Posted: 3/8/2009 5:48:32 PM EDT
| Any one know any good reading materials on structure building/woodworking/carpentry and metal manipulation for long term SHTF scenarios? |
| This may sound a bit extreme, but start doing some research on Roman and Chinese Empire technology. Some of the stuff they came up with will work perfectly during a true SHTF scenario. I know wikipedia gets knocked a lot, but use that as a starting point and branch out. Combining their technology with a few of our surviving tools makes a lot of tasks surprisingly efficient. |
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I have some basic books on home repairs and building for the simple stuff and then to learn some of the more difficult stuff I got some books on cabinets, storage chests, and other stuff where you are after something a bit more fancy.
A lot of it can be done by hand tools without too much effort, practice is needed so you learn exactly what you are trying to accomplish. The foxfire books get into some stuff here and there as well, that set of books covers all sorts of stuff and the technology is all old tech. I have some other books around as well, I love books and haunt used book stores trading in stuff that I don't want to keep or looking for something more in depth than what I have. |
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try this site...it has free plans for multiple farm buildings:
Farm Building Linky Thing |
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Quoted:
PBS has this series of this old guy who went up to Alaska and built this really sweet cabin up there - all by hand. Dude was a hard worker! I don't particularly care for PBS, but that was a very impressive series. That guy was hard core. Google "Alone in the wilderness." I was loving it until he turned burl maple into hinges for his door when I though to to myself, now he's just showing off. For the OP, try Eric Sloane's stuff. He's a serious scholar of early American tools and structure. I especially loved "A Reverence for Wood" and "An Age of Barns." He covers all sorts of stuff on why specific species of wood worked in various applications. He illustrates the books, too, and he's about as good a draftsman as you'll ever find. Also try any of David Macaulay's stuff on old buildings. I have "Pyramid," "Castle" and "Cathedral." I also got a lot out of "Crosscut Saw Reflections in the Pacific Northwest" by Jim Deaton, especially with respect to the development and use of real manly saws. |
| You may also want to look at the two volume set, The Way Things Work good descriptions and pictures of many devices and explanations about how the parts work together. Some of the stuff (ie airplanes) might not be real helpful but there are sections on things like hand pumps |