3D-Printed Freedom – Part 1, by A.M.

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Editor’s Introductory Proviso: The following article is intended for educational purposes only. It is not legal advice. State and local laws vary widely, so be sure to consult them before you buy, print, or build!

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“The class which has the means of material production at its disposal, has control at the same time over the means of mental production, so that thereby, generally speaking, the ideas of those who lack the means of mental production are subject to it.” – Karl Marx

Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not a Marxist, I just love the confused look that I get from my more “progressive” friends when I quote a little Marx at ’em, as they know I tend toward the libertarian perspective, but at least when it comes to the means of production, perhaps we can find some common ground. To wit, 3D Printing!

I admit, my concept of 3D printing was pretty hazy up until about a year ago, when a friend introduced me. I had imagined it to be strictly the province of movies and high tech prototyping labs and industry. I was wrong. At the consumer level, the price and quality of 3D printers has evolved to a level where even a cheapskate Luddite like me can afford a printer and, just as important, is capable of harnessing and possessing the means of production for less than $300 ready to go. This article is meant to give you the same introduction I benefited from, and the background and resources to investigate further whether this capability is something you can benefit from (of course it is!)

Production of what you may ask? Darn near anything you can imagine! During these days of pandemic and the associated disruption to supply chains, the ability to get desperately needed items from factories across the country and across the world has been demonstrated as fragile indeed. Hospitals and companies have turned to 3D printers to produce their needed components for ventilator circuit connectors, lab testing materials, PPE, and more.

On the individual level, I have for example printed sheaves for an old pulley system that would have cost $50-60 dollars to have bought from a scrap dealer online and shipped to me, when perhaps 25 cents worth of filament and an hour or so on the printer gave me a functional replacement sheave and several spares as well. In order to build an enclosure for the netting my wife puts around the strawberries to keep birds out, I printed a series of connector brackets that hold half-inch conduit piping together at the joints. To demonstrate ratios of mass to surface area my kid’s printed gliders they can launch with rubber bands and measure their flight times. Do you need a bracket of particular size and shape to hold something in an odd spot, temporarily or permanently? Print the bracket to your own spec!

Back during the face mask shortage this spring, I was able to print face masks that could be screwed in series to allow various levels of filtration. I had long ago lost the drain plug for an old Igloo brand cooler…I had been sticking cotton balls wrapped in plastic cling wrap into the drain hole to try and prevent leakage and delay melting, but it was always a poor substitute. 10 cents of plastic and an hour on the printer, and I have a drain plug that works as well as brand new. Battery boxes, socket wrench organizers, hose thread adapters, and one of my wife’s favorites, a coupler that allows us to refill small, travel-sized toothpaste tubes from larger (more economical) toothpaste tubes. These are but the barest fraction of useful objects you can produce in your home…but the real excitement is yet to come.

Perhaps global supply chains stay disrupted…or maybe they don’t…could some equal or worse disruption ever occur again? Readers of this blog already know and are preparing for the possible ramifications of such events. But perhaps it isn’t supply chains that cause a future shortage of needful things…perhaps it is legislation. You see, beyond garden brackets and toothpaste couplers, there is much more that can be produced, and that much more includes things like 33-round Glock 9mm magazines. It includes things like pistol stabilizing braces. It even includes things like lower receivers for AR-pattern rifles and Glock or Smith & Wesson-type pistols. And much, much more.Continue reading“3D-Printed Freedom – Part 1, by A.M.”

Economics & Investing For Preppers

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Here are the latest news items and commentary on current economics news, market trends, stocks, investing opportunities, and the precious metals markets. We also cover hedges, derivatives, and obscura. Most of these items are from the “tangibles heavy” contrarian perspective of SurvivalBlog’s Founder and Senior Editor, JWR. Today, we look at rising lumber prices. (See the Tangibles Investing section.)

Precious Metals:

Interview with Phil Streible: All-in gold doesn’t make sense; silver, oil are the real winners

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Frank Holmes: The Debate Between Gold And Bitcoin Intensifies

Economy & Finance:

Biden names liberal econ team as pandemic threatens workers

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At Zero Hedge: Feds Admit $2.3 Trillion In Improper Payments. A little snippet:

“Dead people: $871.9 million in mistaken payments were made to dead people. Medicaid, social security payments, federal retirement annuity payouts (pensions), and even farm subsidies were sent to dead recipients. Root cause: failure to verify death. Four-year total: $2.8 billion

Ancient Americans: Six million Social Security numbers are active for people aged 112+; however, only 40 people in the world are known to be older than 112 years of age.”

o  o  o

The Pandemic Public-Debt Dilemma

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At Wolf Street: US Air Passenger Traffic Skids Again, Delta & American Warn of Declining Bookings

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The BIS Issues A Dire Warning: “We Are Moving From The Liquidity To The Solvency Phase Of The Crisis”

Continue reading“Economics & Investing For Preppers”

Preparedness Notes for Thursday — December 10, 2020

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This evening marks the first day of Hanukkah. I wish all our readers a joyous Hanukkah season!

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On this day in 1942, my great uncle Lt. Robert I. Kinsella was killed when his B-24 bomber (part of the 90th Bombardment Group, Heavy, 320th Bomber Squadron), flying from the Iron Range Airfield in Northern Queensland, Australia went down in the South Pacific.

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And on December 10, 1520, Martin Luther publicly burned the papal edict demanding that he recant or face excommunication.

Top Concealed-Carry Handguns, by Deputy Dave

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Choosing a handgun is a very personal decision, and I hope that this article will provide information that will help make that decision easier. I want to start by saying that I have been an NRA Certified Firearms Instructor for the last 20 years as well as a part-time law enforcement officer. I have been carrying concealed for close to 30 years, almost all of it with a Glock 19. I have taught more than 2,500 students the course needed in Michigan to obtain a Concealed Pistol License.

Since June 2020, the demand for my concealed carry class has been about 500% of a normal year. The election, pandemic, riots, and a general unease about the future is causing many people to want to purchase and carry a firearm. The majority of these people are females and first-time gun buyers. I urge all my students to put off buying their first gun until after they take the class, because I give them the option of shooting several of my favorite concealed-carry handguns after they complete the formal course of fire. The ones that do buy a gun before the class usually leave saying they wished they would have waited.

I have no association with any product companies that I talk about and purchased all of the guns at retail from a local FFL dealer.

My Minimum Specifications

Here are my minimum specifications for a personal protection handgun:

1.) It must have at least a 10-round capacity. This eliminates all revolvers and nearly all of the smaller caliber handguns. The single biggest problem that I see in all my classes is students trying to shoot too small of a gun. I do realize that this is a subjective minimum and that the average defensive shooting is only about three rounds. But I don’t want to plan on average, and 10 rounds or more just makes sense to me.

2.) It must be at least 9mm Parabellum caliber. I personally like the 9mm, as I believe it has the best overall blend of power, capacity, and efficiency. Also, when I attend advanced-level instructor training classes, the vast majority of those instructors carry a 9mm. In police work we would call that “a clue”. The second biggest problem that I see in classes is students shooting a gun with more recoil than they can safely control. This is why many law enforcement agencies have gotten away from the .40 S&W to go back to the 9mm.

3.) It must not have an external safety. I can’t even begin to tell you how many people I see at the range trying to shoot a gun that has the safety on – and that’s in a relatively stress-free environment of a shooting range. Also, external safeties have little pins and springs that can break and malfunction.

4.) It must be able to pass my minimum shooting drill – 5 shots from concealment on an 8” paper plate at 5 yards in less than 3 seconds. Here again, this may be somewhat subjective, but after watching literally thousands of real shootings on video, what I learned was that the “winner” was usually the first person to score an anatomically significant shot on the opponent. By the way, the vast majority of concealed-carry citizens today cannot pass this drill.

5.) I must be able to get my whole hand on the grip – no dangling pinky fingers.

6.) It must exhibit near 100% reliability with common range and self-defense ammunition. My minimum requirement is 200 rounds of range ammo and 50 rounds of my chosen carry ammo without any failures.

7.) It must be easy to conceal by the average shooter.Continue reading“Top Concealed-Carry Handguns, by Deputy Dave”

The Survivalist’s Odds ‘n Sods

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SurvivalBlog presents another edition of The Survivalist’s Odds ‘n Sods— a collection of news bits and pieces that are relevant to the modern survivalist and prepper from “JWR”. Our goal is to educate our readers, to help them to recognize emerging threats, and to be better prepared for both disasters and negative societal trends. You can’t mitigate a risk if you haven’t first identified a risk. Today, some advice on storing clarified butter.

Are Your Smart Phone Apps Tracking You?

Peter sent this from The Wall Street Journal: Homeland Security Watchdog to Probe Department’s Use of Phone Location Data

Patrice Lewis on the ‘Great Reset’

Our friend and fellow blogger Patrice Lewis recently penned this great essay: Here’s my game plan for the ‘Great (Dystopian) Reset’

Some Advice on Clarifying Butter

Reader T.R,. wrote to mention:

“Butter is a commodity that many of us consider essential. It has a long shelf life but as I have recently discovered how easy it is to clarify butter, you can make it last even much longer. The first several times I made clarified butter, also called ghee, I made it in the Instant Pot, a digital programmable multi-function pressure cooker; which is a very good appliance, but not the best for clarifying butter. Why do you want to do this? 1St, it improves the flavor, 2nd, it improves the shelf life. Let’s get started; what do you need? One pound of butter, salted or unsalted, a thermometer, and a saucepan and duh, a stove.

Set a very low heat for the saucepan with the butter in it until it melts. Turn up the heat until it just sneaks above 212F. It will appear to boil and eventually stop. The bottom of the pan will turn brown, stir it up for the sake of the pan. Let it boil until it comes to rest, which means the water has been removed. About that time, usually about 20 minutes turn off the heat and pour the liquid through a sieve to strain out the crumbly milk solids. One pound of butter will fill one pint jar. You can leave it on the shelf and use as is or put it in the refrigerator, but if you keep it in the refrigerator it will need to be set one the shelf overnight before it will be usable as it will be as hard as cheese.

Once you’ve done that several times you might want to experiment. Try heating up enough olive oil to saute garlic before you add the butter. As the butter melts add spices, such as oregano, thyme, caraway seeds and maybe cayenne. Suit yourself. You can also add more olive oil after it has been strained to make it softer. You can keep this on the shelf for a long time, but if green mold develops it means you did not cook out all the water, but all you have to do is to reheat it and keep it in the refrigerator.”Continue reading“The Survivalist’s Odds ‘n Sods”

Preparedness Notes for Wednesday — December 9, 2020

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December 9th, 1914 was the birthday of Maximo Guillermo “Max” Manus. He was one of the few Norwegians who put his life on the line, fighting the Nazi occupiers. (There surely would have been more active resistance fighters, but fearing widespread reprisal executions by the Germans, King H7 asked the civilian populace to stand down.) Max Manus passed away in 1996. I would have liked to have met him. His exploits are fairly accurately shown in the movie Max Manus: Man of War.

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Wood-Fired Coffee Roasting – Part 2, by J.P.

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Preparation for Roasting

Besides gathering all your equipment together, two skills need to be developed:

1.) Maintaining just the right amount of fire and

2.) “Nurturing” the beans with masterful strokes of the paddles.

First, the fire. If you are blessed to be a master of the wood fire then this part will come easy. Most effective wood cooking fires are long on a good bed of coals and short on actual flame. Flame delivers short-lived heat and then it dies. You don’t want to be rebuilding your fire in the middle of a roast.

Now let’s talk about what I refer to as “nurturing” the beans – stirring. I’m convinced proper stirring is the secret to a magnificent wood-fired coffee roast.

Remember, we’re not looking for speed. If your fire is right then slow and steady is very productive. Too much speed and you will be pushing and flipping the beans out of the pan. If a smoking hot pan is tempting you to stir faster what you really need to do is reduce the heat under the pan.

I’ve found two paddle strokes that work well. One, the “sweep stroke” which is used to move beans away from the edge of the pan. And, the second stroke, which I call the “over and under,” is a double paddle stroke that starts with the paddles on opposite sides of the pan, draw the paddles toward each other while pushing beans toward the center, and before the paddles collide one stays on the pan and the other rises, pushing beans up and over the top of the other paddle.

You’re off and running, and you’ll soon develop your own personal style. Simply keep in mind that your goal is to keep the beans moving, never leaving a bean on the hot, cast-iron surface, more than 10-15 seconds so the roast is slow and even. Now you’re beginning to understand “nurturing” beans!”

Time to Roast

What I intend to do is share our first roasting experience, followed by some improvements in subsequent roasts.

After breakfast on roasting day, I grabbed one of the sets of roasting instructions I’d pulled off the Internet, quickly reread them, and hoped I’d be able to maneuver the beans through the ten stages of roasting and somehow bring them right up to the fine line of a dark roast, black but not burned. I got the beans, picked out a cast iron frying pan, pulled a few spatulas and a large serving spoon from the kitchen and headed for the backyard of our cabin.

Several years ago I’d built what we call our culvert cooker. It is a 3’ long heavy corrugated piece of culvert, 3’ in diameter, and stood it on end. Filled nearly to the top with gravel, it has served as our go-to outdoor cooking facility. On it we regularly grill meat and fish, do open fire roasting, and prepare slow-cooked dutch oven meals. Today we intend to roast coffee beans for the first time. I’ve got a good pile of short split chunks of birch ready to go and in a half hour the fire is mostly a bed of hot coals with a reasonable amount of low flame. Additional wood is ready if I need it. It’s obvious I’m going to need a cooking glove and a squirt bottle of water so I put the fry pan on the grill and make a quick trip into the cabin, grab the glove and water, and ask my wife if she’d bring out the colander we brought for cooling the roasted coffee beans.Continue reading“Wood-Fired Coffee Roasting – Part 2, by J.P.”

JWR’s Recommendations of the Week:

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Here are JWR’s Recommendations of the Week for various media and tools of interest to SurvivalBlog readers. The focus is usually on emergency communications gear, bug out bag gear, books, and movies–often with a tie-in to disaster preparedness, and links to “how-to” self-sufficiency videos. There is also an emphasis on links to sources for storage food and a variety of storage and caching containers. You will also note an emphasis on history books and historical movies. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. This week we have some recommendations for Hanukkah and Christmas gifts that will help your relatives and friends get better-prepared.

Books:

Mine Were of Trouble: A Nationalist Account of the Spanish Civil War

o  o  o

Good Call: Reflections on Faith, Family, and Fowl, by Jase Robertson

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I’m admittedly biased, but I believe that you will enjoy reading this newly-released nonfiction book that I co-authored with my #1 Son: Survival Retreats & Relocation: A Guide to Finding Your Secure and Sustainable Home. (It is available in softcover, in Kindle format, and PDF.)

o  o  o

The Emerald Mile: The Epic Story of the Fastest Ride in History Through the Heart of the Grand Canyon

Continue reading“JWR’s Recommendations of the Week:”

The Editors’ Quote of the Day:

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“If we buy into the notion that somehow property rights are less important, or are in conflict with, human or civil rights, we give the socialists a freer hand to attack our property.” – The late Dr. Walter E. Williams

Preparedness Notes for Tuesday — December 8, 2020

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I just heard that General Chuck Yeager passed away, at age 97. He was quite a guy. Yeager will be greatly missed.

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Today is the birthday of Eli Whitney, (1765–1825) the inventor of the labor-saving cotton gin, several firearms, and dozens of other mechanical devices. He was the first to demonstrate the advantages of fully interchangeable parts, in firearms manufacture.

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SurvivalBlog Writing Contest

Today we present another entry for Round 92 of the SurvivalBlog non-fiction writing contest. The prizes for this round include:

First Prize:

  1. The photovoltaic power specialists at Quantum Harvest LLC  are providing a store-wide 10% off coupon. Depending on the model chosen, this could be worth more than $2000.
  2. A Gunsite Academy Three Day Course Certificate. This can be used for any of their one, two, or three-day course (a $1,095 value),
  3. A course certificate from onPoint Tactical 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 $795,
  4. DRD Tactical is providing a 5.56 NATO QD Billet upper. These have hammer forged, chrome-lined barrels and a hard case, to go with your own AR lower. It will allow any standard AR-type rifle to have a quick change barrel. This can be assembled in less than one minute without the use of any tools. It also provides a compact carry capability in a hard case or in 3-day pack (a $1,100 value),
  5. Two cases of Mountain House freeze-dried assorted entrees in #10 cans, courtesy of Ready Made Resources (a $350 value),
  6. A $250 gift certificate good for any product from Sunflower Ammo,
  7. American Gunsmithing Institute (AGI) is providing a $300 certificate good towards any of their DVD training courses.

Second Prize:

  1. A Front Sight Lifetime Diamond Membership, providing lifetime free training at any Front Sight Nevada course, with no limit on repeating classes. This prize is courtesy of a SurvivalBlog reader who prefers to be anonymous.
  2. A Glock form factor SIRT laser training pistol and a SIRT AR-15/M4 Laser Training Bolt, courtesy of Next Level Training, that have a combined retail value of $589,
  3. Two 1,000-foot spools of full mil-spec U.S.-made 750 paracord (in-stock colors only) from www.TOUGHGRID.com (a $240 value).
  4. Naturally Cozy is donating a “Prepper Pack” Menstrual Kit.  This kit contains 18 pads and it comes vacuum-sealed for long term storage or slips easily into a bugout bag.  The value of this kit is $220.
  5. An assortment of products along with a one-hour consultation on health and wellness from Pruitt’s Tree Resin (a $265 value).

Third Prize:

  1. Three sets each of made-in-USA regular and wide-mouth reusable canning lids. (This is a total of 300 lids and 600 gaskets.) This prize is courtesy of Harvest Guard (a $270 value)
  2. A Royal Berkey water filter, courtesy of Directive 21 (a $275 value),
  3. Two Super Survival Pack seed collections, a $150 value, courtesy of Seed for Security, LLC,
  4. A transferable $150 purchase credit from Elk Creek Company, toward the purchase of any pre-1899 antique gun. There is no paperwork required for delivery of pre-1899 guns into most states, making them the last bastion of firearms purchasing privacy!

Round 92 ends on January 31, so get busy writing and e-mail us your entry. Remember that there is a 1,500-word minimum, and that articles on practical “how-to” skills for survival have an advantage in the judging.

Wood-Fired Coffee Roasting – Part 1, by J.P.

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The following is a tale of friendship, beating the lockdowns, going head to head with the challenges, and coffee!

Introduction

If your primary interest in reading this post is to learn the intricacies of roasting coffee, then I’m confident you would do well to go online and learn from the experts. As well, exquisite coffee roasting probably doesn’t happen over an outdoor wood fire where inconsistencies abound. However, you may be intrigued to discover a host of other worthy reasons to indulge in this somewhat adventurous outdoor pursuit.

Coffee roasting emerged as an afterthought to the boredom and separation resulting from the mid-March executive orders from Anchorage’s mayor. Without knowing many details of the expanse and dangers of the CCP virus most of us cautiously complied as we didn’t want to advance the seeming high morbidity rates coming out of China, Italy, and other highly affected countries.

It wasn’t long before we began questioning the numbers, held up alongside the executive orders, and we began looking for ways to beat the isolation and come together to wrestle with the serious questions of the day.

I’m rather a novice at this coffee roasting, but don’t let that dissuade you. You may find my short journey to success more than interesting. Know from the start that my primary goal here is to get you to try wood fired coffee roasting, and in the process discover a host of reasons to continue this rich and rewarding pursuit.

My personal assumption has long been that coffee roasting is a complex process and success is not easily attained. I still think that’s partially true, if, you insist on identifying all ten stages of taking a bean from pale green – to khaki tan, lite brown, “snap”, medium brown, flying husks, dark brown, “crackle”, more husks, final “pop” – to the rich oily dark roasted black. I wasn’t sure I even wanted to master all of that. Just give me a hearty cup of dark roasted coffee.

I think the other half of that assumption is that the successful coffee roaster will end up being able to produce at least three, maybe four identifiable roasts that will keep all your unique friends, male and female, sophisticated and not so, satisfied that their tastes have been met. Personally, that’s not my goal, but I have an Alaskan back-country solution for that which I’ll come back to later in the article.

Backstory

But I’m getting ahead of myself. There is a backstory and we can thank covid for that. Yes, there are at least one or two blessings from the virus “disaster”, but credit those to innovative and determined people, not the CCP.
Somewhere around early April I tired of, no, I became totally fed up with the idea of some faceless persons ordering me to stay indoors and quarantined for my own protection (which I never complied with), and one morning I wandered back to our sizable firewood pile and began pulling off the less choice pieces. Time to cycle through this resource.

We live on the edge of Alaska’s largest city where there’s nearly unlimited wood sources from either construction site prep or regular 60 – 80 mph winds coming off Cook Inlet. Previous owners of our home were gatherers and when we arrived in our neighborhood, four years ago, they had accumulated nearly 15 cords of firewood. Time for some occasional friendly fires. Great for preppers, even better for folks determined to come together; appropriately distanced of course.

Small Talk/Hard Questions

Friendly fires meant getting back to some regular relationships, and due to weeks of restrictions I soon found a few friends who were as ready as I was to gather and wrestle with our current situation.

Okay, I’m not much of a small talker, and after a half cup of coffee I’m done with chit chat and ready to push into something meaningful. Why do I store so much wood and am I thinking Armageddon? A few of our close friends know the answer to those questions. Others were just starting to know us.

Do you gather and store firewood? Well, why not? Don’t you have a way to heat with wood? What if this lockdown thing becomes a way of life? Who’s going to pay for the economic mess? Awe, I don’t think it’ll ever get dealt with. Yah, but if it really does hit the fan. . . . And the conversation goes silent. I don’t think you can hear those questions for the first time and not squirm a bit.

About that time my wife emerged from the house carrying a tray ladened with a french press of hot coffee and bread fresh from the oven – not an exaggeration. She has the gift of hospitality and it doesn’t quit. On top of that 90% of what she bakes is from home ground flour made from grain we’ve had in storage for 20 years. Oh, I should mention the blueberry jam picked and processed at our wilderness cabin, a good part of a day’s travel to the north.

It didn’t take two weeks for our discussion fires to grow and increase in frequency. Curiosity brought neighbors, which often included kids who love hot chocolate and surprisingly enjoyed just sitting and listening to adults. With that we eventually noted a subtle lifting of the “covid haze”, most likely the result of what we know as true fellowship, the “sharing of all things in common.”Continue reading“Wood-Fired Coffee Roasting – Part 1, by J.P.”

SurvivalBlog’s News From The American Redoubt

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This weekly column features news stories and event announcements from around the American Redoubt region. (Idaho, Montana, eastern Oregon, eastern Washington, and Wyoming.) Much of the region is also more commonly known as The Inland Northwest. We also mention companies of interest to preppers and survivalists that are located in the American Redoubt region. Today, we focus on wild horse herd management (See the Central & Eastern Oregon section.)

Idaho

Bull moose poached in game management area south of Twin Falls

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Idaho cold case murder shook town; suspect’s arrest causes aftershocks

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Chad Daybell files for change of venue

Continue reading“SurvivalBlog’s News From The American Redoubt”