Note from JWR:

Today we present another entry for Round 29 of the SurvivalBlog non-fiction writing contest. The prizes for this round will include:

First Prize: A.) A course certificate from onPoint Tactical. This certificate will be for the prize winner’s choice of three-day civilian courses. (Excluding those restricted for military or government teams.) Three day onPoint courses normally cost between $500 and $600, and B.) Two cases of Mountain House freeze dried assorted entrees, in #10 cans, courtesy of Ready Made Resources. (A $392 value.) C.) A 9-Tray Excalibur Food Dehydrator from Safecastle.com (a $275 value), D.) A 500 round case of Fiocchi 9mm Parabellum (Luger ) with 124gr. Hornady XTP/HP projectiles, courtesy of Sunflower Ammo (a $249 value), and E.) An M17 medical kit from JRH Enterprises (a $179.95 value).

Second Prize: A.) A “grab bag” of preparedness gear and books from Jim’s Amazing Secret Bunker of Redundant Redundancy (JASBORR) with a retail value of at least $400, and B.) two cases of Meals, Ready to Eat (MREs), courtesy of CampingSurvival.com (a $180 value).

Third Prize: A.) A copy of my “Rawles Gets You Ready” preparedness course, from Arbogast Publishing, and B.) a Royal Berkey water filter, courtesy of Directive 21. (This filter system is a $275 value.)

Round 29 ends on July 31st, so get busy writing and e-mail us your entry. Remember that articles that relate practical “how to” skills for survival have an advantage in the judging.

Riots and Civil Unrest in America, by B.B. in California

I am writing this article not to glorify what I have seen, but perhaps to make some of you think about some unknowns.  I am a U.S. Army veteran who served in the 1980s, and when I honorably discharged I was recruited into law enforcement at a termination of service briefing at Fort Irwin, California.  From there I went into law enforcement in Los Angeles for over 20 years and never looked back.  I am writing this article because many people are writing about living through and how to survive civil unrest (I am sorry, a riot is a riot no matter what you call it), but I don’t think many of the readers can comprehend what it is like.

The Los Angeles riots in 1992 were some of the craziest times I have ever lived through, and even my military background didn’t prepare me for what we saw.  I am not here to talk politics or why the riots kicked off; I am only here to write about what I witnessed and give the readers of SurvivalBlog.com a glimpse of what happened from the eyes of a young man.

Mob Mentality.  When dealing with people during the riots in Los Angeles, many of the people we were dealing with had no idea why they were rioting.  They were merely opportunists who were taking advantage of free stuff that was being looted from any store that was not guarded.  And when I say guarded, I mean seriously guarded (more on this later).  The mob mentality meant that if someone was looting a store, everyone with the mentality had to loot the same store before the shelves were empty and they didn’t get their share.  It was almost like a shark feeding frenzy with no real purpose.  But, in the middle of this, there were people pointing to different buildings saying, “Burn that one” or other orders.  Those people had a purpose, and loot wasn’t it.

I mention this because whenever if and when civil unrest hits again for whatever purpose, you can bet that this will probably be the case again.  During civil unrest, if you try to analyze the event with rational thought, you will not be able to figure out the smallest detail let alone the big picture.  There is no order or sense of order, and for most Americans that is a place that no one really thinks about.  Crime was happening all around us, but there really wasn’t a crime trend or purpose for it other than violence itself.  If you are reading this and are saying to yourself, “This idiot doesn’t know how to write and he is not making sense!”, then you are grasping what I am saying.  The most dangerous people in the riots were the opportunists.  They saw an opportunity and went for it.  Whether that opportunity was revenge on an enemy that could be blamed on some random act of violence, or that big screen TV that he had been wanting for a while down at the local electronics store. 

The opportunists seized the initiative for whatever their purpose was, and then blamed everything that followed suit on the violence of the day.  The thugs knew how to survive and knew what they wanted and how to get it through violence and crime.  The unfortunate good people really suffered from this as they turned out to be victims in many cases.  This is very short sighted thinking by the thugs, because over the next few weeks, there was nowhere to shop for necessities after the neighborhood was burned to the ground.  And yes, there were food lines shortly thereafter.  In a total collapse, this means these same thugs are coming to a neighborhood near you.

Looting.  When the looting began in 1992, there were several places and things that went first.  Booze, cigarettes, and diapers (yes diapers).  All three items are not available for purchase with food stamps, and other than the diapers, were for partying and having a good time.  As the violence spread pharmacies were raided and burned, not for diabetic or asthma medication, but for pain killers and other drugs that could be used for pharmaceutical recreation.  In the aftermath of the initial looting, if someone was caught in a pharmacy getting the necessary meds for asthma or diabetes, they were probably left alone since they were just trying to survive (I am not saying I witnessed this, but I heard rumors of such).    

I mention this because food stayed on the shelves for a fairly long time all things considered.  Eventually food began to get looted, but that was really only after the new pair of “hip shoes” or big screen televisions were already off the shelves.  Its like when a hurricane is coming and people are rushing out of their homes carrying the television.  The television has no real purpose for survival, but people cling to those possessions, and in the riots were the first things looted.  I have read many articles here on Survivalblog.com that continues to tell people to stock up on meds, and I cannot agree more.  It was my experience though that the initial meds that were looted from the pharmacies were for recreation, not health.  If that holds true again, the meds you need might still be there after the initial looting begins.   I am not advocating looting, hopefully there will be a worker that braved rioting to come and be a cashier at a store so you can buy what you failed to stock up on, but I doubt it.

Communications and 9-1-1.  During the riots, my squad of 12 people was issued only two radios because it soon became apparent that there was not enough equipment to go around.  Only the squad leader and assistant squad leader had any forms of communications with dispatch.  These problems have been addressed since then, but they were major concerns at the time.  As they continued to spilt us up on foot at first in order to “show a command presence” with two officers at a street corner. It was then that I made a stupid call against better judgment and called out 50+ looters in a moment of anger.  They accepted and the next thing I knew I was being chased down the street by a large crowd.  Just before we began to run, since neither me nor my partner had a police radio, we called 9-1-1 on a pay phone on the corner for help as we started running.  There was no help to be had for us, and we were on our own.  In hindsight, I was a stupid 24-year-old kid opening his big mouth in anger and getting his mouth’s debt called in. 

Luckily for me some lieutenant who’s name I never knew, was gathering a strike force to handle the looting in the strip mall I had been watching, was coming down the street with enough manpower that we were able to clear the mall after it was only half looted.  The point is, during civil unrest, 9-1-1 couldn’t even help us officers, let alone someone else on the street.  Communications and 9-1-1 were up and running, but they were paralyzed due to the sheer scope of the violence that was raging in the city.  If mass civil unrest happens in a total collapse, even the safeguards that have been thought of and put in place since those riots will not work as manpower dwindles.  Do not make your plans with any sort of help regarding 9-1-1.  If some comes, consider it a bonus.  I have small hand held radios that have a very short range and a CB radio or two to handle my comms in the event of civil unrest here.  Everyone in the group has one, and we will deal with whatever we need too if the unfortunate time comes. 

Defensible Positions.  If your plan is to stand and fight or go to a retreat and stand and fight, there are things I saw in the riots that worked short term but might not make it long term.  As we patrolled different neighborhoods on foot, we came across several non-burned out buildings in the midst of charred ruins that were once their neighbor’s businesses.  Most of these buildings were built in the slums that had barbed wire and bars on the buildings.  Now, let me continue by saying that I watched as crowds ripped security doors off the tracks and bent bars with sheer strength in numbers to get into a business that had what they wanted, so these security features alone did not stop the crowds.  On the surviving buildings, there had been [armed] men on top of them and I observed several fired shell casings around the buildings.  We chatted with those brave men and women inside their little fortresses and they were determined to keep their businesses and property from being looted and burned.  As the violence spread, we were pulled from two man teams standing on street corners to full squads and strike forces being sent in to stop the violence and looting.

When the fire departments (and I say departments plural because mutual aid was called in and we had fire departments from everywhere trying to help us) were putting the fires out around the city some of the rioters, I will be kind in my language here, began shooting at the fire trucks and injuring the firemen as they tried to prevent the city from burning.  This was a further drain on our resources as we now had to provide escorts for fire brigades in the city as the fire departments drove from fire to fire.  An interesting note is that on several locations the fire captain would pull up to a strip mall and make an on spot decision whether or not the buildings could be saved with the manpower that he had available right then–a sort of fire department triage if you will.  If he didn’t think he could save the building with what he had, they let the building burn and moved on.  Welcome to the realities of civil unrest.

Now I bring this all together for a reason.  If you remember the news clips of Korean business owners guarding the fire trucks and fire fighters as they risked their lives in the fires and rioters shooting at them, then you are probably as old as me.  Those brave business owners came out to help us as we tried to save their businesses and livelihoods, and restored my faith in humanity at the same time.  What the news reels didn’t show was that probably half of those former Republic of Korea soldiers were guarding the firemen with toy guns that they had pulled off the shelves and took the orange tips out of the barrels.  The other half were using real weapons. And with the amount of fired brass and blood that I saw around some of those buildings, they meant business.  Like I said earlier, for a short term solution where we were able to restore order in a few days this bluff worked great.  For a long term solution, this is suicide.  But if there is a softer nut to crack down the street, and they are not as determined to defend (as the brave Korean business men had been), then the looters will probably go elsewhere as long as order is restored quickly.  For a total collapse, if you are going to stand and defend, good luck and make sure you are well-stocked and don’t bluff.

Weapons and Ammo.  There are plenty of articles on this sight about weapons, so I will make this one fairly brief.  As I was shipped off to the hot zones in a transit bus (we had run out of police cars and yes, I went to combat as the passenger in a transit bus), I loaded a spare box of 9mm and some 12 gauge rounds wrapped in a rubber band in my radio holder since I wasn’t issued a radio.  My squad mates laughed at me until people who were already running around in the middle of the riot were begging for spare ammo.  I didn’t even have a shotgun when I went down there, but I knew there would be plenty lying around with no ammo if things went south, which it did. 

Now, I am not going to get into what round is better or which firearm you need to buy for your retreat.  That is a personal choice and one that you have to make for yourself.  I personally have a .45 for myself and 9mms for the rest of my family.  I have two small girls and my wife is only five feet tall on a good day and they cannot handle the .45 with any great accuracy, but there is another reason for the 9mms.  That is the round that the local Sheriff’s Dept uses where we live.  This means that they should, and I stress should, have extra rounds stockpiled in case of emergency.  Unless you want to wait out everything in a hole or retreat, and by the way that is not a bad idea, if you come out and support the local law enforcement officers be sure that you have weapons that are compatible with what they are carrying.  The best .45 in the world is nothing but an expensive club if you have nothing to run through it.  If order can be restored and you helped, you will have made friends for life (any vet will tell you that friends made in combat are friends for life, no matter what their political, religious or personal backgrounds are).  If things go to total feces storm, then that may be one last chance to resupply before heading to the hills, retreat or hole that you are planning to defend.  I know weapons and ammo are nothing new to the readers on this site, but maybe the last statement could be the deciding factor for a new reader on which weapon to buy.  Always keep your options open.  

Another interesting note on weapons and ammo was that when the National Guard was first called out the responded with empty weapons.  That’s right, no ammo!  We were giving guardsmen what we could spare from our own dwindling supplies, but we couldn’t believe the State sent them in with no cartridges (in hindsight and much more experience under my belt in dealing with the many idiots in government, I totally believe it now), but once again not many people would choose to charge a National Guard position to see if their rifles are empty.

First Aid Supplies.  Most small car first aid kits were gone in a day due to minor injuries from rocks, bottles and other small projectiles and fights.  Since then, every officer is issued a trauma kit to keep in his/her war bag (a police bug out bag that we carry in the trunk of the car).  Again, I am only talking civil unrest, not long term survival, but whatever first aid supplies that you think you will need, triple it.  Band-Aids and supplies for small cuts have to be changed frequently to prevent infection, and let me tell you, you will run out quickly. 

Hospitals.  Hospitals were not really affected other than the number of people that had to be treated due to the violence in the riot.  I figured the looters were try and storm hospitals for pain meds and other supplies, but that was not the case.  But like I said, this was a short term riot, and for long term riots or total collapse, I fear these places will be looted quickly. 

We learned many lessons in the riots in 1992, but the best lesson that was learned was humility.  We were humbled into facing that we could not handle any and everything that was thrown at us.  In civil unrest, you will have to rely on everything that you have and I am telling you now that it is not enough.  You will have to come together with people, and not just your close friends, but maybe that neighbor you hate just to survive.  Once the fires start, it will quickly get out of control.  In Los Angeles, we have one of the best if not the best fire dept in the world, and they were simply overwhelmed by the sheer number of fires that were set.  The whole city was burning and I can only imagine the hell that the people of Dresden and Tokyo went through in WWII.  If you are in an area with brush or fire hazards, just know that there probably won’t be much help coming your way. 

Have a plan, make sure everyone in your house has a bug-out bag, be sure you are supplied, have a weapon and be prepared to defend yourself and your family.  You need understand that when the mob mentality kicks in, the person who was singing in church last week may not be the same person in front of you this week.  I saw the worst brought out in good people, and while the Los Angeles riots were huge, they are nothing in contrast to a total collapse.  Look at what happened in Haiti when they were hit with a major earthquake or New Orleans when Katrina hit.  In combat, you know your enemy.  In civil unrest, everyone could be your enemy.  And not just for simple profit, but for survival unless order is restored.

Hopefully some of your readers will gain from this article a glimpse of what will hopefully never come again, but I fear is brewing.  Nothing is set in stone. Be prepared to be fluid with anything that is thrown your way.

Letter Re: An Arms and Armor Maker Recommendation

Sir:
I recommend that you and your readers look into Windlass Steelcrafts, a company with a wide range of hand-weaponry, armor, etc., from ancient to modern. Most swords, for example, on the market are soft stainless steel. This company provides swords made from a variety of steel, including layered, high carbon, Damascus steel. These people make real weapons: “Its founder, Mr. V. P. Windlass set up this manufacturing plant to supply the British Gurkha regiments with Kukris, their main sidearm weapon.”

Here is information on how they manufacture swords.

Some examples of their weaponry:

A Damascus Viking Sword

Erbach Sword

Spearhead. (Notice the full socket.)

Butt cap.

JWR Replies: Edged weapons might be a reasonable option for folks who live in locales where private ownership of firearms is restricted. Buy ironically, many of these same countries are now banning edged weapons, as well! As discussed previously in SurvivalBlog, even there, walking sticks (with sufficient training) are an option.

Economics and Investing:

Dormant accounts to fund ‘big society’ bank. (A hat tip to Chris P for the link.)

Norman A. mentioned: King World News interviewed John Williams of ShadowStats.

Anthony M. sent this item: Nearly half of North Carolina’s state-chartered banks ‘troubled’

Items from The Economatrix:

The Real US Unemployment Rate Could Be 25% Or More

US Consumer Confidence Slides To Lowest In A Year

The Geography of a Recession (Now updated through May, 2010)

Stocks Slump on Weak Revenue for Goldman, IBM

Home Construction Sinks to Lowest Level Since October

Desperate Retailers Push Christmas in Summertime

Odds ‘n Sods:

Greg M. spotted an article that underlines the vulnerability of SCADA systems: New virus targets industrial secrets

   o o o

The folks at Ready Made Resources now have a special sale in progress on a very small quantity of full mil-spec AN/PVS-14 Gen 3+ weapons sight monoculars. These are autogated and complete with military issue monocular head mounts, manuals, sacrificial lenses, mil-spec soft nylon carry cases, et cetera. The price is just $2,995, which is less than most dealers charge for a standard Gen 3 scope. (And again, these are the much more sought after Gen 3+ variety.) I have one here at the Rawles Ranch, and I love it. Don’t miss out!

   o o o

EMPact America’s fourth show on EMPact Radio will be aired today (Wednesday, July 21st.) In this latest show, Dr. Peter Vincent Pry will have Dr. William Graham on the show. Dr. Graham chaired the EMP Commission for eight years and is widely considered to be the free world’s foremost expert on electromagnetic pulse.

   o o o

Reader Ray B. alerted me that Wiggy’s currently has sleeping bags on sale for 30% off with free shipping. I’ve used Wiggy’s bags very heavily since 1990. (Our family has three FTRSS systems) I am a very satisfied with their quality. These bags are fantastically durable and well-made. Order yours, today. Please mention SurvivalBlog, when you do.

Note from JWR:

Today we present another entry for Round 29 of the SurvivalBlog non-fiction writing contest. The prizes for this round will include:

First Prize: A.) A course certificate from onPoint Tactical. This certificate will be for the prize winner’s choice of three-day civilian courses. (Excluding those restricted for military or government teams.) Three day onPoint courses normally cost between $500 and $600, and B.) Two cases of Mountain House freeze dried assorted entrees, in #10 cans, courtesy of Ready Made Resources. (A $392 value.) C.) A 9-Tray Excalibur Food Dehydrator from Safecastle.com (a $275 value), D.) A 500 round case of Fiocchi 9mm Parabellum (Luger ) with 124gr. Hornady XTP/HP projectiles, courtesy of Sunflower Ammo (a $249 value), and E.) An M17 medical kit from JRH Enterprises (a $179.95 value).

Second Prize: A.) A “grab bag” of preparedness gear and books from Jim’s Amazing Secret Bunker of Redundant Redundancy (JASBORR) with a retail value of at least $400, and B.) two cases of Meals, Ready to Eat (MREs), courtesy of CampingSurvival.com (a $180 value).

Third Prize: A.) A copy of my “Rawles Gets You Ready” preparedness course, from Arbogast Publishing, and B.) a Royal Berkey water filter, courtesy of Directive 21. (This filter system is a $275 value.)

Round 29 ends on July 31st, so get busy writing and e-mail us your entry. Remember that articles that relate practical “how to” skills for survival have an advantage in the judging.

A Blacksmithing Primer, by Matt M.

The two greatest tools that mankind has, the tools that pulled our species out of the wild and still separate us from base animals, are fire and the blade. A blacksmith crafts and uses both of these tools.  Whether you live in a frontier situation where you have to make do with what you’ve got and make it last or you’re planning ahead for a potential TEOTWAWKI situation, knowing how to shape iron and steel to suit your needs without the use of electricity is a good idea.  This article is intended as the most basic primer to give you, the reader, an idea of what’s involved.  My future articles may include the differences between various types of iron and steel or even video demonstrations of how to forge specific items and tools.

It’s important that you, the reader, understand that while blacksmithing is a frontier or survival trade, it’s not something that can be easily done “on the go” unless one has a vehicle to transport his equipment in.  More importantly, it should be understood that ‘functional’ doesn’t have to mean ‘pretty.’  If a tool or item will do the job it’s intended to do, it doesn’t matter if it’s pretty enough to be art or not.  Concentrate on learning to create functional tools and your hands will naturally learn how to make them into works of art along the way.

What You Need
When you strip away all the non-essential things, all a blacksmith needs to work metal is a hammer, an anvil and a ventilated heat source.  The first of these things is easy.  A hammer can be found laying around in any old barn in the world, or bought inexpensively from a hardware store.  A carpenter’s claw hammer will suffice in a pinch, but a heavier, more specialized hammer like a blacksmith’s cross-peen or an engineer’s hammer will generally produce results with less effort.  While it’s possible to fall down a rabbit hole of specialist tools for any metalworking occasion, I’d caution anyone new to the craft against getting a hammer that is too specialized or too fancy.  There are still many reports of blacksmiths in Africa and South America that still make do with smooth river stones as hammers, so there’s little reason to assume that one must have one of every shape of hammer in the world to work metal and besides… with a little practice, you’ll soon be making every tool you want or need.

An anvil of some type is a requirement.  Most people will have a mental picture of the English-style anvil from such sources as the Loony Toons cartoons of our childhood.  That makes for a good anvil, but all that’s really required of an anvil is that it be strong, hard and heavy, and having a flat surface will be a significant benefit to the smith.  The anvil is easily the most expensive tool a blacksmith will have and while one doesn’t want to skimp on this if at all possible, buying a new anvil is not always required (or even possible in the event of TEOTWAWKI).  A heavy piece of railroad track will make a suitable anvil for occasional use.  Your local scrap yard will undoubtedly have a plethora of potential makeshift anvils that will serve just fine.  In a pinch, the head of a sledgehammer can be sunk halfway into a bucket of concrete, leaving one of the striking surfaces exposed to act as a small but effective anvil face.

The last thing that’s required for smithing is a ventilated heat source (often called ‘the forge’).  A basic campfire generally does not produce enough heat to work iron, but a steady blast of air from the underside of the fire will increase its heat output.  While many modern designs can be used for a forge, the simplest by far is a length of metal pipe that is buried in the dirt so that it points straight up into the bottom of a campfire.  This pipe has air blown through it using an electric squirrel cage blower, a hand bellows or even the smith’s own lungs.  The airflow will consume more fuel, but the fire will burn much hotter… hot enough to make iron as pliable as clay.

Modern blacksmiths are fond of using propane as a fuel but in a pinch, most anything that burns relatively cleanly will get the job done.  Charcoal (carbonized wood, not the grill briquettes from the grocery store) is the easiest solid fuel for most people to obtain.  It can be made just by burning hard wood to a black, carbonized lump and then dousing it with water.  Coke is another old-time favorite, and is made by burning mined bituminous coal until it stops smoking and the sulfur and other impurities are burned out of it.  Wood may also be used if nothing else presents itself as an option, but it will take a lot more wood to produce a fire hot enough to work iron.

Some other items, while not strictly required, will be very useful for the smith.  Tongs are a blacksmithing staple.  They allow the smith to hold and handle small pieces of metal that would otherwise get too hot for him to hold.  They’re among the first tool that novice smiths make for themselves, but a pair of long-handled pliers or vice grips will suffice in the beginning.  Metal files and sandpaper are handy to have around, especially for precision work or bladesmithing.  Heavy welder’s gloves will also save the novice smith a certain amount of pain as he learns to feel his way around the fire.

Working Iron and Steel
Everyone has an iconic mental image of a blacksmith with rippling biceps pulling a glowing red bar from the fire and wailing on it with all his might, using a hammer that’s half a step away from being a sledge.  This image may be iconic, but it’s also thoroughly wrong and attempting to imitate it will produce very poor results.

Temperature control is something that many blacksmiths struggle with, and it’s one of the first things that any new smith is going to have to learn something about if he’s to succeed in his task.  Wherever the air feeds into the fire will be the hottest part of the forge, and while it might bring the metal to a workable temperature more quickly, the smith also runs a serious risk of melting his metal into unusable slag by applying too much heat.  Keep an eye on your material and rotate it often to ensure that it doesn’t overheat.  Remove your metal from the fire when it has a yellow glow to it and do not hammer on it once the color has faded, or you risk cracking your work.

Simply pulling a piece of metal out of the fire and hitting it aimlessly with a hammer is useful only if you’re trying to produce a flat, featureless sheet of metal.  Take some time to consider your work in advance and then plan for how to best go about shaping the metal to the design in your mind’s eye.  Think of the hot metal as though it were a piece of modeling clay.  If you were to smoosh the clay with your hammer in a specific way, how would that affect the shape of the overall piece?  Once this mentality, this way of thinking, sets in, you will begin to place your hammer blows so as to move the metal in predictable ways, rather than blindly hammering and hoping for a magical end result.

Quenching and Tempering
Another iconic image of the blacksmith that many seem to have in their mind is of the smith plunging a tool or weapon into a bucket of water or even a snow bank to make it hard and usable.  This is an iconic mage that is half right, actually.  Once a piece is finished, it is dunked into a liquid to cool it down quickly and make it hard by tightening the molecular structure of the material.  This is called ‘quenching,’ but there’s more to it than meets the eye.  To boil it down to the basics, you place your finished project in the fire until it just reaches a temperature where a magnet will not stick to it and then you plunge whatever section of your project you want to be hardened into a liquid.  This rapidly cools the metal down, causing it to compress itself at a molecular level and become super hard.  The speed at which your metal cools is important because while cooling faster will produce a harder end result, it has a greater chance of cracking your metal, thus rendering your hard-worked project useless.  Water quenches at a very fast temperature… some people say it’s too fast for most applications.  By far, more professionals use some manner of oil, as it has a slightly slower quenching speed.  Kitchen oils such as canola or peanut oils are fine for this application, as are most common industrial oils, such as brake fluid, automatic transmission fluid or motor oil. [JWR Adds: The usual fire prevention provisos of course apply!]

Testing whether or not your project successfully hardened should be your next step.  The most common way this is done is to rake an old metal file across the material.  If it doesn’t bite into the metal and instead slides across the surface with a sound like it was skating across glass, then you have achieved a suitable hardness from your quenching.

However, quenching is only half the battle.  At this point, you have a super hard metal project, but it’s also super brittle.  Were you to slap it against your anvil or drop it onto a concrete floor, it might well break into several pieces.  You need to reduce the brittleness of your work piece.  This is done by exposing it to relatively low levels of heat, which removes brittleness by sacrificing a small portion of your item’s new hardness, a process that’s known as ‘tempering.’  This is most easily done in a common household oven or toaster oven.  Just insert your work piece, set the temperature to 400 degrees and walk away for an hour.  If that’s not an option, the work piece can be tempered in the same fire it was forged in, so long as the smith is exceptionally careful.  First, clean off a section of your work with a file, sandpaper or some other method to expose a shiny metal surface.  Then place your piece back into the fire, being careful not to force any air into the flames, as was done during the forging.  Keep the piece moving and watch the shiny metal spot for a line of rainbow color that will begin to creep across it as heat moves in.  The color you want to look for will depend largely on the item’s intended use, but the colors most easily seen will be gold, straw, purple and blue, with each representing more of your item’s hardness removed.  If the item heats to the point where it begins to glow, even faintly, you’ve gotten it too hot and you must repeat the quenching and tempering process again, so keep your work moving!

Example Forging: A Simple Knife
A knife is perhaps the most useful tool one will ever need, especially in a TEOTWAWKI situation, and any blacksmith worth his salt can make at least a passable blade.  In this example, we will make a simple blade with a relatively shallow belly, a single edge, a straight tip and a simple handle… not unlike a Japanese tanto blade.  As of yet, I have not discussed the various types of steel, as I believe that subject is beyond the scope of this primer article (future articles may well focus on this subject), but finding a suitable bit of metal to forge a knife should be a piece of cake.  Find yourself a flat metal mill file (sometimes called a ‘bastard’ or ‘mill bastard’ file) in the 8-12 inch range.  They can be had very inexpensively from flea markets and pawn shops, but if worse comes to worst, you can always buy one new at a hardware store.

Please have a fire suppression device nearby before doing this.

Get your fire started and stoked and have more fuel standing by.  Place the end of the file in the hottest part of the fire.  Once it takes on a yellow glow, remove it from the flame and position it on the anvil so it’s standing up on what will be the spine of the blade.  Hammer the corner of the file, pushing it into the file and forming the end of the file into what will be your knife’s tip.  Lay the file flat and gently correct any warping you may have caused before it loses its glow.  Place the file back into the fire and keep repositioning it every so often so that the entire file heats up relatively evenly.  Once this occurs, take the file out of the fire and lay it flat on the anvil so that the side that is to become the cutting edge of the blade is positioned facing toward you.  Begin to hammer out the edge using a circular hammer stroke that draws the metal toward you.  Work quickly, but evenly and make certain to hammer along the entire edge, leaving enough of the file unhammered to act as a suitable handle.  Place the file back in the fire and heat it evenly as before.  This time, place the side you hammered last time face down on the anvil with the edge facing away from yourself.  Hammer the edge out on this second side, using a hammer stroke that pushes the metal away from you.  Repeat this process as many times as is needed, alternating which side you hammer on each time.  Once you have drawn the edge of your blade down to roughly the thickness of a dime (and no thinner), make certain your edge is straight.  Further, sight down the file at all angles to make certain everything is as straight as you can possibly make it.  Take some time and get this part right.  Once this is done, place the piece back in the fire and heat it evenly just until a magnet doesn’t stick to the metal anymore.  Once this occurs, dip the blade of the knife into a waiting container of oil.  Hold it there without shaking or stirring it until all the bubbling in the oil stops.

Please have a fire suppression device nearby before doing this.

Once the bubbling stops, remove the knife from the oil and wipe it down with a cloth to remove the oil.  Be careful, as the knife is still probably hot enough to burn bare skin if it touches you.  Use an old metal file and rake it across the knife’s edge.  If it bites easily, repeat the quenching process.  If it doesn’t bite easily and simply skates across the blade, your work has been successful.  Heat a toaster oven or your kitchen oven to 400 degrees and place the knife inside.  Leave it alone for an hour, and then turn off the oven.  To be certain this process is performed with 100% efficiency, you might want to let the oven cool, then turn it back on to 400 degrees and let it run for another hour.

Once your blade is tempered and cool enough to touch, wrap the handle with rope, paracord or whatever you have handy.  Sharpen the edge with a metal file and/or sandpaper and then move on to sharpening stones until the blade is as sharp as you want it.  Congratulations!  You just made the most useful tool you’ll ever own, out of a worn out old file!

Letter Re: Preserving Food at Home Self-Study Course

Dear Mr. Rawles,
I thought that the free food preservation course from the National Center for Home Food Preservation would be useful to your readers. Here are some details, from their web site:

Preserving food at home, a self-study course.

Announcing a free, self-paced, online course for those wanting to learn more about home canning and preservation.

* Introduction to Food Preservation
* General Canning
* Canning Acid Foods
* Canning Low-Acid Foods

This course is offered in the University of Georgia eLC system. The univefrsity requires registration for you to receive a login.

– David L.

Economics and Inve

Economics and Investing:

G.G,. sent this: Homeowners Associations: The New Foreclosure

Ireland’s credit rating downgraded by Moody’s. Down to Aa2. Ouch! (Thanks to John in Ohio for the link.)

Items from The Economatrix:

Stocks Rebound as Investors Await Earnings

IBM Lifts 2010 Forecast But Economic Worries Loom

Homebuilders Losing Confidence in the Recovery

Average Gasoline Prices Down From a Month Ago

UK: Hedge Funds Accused as Food Prices Soar

Stress Testing Euro Banks Won’t Stave Off a Deflationary Vortex

Markets Braced for Turmoil After IMF and EU Pull 17 Pound Billion Hungary Financing Deal

Odds ‘n Sods:

Trent H. was the first of several readers to mention this: Second Act: Jay Shafer; Ten years ago, Jay Shafer downsized to an 89-square-foot house and reinvented both his lifestyle and career in the process. Not much room for storage food, but this illustrates that minimalism has its advantages.

   o o o

Paul B. sent us a link to some more Gibbonesque musings: Has civilization gone full circle?

   o o o

SurvivalBlog’s Editor at Large Michael Z. Williamson sent this piece about some implications of deferred maintenance, parts obsolescence, tight budgets, and lean “Just In Time” spare parts inventories: The U.S. Navy And Internal Rot. Mike asks: “What were these morons thinking? Or, more precisely punctuated: What, were these morons thinking?”

Note from JWR:

Today we present another entry for Round 29 of the SurvivalBlog non-fiction writing contest. The prizes for this round will include:

First Prize: A.) A course certificate from onPoint Tactical. This certificate will be for the prize winner’s choice of three-day civilian courses. (Excluding those restricted for military or government teams.) Three day onPoint courses normally cost between $500 and $600, and B.) Two cases of Mountain House freeze dried assorted entrees, in #10 cans, courtesy of Ready Made Resources. (A $392 value.) C.) A 9-Tray Excalibur Food Dehydrator from Safecastle.com (a $275 value), D.) A 500 round case of Fiocchi 9mm Parabellum (Luger ) with 124gr. Hornady XTP/HP projectiles, courtesy of Sunflower Ammo (a $249 value), and E.) An M17 medical kit from JRH Enterprises (a $179.95 value).

Second Prize: A.) A “grab bag” of preparedness gear and books from Jim’s Amazing Secret Bunker of Redundant Redundancy (JASBORR) with a retail value of at least $400, and B.) two cases of Meals, Ready to Eat (MREs), courtesy of CampingSurvival.com (a $180 value).

Third Prize: A.) A copy of my “Rawles Gets You Ready” preparedness course, from Arbogast Publishing, and B.) a Royal Berkey water filter, courtesy of Directive 21. (This filter system is a $275 value.)

Round 29 ends on July 31st, so get busy writing and e-mail us your entry. Remember that articles that relate practical “how to” skills for survival have an advantage in the judging.

Running on Cooking Oil – Diesel Power on the Road, by DieselDad

Although I live in a rural setting, my current employment depends on being able to reliably commute about 45 minutes each way to the state capital.

Watching the shutdown and gradual restoration of the Colonial pipeline serving the southeast US during Katrina was a sobering experience. Fuel prices spiked to record levels and many stations were not able to re-supply for weeks because of the lack of sufficient movement in the pipeline.

It was at that point several years ago that I began researching alternative methods of driving moderate distances of up to 100 miles a day in the event that conventional methods of fuel supply (i.e., the infrastructure of fill-up stations along with the pipeplines supplying them) should become unreliable.

I wanted to have an alternative method of propelling a vehicle down the road that did not depend so heavily on the oil companies and the conventional petroleum fuel distribution network.

From my educational background as an electrical engineer, electric vehicles were (and are) indeed intriguing. However, the primary issue then (and now) was battery technology. Today’s batteries are still too heavy and expensive to match the energy density of a 5-gallon can of gasoline. That’s not to say that electric vehicles may not be a viable option in the future. Perhaps the Tesla Model S will really live up to its hype someday. But there was no such thing as even a Tesla Roadster at the time I began my research, so I looked elsewhere.

Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) has been further developed and marketed and commercially available vehicles such as the Honda Civic GX have been sold that can run a couple hundred miles on a tank. However, the tanks are very high pressure, and lacking my own NG well, I would still be beholden to an even scantier distribution network.

Distilling my own ethanol for a flex fuel vehicle was another possibility, but that seemed to require large amounts of feedstock such as sugar. Producing ethanol at the required purity appeared to be a complex task requiring significant amounts of energy.

Finally, I stumbled upon the topic of running diesel vehicles on fuel derived from used cooking oil. There are two broad categories here:

(1) Making BioDiesel which has characteristics similar to the #2 diesel sold at the pump. This requires a chemical transformation of the oil. The procedures for accomplishing this reaction involve fairly toxic and explosive substances. Methanol (or racing fuel, itself a petroleum product) is required as part of the reaction. However, the final biodiesel product is relatively non-toxic and non-explosive. It can be burned in many diesel vehicles with varying degrees of success. The main advantage to making biodiesel is that no vehicular modification is normally needed. The disadvantage for me was the need to purchase toxic reagants and dispose of the significant amounts of waste glycerin which is left over at the end.

(2) Modifying a diesel vehicle so that it can burn waste vegetable oil (WVO) directly. WVO has a much higher viscosity than #2 Diesel. It must be heated to somewhere in the neighborhood of 150 degrees before it will spray properly through the nozzles of a diesel motor injector. It is possible to run WVO through a diesel engine at lower temperatures, but the lower the temperature, the more damage is done to the motor. One big advantage to burning WVO is that no additional chemical ingredients must be purchased and there is not any waste product left over from chemical processing. Nearly 100% of the feedstock is used up.

I decided to pursue option #2, burning WVO. Further research showed that the best method for all-climate operation was to install a second tank in the vehicle exclusively for WVO. To heat the WVO, a system of heat exchangers is fed coolant from the vehicle’s radiator, which coincidentally has just about the right amount of heat once the vehicle is warmed up to operating temperature.

The next decision: which vehicle to purchase? I did not want to experiment on a new, expensive car or truck. From reading on the web, I decided on a 1985 Mercedes 300D with about 135,000 miles that I found in the local
paper for $3,000. It ran well and seemed to have good compression. The 1985 300D engine was the last of the Mercedes diesel engine to use a cast iron head. The later aluminum heads were prone to cracking in some
cases. All in all, the consensus on the web considered it a good candidate for a WVO conversion.

After that: should I purchase a kit or try to assemble something myself? Since I wanted to get going relatively quickly, I decided to purchase a kit marketed by Frybrid, a Seattle-based company with a reputation for quality products. The kit contained a second tank with a heated oil pickup, to be mounted in the trunk. Aluminum tube inside 5/8″ heater hose carries the oil up to the engine compartment where it passes through a coolant-heated filter and final heat exchanger. A set of valves controls the switching of supply and return lines between the two fuel systems.

The system operation has manual or auto modes. In auto mode, a temperature sensor closes when the coolant is up to temperature. This switches the supply and return valves and the monitor light changes from red to green,
indicating transition from #2 diesel to WVO power. It was quite a thrill to see that green light go on for the first time! Almost as much fun as the first water pumped from my well with non-grid power!

Over the last couple years, I’ve put well over 2,000 gallons of WVO through the system. There is a small Chinese restaurant near my work which provides me 15 gallons of WVO a week – just about enough for my commuting
needs. The fuel does need to be carefully filtered and any water removed. I use a plastic 55-gal barrel with a couple of holes in the top for blue-jeans filters. A stock tank heater and hand pump complete my fuel processing. This has worked well for me so far. The heater causes water and other impurities to settle to the bottom of the barrel. The pump pickup is above this layer.

Even during the winter, my old 300D is up to 80C in about 3-4 miles of 55mph driving and I can switch over to WVO. What were the costs involved? About $1,800 for the kit, plus I paid a buddy of mine $500 to help install
it. With the amount of driving I do, it paid for itself in about 15 months. When full, my WVO tank is good for over 500 miles in normal conditions. I pay my federal road tax quarterly and my state road tax monthly, so using
WVO costs me about 40 cents/gallon. The Chinese place won’t let me pay for it. The vegoil filter element lasts from 5,000 to 10,000 miles.

Am I still dependent on the oil companies? Yes, but to a much lesser degree. I only need to run on diesel fuel when starting up (while the engine is warming up) and just before shutting down. I can store a couple of 55-gal
drums of diesel fuel which will now take me much further than they would have previously.

Is running WVO for everyone? No. There’s not enough WVO to supply more than a few percent of America’s diesel fuel needs. Even if you do have a reliable WVO source, if your commute is too short for the vehicle to warm up, you won’t really benefit. If you don’t have space or time to devote to properly filtering your WVO, it would be hard.But for those of us with significant commutes, a WVO source and a desire to become less dependent on big oil, it certainly is an option

Some Experience in Storing Items in a Humid Climate, by Michael Z. Williamson

Recently, I had the opportunity to perform a long term test of goods improperly stored. A friend of mine placed his possessions in storage in a hurry in 1999, left the state, and did not arrange for anyone to
maintain them. He returned last year, and we recently opened his storage locker and removed the items.
Items stored in the Midwest, in an outside, sheet metal storage facility with no heat or AC, placed on minimal dunnage and piled in without neat packing or stacking. The interior was dark. Duration was 11 years—1999-2010. The lows near 0 Fahrenheit, highs near 100 Fahrenheit, humidity from 35-100%. The storage facility had a basic sheet metal door and roof with gypsum board walls. Here is how the various items fared:

  • Clothes: a bit musty, undamaged.
  • Books and magazines: Bent unless packed properly. Mostly intact. Pages still glued and turned freely, perfectly readable. Some by the
    door damaged by humidity.
  • Stick matches: Fine after one day of drying.
  • Strike anywhere matches: nonfunctional first day. Fizzled on second day. Fizzled then burned on third day, but would only strike on box. After two weeks, their true “strike-anywhere” function returned.
  • Clear packing tape: Functional.
  • Brown packing tape: some peeling and loss of adhesive, but functional and plenty strong.
  • Fireworks: Functional, but a little weak.
  • VCR tapes: 95% were playable, both factory and home-recorded.
  • Spam Lite: Can still sealed, contents crumbly, but edible. Taste probably normal (I don’t eat this stuff normally). Note: We conducted tests for bacteria and spoilage before attempting to eat.Do not conduct your own experiments without professional assistance. Use at your own risk.)
  • Canned sweet peas: A bit pale, but surprisingly tasty.
  • Vinegar: Stale and tasteless.
  • Cooking wine: moldy.
  • Bottled sauces (Sealed): Edible, not very tasty.
  • Bottled and canned acidic foodstuffs: Eaten through can, evaporated.
  • Aerosol cans: depressurized.
  • Bic brand lighters: Functional.
  • Cardboard boxes: Mostly intact, some un-glued or re-glued due to humidity and pressure.
  • Particle board furniture: Failed. Crumbly and bent.
  • Inexpensive couch and mattress: Intact, slightly musty, springs and foam returned to shape after several hours, despite being weighted down for eleven years. Textiles sturdy, color bright.

Obviously, varying climates and conditions will yield different results, however, minimal protection from the elements seems to be adequate for a great many items. Nutritional value of foodstuffs lacks quite quickly, but protein and calories remain good. Better dunnage and packing, a sealed environment and some careful planning should yield excellent storage of cached supplies. – Michael Z. Williamson, SurvivalBlog Editor at Large