The Complete Guide to Sharpening

The Complete Guide to Sharpening
Click the Picture to Purchase

In The Complete Guide to Sharpening, a well known tool maker shows how to sharpen different types of tools.  Being able to create and maintain an edge on cutting tools is a base skill for any homesteader, prepper, or DIY’erPresident Lincoln is credited with saying that if you have 2 hours to cut a tree, spend an hour sharpening the axe.  From personal experience having sharp tools is the difference between a pleasure to work and an injury.

Dull cutting tools are hard to work with and are dangerous.

Unfortunately, there is some knowledge you need to have in order to properly sharpen your tools.

The Complete Guide to Sharpening gives you that knowledge.  Every DIY library needs this book on the shelf.  Sharpening tools is a skill that all homesteaders need to posses.

Sharpening tools is not hard to do, just follow the instructions in this book and take your time to do it right.  Soon you will find yourself proud of the edge of your axe and you can cut down that tree in no time.

Right now I am trying to learn how to sharpen and reset the teeth on my band sawmill.

Gear Review: Valley Food Storage White Bean Chili

 

Valley Food Storage White Bean Chili
Buy at Amazon

Valley food storage is a great company.  They have a very high quality product as well the ability to buy storage foods À la carte or as part of a program.

You can buy their good tasting food storage foods (suitable for everyday eating also) in set ups like one week or one month increments.

There one month package is under $130 dollars which is at the lower end (but not the lowest) price of a comparison of the main food storage suppliers.

What sets Valley Food Storage apart is that they make healthier options are non-gmo, and have no artificial preservatives, fillers, or hydrogenated oils.

Besides the healthier options, Valley Food Storage tastes good.

When I made the white bean chili it compared very favorably with home made chili that I make on probably a weekly basis.

I would, and at the price, can afford to eat this companies food on a regular basis instead of just having a pantry of food I was not used to eating.

This is pretty important because a common saying in the prepper world is “store what you eat and eat what you store.”  I know I believe that, and I say it often.

However, life intervenes and that is not always easy to do.  Valley food storage does make that a little easier.

Quick and Dirty Transformer Design and Construction

Book Review: Quick and Dirty Transformer Design and Construction
Buy at Amazon

Quick and Dirty Transformer Design and Construction is a small book of48 pages.

Basically it reprints two articles for transformer builders:

1. Design and Building Transformers, Technical Service Bureau Bulletin D-111, 1938, second edition.

2. Induction Coils by Charles Underhill, extracted from Standard Handbook For Electrical Engineers, 1922.

Basic understanding of transformer design is a very useful bit of knowledge to have.  I used a very rudimentary understanding to create a spot welder by rewiring a microwave oven transformer.

I have also seen people create small power grids using home-built transformers.

If you can design transformers you can take the power you have and transform it to the power you need (within reason).

If you have high voltage at low amperage, and need low voltage at high amperage you can do that or the reverse.  It is really just simple math that this book easily explains.

I have this book in my library, and I use it as a reference, when working on circuits.  but it really isn’t something I use all of the time, but it is something I think would be invaluable if society ever had to rebuild itself.

Jackknife Lockpick Review

Buy at Amazon

While I don’t often need lock-picks, I do find the ability to pick locks fascinating.  There are groups and conventions dedicated to the mechanical skill needed to bypass locking mechanisms.

It take a keen mechanical mind to develop lock picking techniques.

This Jackknife Lockpick is a really neat way to keep lock-picks readily available for use.

Beware, some states have laws making it illegal to carry a lockpick set.  They are considered in some places to be “Burglar Tools”

Personally, I like the little shot of dopamine when I make the lock click open.

Lockpicking is a pretty neat skill to have, and I should probably do a video on it one day.  I like this Jackknife Lockpick because it is easy to carry around and is pretty handy.

Even if you don’t ever plan on picking locks to get them open, knowing what locks are easy to pick has uses in designing security systems around your home.  For one, after learning to pick locks, I found out how extremely easy a master lock is to pick open.  You would think they would be hard based upon their branding as being strong.

At one time I thought about opening a locksmith service, but it was right at the time the Dept of Commerce decided to protect the people that had services already by making it almost impossible to start your own without permission of the existing services. (apprentice program)

The Complete Soapmaker

Making soap is an essential homesteading skill of our forefathers.  Imagine how life would be if you did not have soap.  Not only for hygiene, but for disease prevention.

For years I avoided making soap for fear it was too complicated and dangerous.  However, The Complete Soapmaker and books like it made me realize it was not that hard to make soap.I found an easy soap method that took little effort and made my first batch of soap.  I still have some in the kitchen and I am pretty proud of the result.

I even added the how to in my Food Preservation book.

The problem is, once you start making soap you tend to keep wantingto experiment.  I had to put a stop to it before I started making blueberry lavender touchy feely soap.

I have a reputation to uphold and I can’t make too many feminine products.  Beeswax Nipple balm is about a girly as I can go.  Fragrant soap is over the limit.

Seriously thought, The Complete Soapmaker is a valuable book to have in your prepper/homesteader library.  Making soap is not hard, its not that expensive, and it is a valuable skill for times of need.