry with every type of food imaginable, not only is it more vulnerable to theft and disasters but you become attached to it and won’t want to leave if the situation demands. At least with a few storage boxes of food and portable water you can load up your vehicle and get out within 15 minutes. You can’t just grab a pantry shelf and throw it in the car, you’d have to put everything into boxes first and then load the car.
Preppers can also have a BOL in another part of the country stocked with food and other resources which they flee to in a disaster. This is another plausible idea which demands less carried survival items on you all the time. You just need to have enough food, water and fuel for 3 days to get you to your shelter – as you can get almost anywhere in a country (by car) in 3 days if you’re determined.
A final solution similar to the BOL would be storing smaller caches underground at various locations around the country with about a weeks worth of food and water inside. Or perhaps you could hire storage locations and fill them with supplies. Even if they are broken into pre-disaster, who would want to steal 1,000 cans of food and water? You could also offer your family / friends some money to keep some supplies in a corner of their house for you, you don’t even have to tell them what you’re storing if you wish – as long as you express it’s not illegal substances and that the items aren’t worth much.
Being prepared doesn’t mean “having a lot of stuff” stored for use in a disaster, that’s only a small part of the equation. The other parts of preparedness is preparing mentally, preparing physically, having contacts and like-minded people, gaining skills, gaining knowledge and gaining experience. It’s a culmination of these things that creates the ultimate prepper. The unskilled, unintelligent and ill-prepared people who need spoon feeding from pre-stocked cans of food, the real preppers can acquire all these from the wild foraging, farming and hunting.
Lately I’ve been binge watching everything I could find on YouTube about the minimalism lifestyle after my girlfriend mentioned my – let’s just say “untidy habits” and the collections of stuff and preps that I have in my rooms.
Let’s be clear, I don’t own a house and am currently renting 2 bedrooms where I keep everything from my stove, fridge, bed, computer system, cutlery, BOB’s and my stocks of food and water for disasters. It’s quite the collection if I’m honest, however the “stuff” on the floor was kind of getting old. There was a point where I couldn’t even see the floor – but not because of a lack of tidiness but moreso the lack of storage options and furniture.
I’m not even an untidy person, being an OCD clean freak it’s a strange kind of “untidy”. I know where everything is but due to a lack of storage all the gear I own is in it’s own storage location – on the floor.
Over the weekend I have been busy head down in my rooms picking up one item at a time and deciding:
Decisions
• Do I need this to survive?
• Do I have an emotional attachment to this item?
• When have I last used this item?
• Is it a tool?
• Is it worth selling?
Then I put it into a pile based on what I wanted to do with it, those piles are as follows:
The Seven Piles
• A keep pile
• A rubbish pile
• A sell pile
• A give away pile
• A take to work pile (or other location)
• A decide later pile
• A “to digitize” pile
The keep pile is for all the items I have strong attachments to, currently use weekly or that I will use in the future for sure – such as my preps. (Debatable that that will be used, but still…)
The rubbish pile is for items that I don’t need and is just considered clutter or those items that haven’t been used in months.
The sell pile contains items that are worth some money that I wish to get rid of and make a little back on. Remember that if you can’t sell them after trying you should just give them away or throw them out and not just believe you’ll try again at some point in the future.
And the give away piles are for items in decent quality that someone else might like to own. It also feels good to donate items to people in need and you know that the item will have another life away from home.
The take to work pile means I store the items at work – these generally include items which I have to keep for 7 years such as travel receipts, medical certificates, excess food I can eat at work and a few other small items.
The decide later pile is for complex items which requires more thought as I try to go through the pile of items as fast as possible so I don’t well up feelings and attachment for them again.
The “to digitize” pile is for cards, documents, certificates or nostalgic items from past events which I want to remember but I don’t need the physical item, therefore I take a picture of it and discard the item.
Sorting
While going through my items I found there were a lot of tough decisions and I found myself picking up the same item multiple times because I couldn’t decide on it. My mistake was having a “decide later” pile which I had to keep going through to whittle it down to nothing again, but unfortunately most of that pile ended up as keep… for now.
The most difficult item to get rid of is my Obutto R3volution gaming desktop which is tremendously heavy, large and hard to dismantle. Not only that but my screens and pc are extremely embedded with it with cables intertwined around it and the screens screwed to the stand. I hope I can sell it as the buttkickers (which add a level of vibration to the seat and footrest) are probably worth a fair $500.
Over the time I have been cleaning up I feel the weight literally fall off as I throw each additional bag in the bin and sigh with relief. It gets much easier the more you clean and feel like you’re making a dent in all your possessions, and it inspires you to continue and become more critical with your decision making.
Just a note – buy the extra heavy duty garbage bags so they don’t break open when you lift them. I’m so glad I bought these as my other bags were getting holes in them and were beginning to split open before I bagged them in the heavy duty ones, because I own a lot of sharp electronics.
At the end of the weekend I ended up with 4 bags of items I could throw out – some were even electronics that I had never used such as a 4 port switch. Fortunately for me I don’t have any really strong attachments to most of my items except a few of my electronics due to their multifunction nature such as my phone – which I would never throw away unless I had a replacement anyway.
Aim
My aim is to have two backpacks worth of camping / preparedness gear, one suitcase worth of clothing / electronics, one storage container of misc gaer such as power tools (to build my tiny house with), cables for my pc, pens, paper and books and finally 8 or so food storage containers which contain a weeks worth of food for 1 person each which I will be storing in my tiny house when it’s complete.
I also have a few large items such as a typical king size bed, a folding camping bed, a tent, a swag, two fans, an air conditioner and a few small pieces of portable furniture. I hope to remove the small pieces of furniture when I’m near the end of my cleaning but there’s a lot of items I can’t really make a decision on due to it being preparedness based such as my camo net.
My absolute aim is to have one “Mazda 2” sized car load of stuff I own and nothing more – which will require me to cut out a large amount of the furniture and remove the bed entirely. Another motive for reducing the amount of things I have is simplicity, happiness and being able to fit it all into my tiny house, as well as not being fixed to one location and I can pick up and go within 1 hour if required in an emergency.
I will be blogging a more detailed article on how one can be both a prepper and a minimalist at the same time even though upon first glance they may appear to be complete opposites. Preparedness is about stocking up on everything you will need in the future and minimalism is about having only what you need at the current point in time and nothing more.
When you’ve accumulated a lot of valuables in your house such as spare cash or precious metals you begin to run into the problem of where to store it, the most common way to store them would be in a safe or small vault of some kind. These are quite hard to break into if made of solid metal, however it’s extremely obvious to any criminal. I looked into storing my valuables inside disguised products such as the below Heinz Can of beans, it’s inconspicuous on the outside but has quite a nice amount of space inside for about 30 oz of silver and a lot of paper notes as well to prevent rubbing on the inside.
Fig1. – The Heinz Beanz Tin.
But open up the bottom…
Fig2. – The inside of the Tin.
There’s quite a lot of different designs you can buy, I purchased mine off Ebay from Britian and noticed a tomato soup can, spaghetti can, a dictionary, coke can, a fake candle and even a fake rock for storing things outside which is probably more fitting for a key. It costed me $30 AUD and you could make your own for cheaper quite easily by hollowing out any common object.
It would be best to also have a safe in your cupboard with semi-valuable items in it to trick criminals into believing they have the best loot.
Lately I’ve been slowly adding to my silver stockpile due to the low (relative) prices this year. Currently it’s at $16.16 USD on the 27th June 2018 and dropping which is quite below its mean of $16.50 but not by much.
Some of the uses of silver include:
• Bartering
• Water Purification (Kind of)
• Colloidal Silver (For Health Issues)
• Antibacterial
Remember that either way you look at it, silver will always be an investment and you can sell it later on for almost the same amount if you need some quick cash.
Gold is useful as well to store large amounts of cash, but there’s not a lot you can buy with that much money in a SHTF scenario. Most of your transactions will be small change for cans of food, water and survival gear – which you should already have stocked. Currently Gold is at $1253.74 USD which is a little lower than average but then again gold has fewer uses than silver in a survival situation. However it is worth it to have at least one oz of gold handy.
Cash on the other hand will depreciate very quickly in a disaster, people will soon realize this piece of paper isn’t worth the value written on it by the Federal Reserve and value will shift back into valuable metals which can’t simply be printed into existence. When this occurs the three most valuable entities in the world will be Materials/Possessions, Precious Metals/Gems and Skills/Experience.
Don’t forget to keep your valuables safe and secure in a hidden location either in a safe, under floorboards, at the back of a wardrobe or buried in the back yard. You could perhaps find some extremely strange places to store valuables too, such as inside a hot water tank where it will not only stay safe but slowly purify your water. The only problem with that is getting them in and out but at least you won’t be inclined to spend them.
There’s been a lot of hype around Yellowstone lately with its increased activity and fears it may blow into the first modern super eruption which could cause the next ice age. There is also an ongoing eruption at Hawaii at the moment where people are being evacuated due to the slow flowing lava heading into towns and destroying houses which doesn’t help the doomsday theorists waving their arms and saying these are signs. I’m no seismologist and haven’t been to Yellowstone but I have seen the Supervolcano movie by BBC One which pretty accurately goes through what would happen if this monstrosity were to erupt. The effects were widespread across the globe with few survivors near the epicenter of the disaster and a LOT of ash everywhere preventing travel, plant growth and plummeting temperatures. If you wish to watch it I’ve added a link to it below on YouTube.
There’s a lot of great information throughout as it’s a documentary style movie, such as knowing only a few inches of pumice can collapse a roof and half of that if it’s wet, as well as its effects on our bodies if breathed in. It’s a far fetched movie for this event to ever occur in our lifetime at the scale it’s depicted, but great for fine tuning your preps if you live near an active volcano as it may contain information you never knew.
I’m in Australia where there’s almost no danger of any volcanos or earthquakes to be of much concern, the nearest volcano to Brisbane is in New Zealand and that’s a little smaller than Yellowstone. However there’s never any reason to slack in your preparedness duties as even the most remote possibility of an event could still happen. I recommend looking into volcanic disasters and buying one extra item this week to compliment your gear if you don’t have one of the following:
• Air Filter Mask or N95 Mask and spare filters (For rock particulate)
• Goggles (If you don’t have a full face filter mask)
• Road Flares (For visibility during any disaster)
• Duct Tape (To block car air vents)
• Heavy Duty LED Flashlight (To see and signal through the thick ash, 2,000+ Lumens Recommended)
• Radio with NOAA Weather Station
You might also want to take a look at this list of countries ranked by natural disaster risk, I was surprised to see that Australia was rated higher than the UK, US and Canada at 4.22% chance.
Interestingly the highest is Vanuatu at 36.28% and the lowest is Qatar at 0.08% risk. Country Natural Disaster Risk
Another very useful map is The Global Risk Map where you select what natural disaster you want and it will display the current risk or the history of that disaster in an area you specify. Global Risk Map
So recently I tried to make some char cloth for use in fire lighting with flint, however things didn’t go exactly as planned when the entire can started to melt in front of me…
Fig1. – The melted tin can.
At first I thought, how hard could this be? Put some cotton into a can, drill a hole and burn it a little but apparently there’s a few more complications than this, but hopefully it’ll teach you a little more about doing it successfully if you run into the same problems.
Fig2. – Smoke coming from the tin prior to it burning through.
The first mistake was the use of an aluminium can which prior to this I didn’t know that aluminium has a low melting point of about 660.3°C (1220.54°F). Even then I’m pretty sure those cheap metal tins off eBay that often come with tinder in them isn’t even aluminium but some sort of aluminium alloy. I’m not even sure if this cheap gas burner can reach those temperatures as the highest I’ve recorded mind getting to using isobutane is about 450°C. It is quite thin walled which makes it easier for the heat to just burn straight through it, at least I will fix this on my second attempt by using a proper steel container.
Fig3. – The orange-hot base of the tin prior to melting.
Looking at figure 3, it gave me an idea to do a photo shoot of just the smoke sometime as the patterns it creates could create some wonderful and intricate artwork if blown the right way. I’mm add this to my to do list of photographic experiments and find a way to make smoke a little more interesting to look at as an artform.
Anyway back to the topic at hand, I’m certain that the char cloth was destroyed during the melting of the tin, however I tried to light it anyway and got a glowing orange ember which randomly seemed to wander around the char cloth a little before extinguishing after a few seconds. I’m not sure if this is normal or whether char cloth is supposed to have a flame once lit instead of whatever you call that orange ember thing. (Pic below)
Fig4. – Three glowing parts after using a flint rod on the cloth.
Fig5. – The ruined char cloth.
I only realized after salvaging the char cloth that they shrink to about half their size, which means I have to double the cutout size to get a decent tool for firelighting which will also fit nicely in a survival kit. The cloth also crumbles more readily than a lantern mantle which is a nuisance, but that could be a sign I “overcooked” it to the point it’s useless. Overall it was a valuable learning experience and I’ve got a few more things to buy before attempting creating char cloth again such as a better can, cotton which I’m sure is cotton instead of a questionable t-shirt which “claimed” to be 100% cotton.
Since I first began researching preparedness I’ve been concatenating what I know into an Excel sheet to help refresh my mind when I need to remember what I’ve previously learnt. For example if I forget what ratio of Calcium Hypochlorite I need to add to water for the initial solution.
Fig1. – The categories in The Preparedness Encyclopedia.
Each section seen above has a link you can click to jump to the section shown as well as subheadings when you get there to jump even further into the content you are looking for. An example being “Water > Acquiring Water”. The aim is to find any information you are looking for quickly and easily. Alternatively you could also use “Ctrl + F” to search for what you want if the wording is precise.
There are 11 columns of space of information, I chose this number because there are a lot of “10” row data fields and I usually add a description in the first column to give context about the row. There is also another 11 rows beyond the divider in the middle to allow for comments, discussion and answers which is used in the Entertainment section. Overall the column number goes to “AC” after which it’s then cut off to prevent unnecessary scrolling.
This document has slowly been growing over the past few months until now where it’s 10Mb. I carry this around on my phone at all times because you’ll never know when the information will come in handy.
As of today (2nd May 2018) there are 70 categories such as Water, Cooking, Barter, Foraging, Animal Identification, Homesteading, Gear, Fuel, Weapons, Medical and 60 more.
Each category has a percentage that it’s complete which I update as I fill in more information in that section. When every section is 100% the encyclopedia will be complete. I will however be disseminating the guide prior to completion as I will need assistance finishing it.
Up until now I’ve spent about 1573.25 hours compiling it which is calculated from the number of cells I have that contain information and using the assumption that each cell takes 1 minute to complete. Noting that that may be an overestimation I often come back to cells and edit the information and many of the cells take well over 1 minute to complete, so it averages out.
Unfortunately the document has been corrupted twice already in the past few months which is horrifying when it happens as I’ve spent so much time on this, but both times I’ve managed to recover it (or most of it). Therefore I now wish to blog my progress and upload parts of the guide so I always have an online backup to fall back on.
The first corruption I believe was due to it being saved incorrectly on my USB, which was fairly easily recovered by the built-in excel recoverer. After that terrifying moment I backed up the document 7 times as it was the only copy I had at the time. The second corruption I have no idea how it happened but when I tried to open it on my Windows 10 pc (As I usually edit it on a vista pc), it said it was unreadable and then proceeded to ERASE the file and ALL the 6 other backups I had on the USB. So now I’ve learnt my lesson to have off-USB backups as well. I had to use “Recuva” a brilliant program for recovering deleted and deep files from drives that are invisible to the eye.
After those panic attacks, I’m happy to say I now back them up online as well as on multiple PCs and USB’s, so I’d like to see it corrupt now. At most I can only lose one day’s worth of work.
Currently I’m working on the “Plant Identification” section which by far is the biggest with over 5,400 rows. I have recently added the name of every edible plant known on the planet and it’s scientific name. The next step is to find the information for each plant such as Physical Characteristics, Habitats, Known Hazards, Edible Parts, Medicinal Uses, Pictures and more. At this rate if I add 50 plants a day it would take 108 days to complete them all and it takes about 3 minutes to do a row. (That’s 270 hours to complete them all)
So that’s the simple introduction to TPE, if you wish to help add information to the article please let me know, although I’m not yet giving out the guide until it’s a little further along. I’m also unsure about the title of the guide, perhaps something without “The” at the start to use it more fluently in sentences.
G'day, I'm Chris, an enthusiast photographer, programmer, music designer and prepper and this is my little website where I compile my thoughts, projects, music and pictures so others can enjoy and learn from them.
