Category: Lighting

Letter Re: Homemade and Expedient Vegetable Oil Lamps

Sir, I clicked on this link from your site, JOTW – Home Made Vegetable Oil Lamp. This got me to thinking about something I read about and tried once, some years ago. Take a tangerine, and using a knife, cut the nub off of the top, to expose the fruit, and using a spoon, separate the fruit from the peel and the segments from each other, leaving the sting like ” pith ” that runs from top to bottom, down the center of the segments, connected to the bottom. After letting the thing dry a bit, the pith is cut …


From the SurvivalBlog Archives: Start With a “List of Lists”

Start your retreat stocking effort by first composing a List of Lists, then draft prioritized lists for each subject, on separate sheets of paper. (Or in a spreadsheet if you are a techno-nerd like me. Just be sure to print out a hard copy for use when the power grid goes down!) It is important to tailor your lists to suit your particular geography, climate, and population density as well as your peculiar needs and likes/dislikes. Someone setting up a retreat in a coastal area is likely to have a far different list than someone living in the Rockies. As …


Prepare or Die, by J. Britely

Throughout my life I have been caught unprepared several times and while nothing seriously bad happened, it easily could have.  I have been lost hiking.  My car has broken down in very bad neighborhoods – twice.  I have been close enough to riots that I feared they would spread to my neighborhood, been in earthquakes, been too close to wildfires, been stuck in a blizzard, and have been without power and water for several days after a hurricane.   I managed to get myself out of each situation, I thanked God, and tried to learn from my mistakes.  I could have …


Letter Re: Home Defense Tactics for the Disabled and the Infirmed

Dear Jim, I want to endorse Flashlight Outlet who has provided great products, prices and customer service. Larry helped me track a missing package I sent to Hawaii, and offered to replace it if it didn’t show up (it did). My new acquisition is the OLight T20. I wanted something as bright as my Surefire, but to be able to dial it down when I didn’t need quite that much light. The OLight T20 is even brighter than the Surefire [when set] at max, 160 lumens, with four times the battery life with the same C123s (90 minutes vs 20 …


Home Defense Tactics for the Disabled, Elderly, and Infirmed, by Heghduq

Picture this: It is 2:00 a.m. and you are in bed for the night. Things are falling apart due to a local upset of some kind, be it man made or a natural disaster. You are isolated by these events and there is no help to be had as the local Authorities are to busy with damage control in other areas. You are disabled and have little ones to protect. Your spouse is a bit of a worry wart and panics fairly easy. You hear something that is out of place, what do you do? If you have any form …


Letter Re: Hunkering Down in an Urban Apartment in a Worst Case Societal Collapse

Hello, In the event of a disaster (I live in New York City) I intend to shelter in place until all the riotous mobs destroy each other or are starved out. I am preparing for up to six months. I have one liter of water stored for each day (180 liters) and about 50 pounds of rice to eat as well as various canned goods. I have not seen on your site anything about heat sources for urban dwellers who intend to shelter in place. I’m assuming that electricity would go first soon followed by [natural] gas and running water. …


Letter Re: Retreat Security–Lessons Learned from the Rhodesian Experience

Jim: After giving it some thought [to post-TEOTWAWKI retreat security], I think we need to study many of the homestead/farmstead fortifications used during the [late 1970s] Rhodesian Bush War and to a certain extend in rural South Africa in the present day. Of course, one would need to adjust for legalities so one would not be breaking any laws. – Lame Wolf [JWR Adds: Lame Wolf also sent us a great quote from a letter by “Rhodesian” that was first posted at the Small Wars Journal (SWJ) web site. BTW I recommend the SWJ site–in particular their Reference Library pages–as …


Letter Re: Coleman Fuel–Uses and Storage Life

Hi Jim, According to Coleman’s web site, Coleman fuel can be stored for 5 to 7 years. I wondered if a chainsaw with the correct oil additive run on Coleman fuel. So I did a web search, and this is what I found, over at the Timebomb 2000 (Y2K) Discussion Forums, posted back in 1998] – E.L.: Coleman Fuel the Final Word! Boy What did I start? I have seen more rumors and half truths about Coleman fuel since I posted that it did work on engines!! Coleman fuel is a very highly refined version of gasoline! It has no …


Storm After-Action Report and More Thoughts on Western Washington as a Retreat Locale, by Countrytek

Introduction I’m a life-long Western Washington resident – except for five years in Kansas & two in Berlin while in the U.S. Army. I’m the great-grandchild of Washington pioneers. I love this state – the ocean, mountains and fertile valleys – but what it has become — not so much. This past weekend, (November 30 – December 1, 2007), the Olympic Peninsula of Washington state was hit by an arctic front from the Gulf of Alaska, dropping 3-6″ of snow in our area. The weather folks told us not to worry, that it wouldn’t last long, because we had a …


Letter Re: Home/Retreat Power Generator Noise Reduction by “Jerry the Generator Guy”

Jim, One thing to note about generator noise reduction. It’s not just a matter of running quiet by normal standards. It’s a matter of running quiet when nothing else is making any noise. With the grid down, a lot of normal background noise will be gone. That was one reason for my choice of solar electric power over a generator. – Raymond JWR Replies: Remember that light discipline will be just as important as noise discipline, post-TEOTWAWKI. It is important to have the materials on hand to black-out your windows. Regardless of your power source, if you have power when …


Letter Re: Phone Line Power for Emergencies

Mr. Rawles, I found this web page interesting: Free Hidden Electricity. Essentially this site has provided some basic information on how to tap the small amount of electricity available in our land lines to use for charging batteries or powering a lamp should the power go out (and not the phones) in a small emergency scenario. Within the discussions that follow the post are some legal and contractual concerns and a link to a retail lamp product you can currently purchase for this application. – Tanker JWR Replies: There are some ethical issues raised by this Instructable video, since telephone …


Letter Re: Low Light Shooting Techniques

Mr. Rawles: Anyone who carries a sidearm for protection should watch these three videos by Surefire: One Two Three. The first one covers principle of using light and flashlights to your advantage. It also discusses the Harries and Rogers Surefire techniques for shooting and advantages and disadvantages of both. The second one covers the FBI and neck index methods of shooting. The last covers clearing techniques in a building. I personally don’t like the Rogers Surefire technique because it requires a specific flashlight and will not work if the switch is not properly adjusted. – Bill N.


A Trip to the Yucatan–Observations of Mayan Primitive Living, by Michael G.

First, a preface on my background: I can’t decide if I should be a Cassandra (Sunspot cycle, Peak Oil, suitcase Nukes, Mayan Calendar mythology) or a Pollyanna (Y2K Flop, Heaven’s Gate, 2003 Hindu prediction Flop, and the 6-6-06 Flop; not to mention all of the countless predictions of the beginning of the “Time of Jacob’s Trouble,” rapture, et cetera, that hucksters and zealots have hawked for thousands of years). I believe whatever happens will happen and be over very shortly, and it will either leave us relatively unharmed or (given that I live in a city and work at an …


Letter Re: The Importance of Stocking Up on Batteries

James: I have been corresponding with an infantry soldier (E-6 [pay grade]) in Iraq named Ray that I met through AnySoldier.com. BTW, thanks for running that free ad for them on SurvivalBlog. All those “forgotten” soldiers need our real support–not just a “Support Our Troops” yellow ribbon magnet on the backs of our cars. In the last 8 or 9 months I have sent more than 30 “care packages” in [Priority Mail] Flat Rate boxes to [AnySoldier.com addressees in] Iraq and Afghanistan. In our e-mails, one of the things that Ray mentioned a couple of times really impressed me: It …


Letter Re: Useful LifeHacker Articles

Sir: A recent entry on your blog from ‘Tanker’ gave the link to a video on the Lifehacker web site. The last video he mentioned was made by a poster named KipKay. I have been a fan of KipKay’s for several months. He posts regularly on Metacafe.com. Incidentally, for each video he is paid and he has made approximately $55,000 from his creations. He has several videos that may be of interest to your audience. Below are the links and a brief description of each. Please decide if any of these merit inclusion on your blog. His official web site …