Survival ideas
2″ square tubing rocket stove
Using 2″ thin wall tubing for the vertical stack and 1-1/2″ for the feeder shoot the stove performed OK, It had a screen on the bottom of the stack. The ash build-up made it difficult to draw air to keep the flame going, so I cut out a side opening. It started drawing a bit…
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Bucket toilet stabilizers
My old camper doesn’t have a bathroom, which is fine except when you need to tinkle in the middle of the night. So we ordered a two room shower tent and a snap on bucket toilet seat from Amazon. Right away I discovered a potential problem. Too tippy even for my scrawny butt! Not long…
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Portable DIY bidet
This is a spent ink pen cartridge. Here I’m heating the cartridge end over a candle. A large nail is used to flaring the end of the tube. This end will rest against the cap. The flare will prevent the tube from popping out when the water bottle is squeezed. Once the flare is made,…
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Covid 19 DIY mask and shield
Here is an air tight DIY filtration mask and near air tight face shield using a cottage cheese container and a 2 liter pop bottle. On the shield I used 1-1/4″ wide by 1/4″ thick foam peal-and-stick weather seal, but you can use something similar to protect your face from the plastic shield. For…
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DIY surgical mask
As of this writing the Covid 19 Corona virus is spreading so fast that the preferred N95 disposable surgical masks are becoming quite scarce. Not many contagion tests are being administered on the general public as of yet, so you or I could be a walking Typhoid Mary. What if I develop a cough or…
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Cooking oil candle stove
I made this heater/stove for a small push cart shelter. For the main housing I used a Costco peanut can. This top view with the lid off shows the three vegetable oil candles. To make the you first need a floating wick. I used a small 3/8″ length of wine cork. I drilled a…
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Ammo box stove
This was my version of the air tight Ammo stove. The box I had was pretty small in comparison to others I’d seen. It was fun to build but the fire wouldn’t last for more than a half hour. I was hoping for a longer burn time. The bolt on the front (left) of the…
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Survival kits
First I want to say that a common space blanket is one of the best things to carry on a day hike. Here I’m exploring more than just keeping warm. In 1986 Mother Earth News asked a few Outdoor experts to come up with a DIY survival kit. They were all huge and too big…
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Survival mailbox stove
Made with a mailbox, bent electrical conduit, copper wire and a rain gutter, this was an experiment in what a person could use around their home to create a make-shift stove for cooking and boiling contaminated water in case of a natural disaster. I used a drill for holes, but you could use a nail…
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Paint can swamp cooler
This was an attempt at making a small traveling swamp cooler for a vehicle without air conditioning. The fan sucked air thru the small holes on the sides and thru the damp cloth wall lining. A small fountain pump pushed water up to the round tube. Multiple holes were drilled on the bottom of the…
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