How to Lighting and Use a Rocket Stove

Camping: Lighting and Using a Rocket Stove
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A few weeks ago we showed how to make a small rocket stove using a recycled #10 can and a few old soup cans.

It was a cool project, but I quickly got a couple emails from people wanting to see how to actually use the darn thing.

It is pretty simple and I am going to show you how to light and set about using a rocket stove.

Its called a rocket stove because the design causes a draft much like a rocket, so it WANTS to burn.

Simple wad up some newspaper or other tinder and stick inside the top chimney,

Then insert a couple of small sticks of kindling – larger than a stalk of wheat, but smaller than a pencil – into the top of the chimney.

Light it, and when the kindling catches on fire, insert more kindling in the upper half of the fire hole.

Air will be pulled in through the bottom half of the fire hole and will totally consume the ends of the sticks.

If properly fueled and fully lit, there will be little or no smoke.

As you can see in the video below, only a few twigs heated up my cast iron skillet hot enough to burn my hotdogs.

The beauty of this type of stove is how much heat you get from a small amount of wood that otherwise would be too small to be useful – this allows you to practice your technique often.

Have fun, and try not to burn your house down as the stove gets very hot.

How to Repair Stripped Screw Holes

 

Repairing Stripped Screw Holes
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There really isn’t a need for a big article today as this was just a quick on the fly video I made as I repaired stripped screw holes at my home.

I came home from the store to my back door wide open and the bottom hinge ripped free from the frame.

First, before I did anything I had to ensure no one was in the house.

Once I was sure no one had broken into my home and nothing appeared to be stolen I started wondering what happened.

The nearest I can figure is the severe winter weather and high winds had worked it loose.  It did not help that I often close the door on extension cords while working outside.

To put the hinge back in I needed to fix the stripped out hole in the door frame.

This is easily accomplished by inserting a toothpick or two into the hole and snapping them off.

Provided that, you don’t want to put in too many or you risk splitting the wood.  The frame already had two split holes under the hinge.

This worked fine and is a tip I learned from my Grandpa.  So I hope it is useful to you.

How to Flush the Toilet When the Water is Off

How to Flush the Toilet When the Water is Off

 

Disaster Tip: How to Flush the Toilet when the Water is Cutoff
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While remodeling my bathroom and having my water turned off I realized that some people (my wife being one of them) may not know how to flush the toilet when the water is off.

Because of this I wanted to share a simple disaster pooping tip.

This simple video shows a basic concept that many people may already know, but it is something I feel is worth sharing.

If you do not know how to flush your toilet when you don’t have any water then this video will show you how.

You don’t have to throw the water in the tank for this tip to work.  Alternatively, you could pour the water into the bowl directly.  However, I like this way so I can quickly flush the toilet and have the contents of the bowl disappear.

This seems to work better for my wife’s sensibilities.

Anyway, if you already know this then take comfort in that fact.  However, I hope that some of my readers learn something from this post.

It is my goad to help people learn tricks to more easily become self reliant, but ultimately my desire is to help develop the proper mindset so that more people learn how to figure out their own tricks – because if they share them I can learn from them – which is easier on me… LOL

Finally, when little issues like this come up, being prepared with a solution goes a long way to help my family understand the benefits of a prepared life.

Thanks for watching.

How to Make a Penny Battery

DIY: Penny Battery
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Making a penny battery is not a practical project.  However, it is a practical bit of knowledge to keep in the back of your head.

I used this knowledge to build a larger battery in a mason jar.  The same type of science is what makes Edison Batteries work.

What we are making today is voltaic piles

We will build them out of pennies zinc coated washers and bits of paper.

Each cell of a penny, a washer, and a small square of wet paper produces up to about 0.8 volts, and you can stack multiple cells to create higher voltages.

I have done this with after school groups with kids in kindergarten to fifth grade (with various depth of explanation) and it is very useful to introduce chemistry and the fun of DIY.

Some people use 1982-present pennies that have the copper coating sanded off as the zinc, but since it is illegal to deface US currency I use zinc washers (well… to be honest I use zinc washers because it is MUCH easier).

If you want to do anything slightly resembling useful, you will need at least 5 cells – It would take a pile about the size of your living room and 5ft tall to actually run your home, so lighting up a led or sounding a small piezo electric buzzer are about the limits of this tech

Rip up a piece of thin cardboard (I use business cards, but something like a cereal box would probably work) into squares the size of your pennies.

Soak them in vinegar or lemon juice as this is a wet cell (which means as the cardboard dries the cell stops producing electricity)

Layer in the following sequence:

  • Penny
  • Soaked Paper
  • Zinc

Start another cell by stacking a new penny right on top of the copper and then keep this up until you have enough light your led or buzz your buzzer.

I have found more than 5 cells starts to get unwieldy, and trying to use electric tape to hold it together has stymied the video for some time – maybe using a plastic coin roll, or a length of plastic pipe may make this project easier.

A cell like this will only work about 6 hours or so, but like the chlorine battery show potential. If I can every get around to learning to electroplate I will show how to make an Edison nickel iron battery that can be made cheaply and can actually allow you to make batteries out of five gallon buckets that can do usable work.

How to Make a Hot Wire Cutter

 

I have wanted to build a hot wire cutter for some time.  Once I found out that Styrofoam could be used to make patterns for aluminum casting.

This is because it would burn out in a manner similar to lost wax casting.  I knew it was just a matter of time before I had to have one.

Since I got back on a pyro video bug and bought some nichrome wire to make rocket ignition squibs.

I decided now would be a perfect time to also use it to build a DIY hot wire cutter.

This was a very simple project that only took a few minutes time, and was built out of scrap I had laying around.

Once my DIY Hot Wire Cutter was finished, the boy and I had a grand time slicing up leftover Christmas Present packaging.

DIY Hot Wire Cutter
DIY Hot Wire Cutter

My wife was not pleased at all the scraps and chunks of white Styrofoam.

Eventually, even the boy said it was “too stinky”, but it has promise and I am already planning out new projects and enhancements to my small cutter.

I used this diy hot wire cutter to help insulate my shipping container.  However, I made it so I can use Styrofoam to cast aluminum.

This goes to show having skills and making stuff can always come in handy.