July 2016 | Tennessee Gun

28 Jul 2016

How to Build a Tarp Shelter Using Canopy Fittings

I wanted a cheap solution to roofing my goat kennel, and since I had a lot of conduit left over from my geo-dome experiments and I have been thinking of roofing solutions using ferrocement, I decided to try using EMT conduit connectors to make a conduit tarp shelter.

This EMT conduit tarp shelter is simple, inexpensive, and easily put up in an afternoon.

I ordered about $60 dollars of connectors to fit together some EMT conduit, that and some rope, zip ties, and some tarp made a fairly decent shelter.

The connectors made this project go together much easier than it could have been. It also made the project very strong.

I feel this is pretty strong, and using the connectors with shorter runs of pipe (3 feet or so instead of the 5 and 8 feet runs) with welded wire attached similar to how I did my Doomsday prepper dome (without a tv producer wanting me to make it ugly so it looks like a “rock”).

This setup can make a pretty cheap roof for a shed. Especially If you use cloth and latex cement instead of a tarp.

I guess I need to add that project to my list.

Update:

We have used this for about 6 months and have had several heavy storms, including snow and it is working well. My goats are happy under the shelter.

28 Jul 2016

Cookin’ with Potatoes

I have (and enjoy) several of Peggy Layton’s books. Cookin’ with Potatoes is especially useful because potatoes are so cheap and filling of a food.

Potatoes can be the building block of an entire survival food plan. Or you can just use them to eat cheaply and heartily.Potatoes form the basis of many cheap meals. Cooking with Clara’s famous Depression cooking videos showed several potato recipes.

We cook with potatoes as lot at our house because they are so cheap, easy, and filling. I especially love to make potato fans as a great dinner to make with the boy.

Cookin’ with Potatoes is a rare book that has both prepper and everyday uses. You can make dinner or make do with the recipes you can find inside this book. As my son gets older I anticipate making many more cooking videos as he learns to cook with potatoes and other basic foods.

Luckily I have better luck getting him to eat potatoes than I do with other common foods.

Besides this book, Peggy Layton is a favorite prepper author of mine. I own (and recommend) several of her other titles as well. Cooking with Rice and Beans comes to mind.

21 Jul 2016

How to Start Spoon Carving

Spoon carving is one of those things that can be very elegant and skill intensive. Alternatively, it can be simple and functional.

There are a lot of specialized tools available and much in the way of instructions online.

Today I just want to go into the basics of spoon carving. I don’t have a lot of instructions here. This is so that someone that is interested can start, but not be overwhelmed.

The tools needed are pretty simple and inexpensive as spoons have been hand carved for thousands of years.

As I showed in my 52 Prepper Project for Kids book, the depression can be burned out with coals. However, most use hook knives.

You Do Not Need Much to Start

Simply purchase a curved hook knife like the one shown from amazon. You will also need a simple knife, some sandpaper, and a little bit of edible oil. That is all that is truly necessary if you are carving from a blank.

A pencil and a small axe are helpful.

Start by designing your spoon and drawing the rough outline on the blank. I like to start with the bowl. This is because I don’t want to spend time carving down the handle and then ruin the spoon during the depression carving.

Once the bowl is formed I carve around it to form the rounded spoon form.

The last carving step is to trim down the handle. That is the simplest part. Also, I like having the leverage of the thick wood blank as I form the spoon head.

Once the spoon is fully carved, sand down the spoon. That is to remove the tool marks and make it smooth.

Let it dry slowly and then coat with an edible oil to protect it.

Do not use oils like olive oil as they go rancid with time. Many like to use tung or walnut oil, but some are allergic to nut oil. In the spoon pictured above I used normal canola oil from the grocery.

21 Jul 2016

Operating Techniques for the Tractor Loader Backhoe

In trying to develop my homestead, I have had problem after problem with my backhoe. Granted most of it is because it is a 50 year old machine, but a good deal comes from me not having clue how to operate it.

That’s where Operating Techniques for the Tractor Loader Backhoe come in. The book teaches essential pre-operation checks, vital services, and the basics of how to actually dig and trench with a backhoe.

This book was actually designed to be a textbook so each chapter has tests. It also spends time talking about the one-call system so you won’t disrupt utility lines.

I find this book to be helpful. While not essential, it will save the new backhoe operator a lot of headaches and time wasted with inefficient movements.

It took me a while to get the movements down to use both hands at the same time to dig a flat and smooth trench. If I had this book at the time I would have saved hours in learning a relatively simple, yet unobvious technique.

A backhoe is a very useful tool for those wanting to develop land. It doesn’t move as much land as a bulldozer, but it is more versatile.

14 Jul 2016

How to Baton Wood With a Knife

Batoning wood is a common bushcraft/survival technique in which a strong knife.

The technique can be used to split wood.

I am showing it here because it is a good technique and useful and is necessary to know to get to my next post – which is basic spoon carving.

How to Baton Wood

Equipment:

A knife with a strong spine. My USMC issued Ka-Bar is perfect
A baton (I used a stout piece of limb – which is also perfect)
Something to split

Procedure:

All you need to do is to set the log to be split up on its cut end so it stands vertically.
Next, the knife blade onto the log so that the blade is orientated where you want the split to occur.
Hold the knife handle and tap the spine of the blade smartly and evenly with the baton.
Finally, the blade will be driven into the log and a split will develop.

Similarly as using a froe to make shakes (split roofing shingles), you can turn the knife handle to cause the knife to exert pressure into or away from the split to make the split thicker or thinner (this takes some experience).

Do You Really Need to Baton Wood?

Bladeforums has an interesting discussion on the situations in which you would actually need to baton wood.

Monthly Archives: July 2016