'Resources that will last for generations without requiring electricity to function'

With simple casting equipment and a camp fire you can cast bullets. Gasoline blowtorch is quicker for small batches.

 

I love my old enamel coffee pots, and more modern stove top percolators. When your only hot water in camp is heated over coals, it's nice to have that huge 2 1/2 gallon coffee pot on the edge of the fire for washing. The little six cup enamel pot will make cowboy coffee that'll get you moving early.

I found lots of flower pots before I found any good enamel pots. This video covers lots of pot care and coffee making tips.



...and a little tutorial on cowboy coffee for folks who have never tried it.



I keep a sauce pan handy after the coffee has cooled, and I'll pour just a cup in the pan and reheat it on the fire until it's just steaming. No need to reheat the whole pot and make the coffee bitter.

 

I understand your dilemma, concerning the thread title, and the premise upon which you are struggling to articulate the general thrust of the thread towards (resources that do not rely on electric power to operate or function with).

Perhaps the following following thread title would be apt?

'Resources that will last for generations without requiring electricity to function'

Powerless resources may give the impression that the resources are ineffectual.


The problem is that some of the the examples you have given to illustrate your OP may be flawed.
For example, the cheap photographic prints shown in post #2 require electricity for processing the prints, as well as manufacturing the chemicals and papers that kind of popular photography requires....the equivalent to a pre electrical world would be glass plate photographic technology, and the dark alchemic arts of printing from a camera obscura....come lights out...the average happy snapper will just have use what is on hand...sure Heliography, Daguerreotype, and Calotype photography will still be possible, but back in the day they tended to be processes done in studio laboratories rather than by the average box brownie punter.

In one sense, you are correct, but you haven't offered any parameters for how long the dark, remains dark. In the case of most natural disaster outages, the dark may be of relatively limited duration, and it is unlikely that the technology will be totally unavailable globally, short of some world wide cataclysmic event that will take humanity back to the technology of the 18th century or earlier. Technological recovery ought be relatively quick.

Current electronic media technology may become obsolescent or obsolete, but usually such changes involve a transition period between technologies where electronic data can migrate from one medium to another. Obviously the window for conversion from one medium to another is not endless: It requires some timely attendance to that process if one's VHS family videos are to make it to a .mpg (or some other future video format) before the conversion technology becomes unavailable.

Only if one does not exercise the foresight of having backup electrical power generation (solar / wind / water / steam / biofuel / gasification ) as a contingency plan. If the power is not back on, in 50 years, then there are probably more important priorities in life than watching old episodes of RoseAnne, Seinfeld or Big Bang Theory.

Those books, or that paper photographic collection will be as useless as ash or paper mache if it is burnt, or immersed in flood water....every technology has its vulnerabilities...pre electronic artifacts are not immune to loss or destruction. Perhaps what may matter to preppers is taking measures before a probable event to minimise any potential loss or damage.

I don't consider we are smart because we have gigabyte storage capacity and cloud backup, but those things exist, because human culture has had enough sufficiently smart individuals with the creativity to invent and manufacture technology with those capabilities. We would be silly to ignore using those capabilities when they are available, but it would be also silly if we didn't also have alternative means of retaining and conserving sensitive and vital documents.

Each of those technologies have generally had the means of conversion from older to newer technology....the trick is to convert the family videos, or records, or pictures before the conversion technology is no longer available. If folk don't convert from the old to the new in a timely manner, then that's not on the new technology, that's on humans too slack to be bothered conserving what they have...

Some old folks were pretty smart, while others were as dumb as DS....much as it is today. The difference between then and now is that folks were more self reliant and adaptable. Technology was simpler back in the day, and although repairing broken, malfunctioning equipment still required some skill, it usually didn't require specialised technology that wasn't available at the local smithy or carpenter shop. Repairs could be jury rigged with baling wire and lumps of wood, until better repair facilities could be found.

The key lesson to be learned from that era is adaptability. In the present era of specialisation, fewer people have the kind of broad range skill sets outside of their specialisation that give them an advantage when something outside of their limited competency happens. Adaptability is one of the key attributes that preppers need to develop in an uncertain world.

Yes, we can certainly learn much from our forebears, however we shouldn't romanticise those times as a golden age of wonderful living. Many of the people of that era would have swapped 18 century living for a 21st century life in a heartbeat, if they could only get a 12 year old great grand child to program their smart 'phone and television controller for them.

 

You're missing the Ice Saw!

 

Were is the hay fork,that’s what we had before the hay baler?

 

I found a trick for making coffee that works in 5 gallon urn. I throw a half tea spoon of salt and several egg shells . the water can't be helped but it does make a difference .I was a cook for a fire camp and served a few hundred , when the head cook made coffee the urns were full all day she was the only one that drank it .
On her days off I made the coffee and it never lasted the morning, guys were filling their thermos and canteens .needless to say we went through a lot more coffee on my shift..

 

A kitchen, in an era of open fire place cooking, and solid fuel stoves, located external to the house, used in summer so that the heat from the cooking fire wouldn't make the rest of the house intolerably hot. It used to be a feature of larger houses in colonial times, usually connected to the main house structure with a breeze way, for the convenience of not getting wet in inclement weather.

Edit: @Lancer my reply was drawn from memory of Australian colonial domestic architecture...but the concept was widespread during that era in hot / tropical climates, and there are still a number of surviving examples of pre 20th century summer kitchens to be seen:



Via: Feature Article

Some summer kitchens (depending on the wealth of the owner could be quite elaborate, and would also sometimes house the domestic servants.

In 21st century America, the "summer kitchen" has devolved into a stainless steel behemoth BBQ, housed under a verandah or gazebo.

Via: Summer Kitchens Summer Kitchens Photo 8 Summer Kitchens Orlando Florida – wizardlab

Though this one has a kind of warm, folksy charm to it...

Via: The Outdoor Summer Kitchen Brick Back Kitchen - Tikspor

 

I predict that when TEOTWAWKI occurs what is dependent on modern technologies will eventually disappear because those that create and produce will no longer have the means to do so .
The production of electronic elements does not come from just one place , it's not like making gun powder .
Modern medicine has elements that come from all over the world or being replicated in a chemistry lab .
How many of you had a degree enough in medicine to formulate modern drugs?
There are things we can do whom are skilled in manufacturing , like a simple black smith knowing how to re-form steel .
But the real black smith knows how to take the elements from the ground to make iron and formulate it in to steel .
If the modern world is collapsing whom has the skill to rebuild ?
It's nice if you know how to draw wire ,but can you make an insulation for that wire ?
Can you design build and wind a motor, make bearings build a capacitor do all the math ?
If the skills for making even tube electronics is non existent, radio will too, become a thing of the past.

I digress,
things like electronics are vulnerable but a powerful asset for a long as it lasts, the wise are prepared for the future with spares .
The only next technology is machinery .
But if the machines that provide us stuff wears out with no one capable of repairing, they too will become a thing of the past.
It's nice that you know how to work leather but if leather is hard to come by then what will you do for shoes ?
If you don't know how to work plastics and can't repair them as they age ,there is another lost resource.

A fellow a while back shared that things were so bad ,people were burning any thing that was combustible; wood, doors, door ways, furniture ,homes, all the trees were gone fences ,basically any thing combustable was burned to cook or keep warm .

I have been very close to these conditions so it means something more to me than for some .
Merely turning off the power to your home for a few hours is not the same thing , when you know you have the power to turn it back on.

Being powerless with no resources to fail beck on is a whole different problem.
I have been in snow conditions that there was no power no leaving the house for most people ,and some homes did collapse .
Because it rained on top of the snow making the roads impassable walking was even out of the question . those brave enough made money shoveling roofs
But through this event we knew it would not last indefinatey so there was no panic.
Things would play much differently had the water and power not been restored ,the roads cleared , communications restored . .

 

Way back when, hay was gathered and moved on flat, horse drawn wagons. The storage barns had large double doors at the peak of the main gable, fronting the mow area. Along the ridge ran iron track with a roller system from which hung a expandable fork-ish device. Two vertical "spears" with a hinged rod that would expand out when a rope was pulled on the main device. So drop it into the hay on the wagon, it would capture a huge pile of the hay, hoist it up to clear the upper doors, run it down the track to where you wanted to drop it. release the "fork" rope to drop. rinse/repeat.

EDIT: Harry's introduction to the Barn Hay Carrier

 

Thank you Chelloveck for your well reasoned and thorough analysis of my thread introduction. I have updated the thread title with the one that you proposed. I found it to be spot on.

I live in the present, and embrace as much new technology as I can to make life more pleasant. Dad often commented about "the good old days" and said they were horrible. He was a computer tool design engineer, old hippie, and antique tractor collector. I was raised with this mix of old and new that enables me to hedge my bets on the future by understanding both obsolete and modern technology.

 

And I collect all the old tools and tube radios I find at flea markets, and garbage sales. My grand parents still had a hand pump in the kitchen, and a two-holer out back. I would summer with them until old enough to work the cows at home...

 

Books work until your wood stove or lantern catches the books on fire and/or a stack falls on you. Then, not such a good idea.

A lot of the old timers used hay bales against the foundation, then used the hay as mulch or animal feed in the Spring.

 

Most of my fishing gear is as old as my kids, some of it is older than I am.

 

All of these tools are more than 100 years old and function perfectly.

 

I also have weapons that date over 100 yrs and still working,a Springfield trapdoor 45/70,a Springfield trapdoor 45/70 carbine,a Remington rolling block 44/40,smith Wesson 32/20 and two SW .32 revolvers. Still better than new guns on the market now.
Edit to say that I do not buy new guns anymore,not worth the money they want.

 

Shhhhhh! We need to keep some new guns coming in, so folks will bring out the good used stuff to trade.

 

I traded for a early ruger .44 mag carbine,dont make them anymore.

 

LOL! Just had two .44 Carbines come through the shop. First one didn't make it to the rack before it was sold, I was offered the second one and passed, but quickly got it sold to another employee who was steamed that I got the first one. He got the finger groove carbine, so he was happy. They're both tack drivers.

 

I wish I could post pictures but this 75 old just cannot.z

 

Beautiful rifle. How much does that weigh?