Post Apocalypse Job Search

What a useful suggestion you have offered Mr Sapper. I must begin repairs as soon as possible as it will afford me the opportunity to explore this new brave world. The aroma that Mr Chello speaks of will certainly carry across a great distance. I am reminded of the skunk scent I detected from Thursday's camp. I don't want to draw any unwarranted attention to my endeavors, even from my neighbor Thursday.

After I have completed the repair, I will still need to fashion some sort of paddle so I best be on the lookout for suitable materials. This is going to be a bit of trial and error, both fixing the canoe and making the paddle but since I am feeling stronger by the day, it will be a manageable task.

More later

 

I would imagine that you might find a suitable piece of plastic among the river's flotsam and maybe something that could be heated as a soldering iron to melt the rip back together? Plastic welding , I do not think is that difficult?m I do not know if milk jugs or Clorox jugs can be melted and molded? Someone here might know though.

 

Milk jugs and clorox jugs can be melted and molded. Milk jugs are easier. You will need a temperature of about 300 to 350 degrees. Heat it slowly so that you don't reach the char point when you melt it. Soda bottles also work. A lot of crafters reuse plastic bottles to make their own plastic beads.

 

That is excellent advise, Ms Carly and I do so much thank you. I recently acquired a metal paint can that I believe will do quite nicely for melting pieces of plastic. I will shred the plastic as small as I can manage before melting. I will use heated stones to make the tear malleable and shape it back into the correct position. I will require some type of backing to form a mold...I wonder if mud will do?

 

I have never tried using mud. I would think it would work. Just make sure you smooth it out. Thin spots and imperfections could leave you with another hole.

 

I have used a brushy sapling with the upper half stripped and the leaves / twigs left on the bottom to make a crude paddle to paddle a 10 foot john boat.

Of course J strokes are out, just paddle a bit on one side then the other to keep it aimed kind of forward.

guess if ya was to take a forked limb, and cut branches and weave a kind of wattle into the fork and work some grasses into it you could form a kind of paddle also.

 

I Have been absent for a number of days due to assisting my neighbor convalesce. I had not meant to have a formal face-to-face meeting with Thursday and probably would still be just bartering wheel-barrow loads of guano for essential survival supplies by leaving the poop on the trail and retrieving my bartered loot from the hollow cottonwood, if Thursday hadn’t met with the most unfortunate incident. Apparently, Thursday is allergic to bees and wasps. Many people are. He has a pan-flute that he enjoys playing in the evenings and it is apparently just the size that carpenter bees like to nest in, or at least to investigate. What began as an enjoyable evening pan-flute serenade wafting through the forest soon digressed into a loud squeal and a lot of loud unintelligible sounds , curious enough that I decided to creep to my observation point above the skunk-marijuana farm ; it is a darned good thing that I did because I got there just in time to see Thursday thrashing around in an apparent convulsion, having a seizure of sorts. I ran down to his side and immediately noticed his swollen and distended tongue protruding his mouth, his eyes rolled up into head and he was squealing something that sounded like “Ahbeh, ahbeh…I think he was trying to say “A Bee”…His broken pan-flute lay beside him and a large black bee still crawled across it. I have a bit of an issue with bee-stings myself and had been diligently reading about herbs that contained natural antihistamines, just to be on the safe side. I had located some evening primrose and made tea from the fruit and leaves just that morning, hoping to relieve a sinus inflammation due to all the spring pollen. It worked and I immediately ran back to the cave and brought the remainder of the infusion along with my paint bucket filled with water and an additional branch of fresh evening primrose. Thursday had an alcohol stove that I used to bring the water to a boil and placed many primrose buds and leaves into the hot water to infuse. Meanwhile, Thursday seemed to be having difficulty breathing. I took my Rambo knife and considered trying to do an emergency trach but Thursday’s eyes grew wider and he violently shook his head no but then passed out from asphyxiation. There was a section of river cane that was lying near his camp stove and I used my knife to cut a single section into a tube or giant straw. I then managed to push the end past Thursday’s swollen tongue into his throat and opened an airway. Soon, he was breathing regularly and was able to remove the breathing tube. The tea was steeping but I gave him a cane-cup filled with the left-over from my morning tea and he drank it down. I refilled the vessel several times and had him drink it. The tremors ceased and his pulse and heart rate began to slow and he sat up and moved towards a knapsack that he opened and removed some type of smoking pipe that favored the cartoon character “Kenny” on South Park and placed a pinch of what appeared to be marijuana into a small bowl and lit a match and took a deep drag then offered it to me but it smelled like skunk and I declined. He shrugged his shoulders and said “Tool”.
Thursday doesn’t talk much. Mostly, all he ever says is “Cool”, but I was able to determine that his name actually is Vincent but he thinks Thursday is “Cool”. And given my present Robinson Crusoe type saga, believe Thursday is quite appropriate to someone that is not quite Friday material.

 

That is pretty cool, Frank, it is a good thing you were there. I did not know that primrose contained antihistamines.There is a wild herb called Mullen, that grows in the South that is used to treat Asthma, They burn it and breath the smoke which opens the bronchial tubes, or so I have read.

 

Frank I think earlier you said something about bleeding a pine tree? If so or if you can find a couple pine trees to bleed take the sap and some pinne needles mix it will form a type of thick paste that loos like fiber glass. After you mold your peice and get it on smear the pine ppaste inside and out. as the sun hits it it will dry and is water proff. on the inside if you can find a couple peices of old papaer to place on top of the paste and let harden it will keep it from getting on you feet. Make sure and put the paste on thick like a roofing tar.

 

In addition to Mullen, the dried tops of "red top clover" (that is our name, not sure what the official name is for em) The kind that is a dark red /purple flower. Dry the flower tops and then burn / smoke them to open up the bronchial tubes /lungs.

( I enjoy a pipe out in the woods from time to time, but usually make my own smoking mixture out of various herbs - NO, not that kind lol -- instead of smoking tobbac. Have a few reciepies I got from books, or talking with the old Indian feller that lived a few houses down a while back. Also got a lead on getting baccar from the indians direct off their land / reservation. The baccar from them isn't that processed stuff you get from the store, and seems to not harm as much but I just kind of got away from using it plain. I usually put some redtop clover in to keep my lungs open. I have a pipe hawk that I have been known to bring to the camp fire along with the blend of the moment.)

Mullen is good, but almost everyone can find the clover, It grows all over the road edges around here and in many parks / yards and meadows.

Also the mullen tea sort of helps as a cold aid. It also works for things like sore throat and getting the crud out of your lungs (expectorant) Heck, it is good for pain and such like womens time of the month cramps, especially if you mix it with a few other things (lobela comes to mind)

It is worth yer time to learn how to make extracts, tinctures and teas from local weeds since they may one day be your best medicines If'n times get as grubby as I'm afeared they may.

(In another of my incarnations, I was blessed to know a old lady from Switzerland who knew many of the old weeds, grew a ton of em, and took time to share / teach a young boy sent by his parents to help her with the "yard work" - Thanks Mrs. Goldshmidt.)

Remember, What I know I understand, but sometimes I get it a bit twisted in the telling, so be sure to double check anything about using weeds n rocks to help ya live healther on your own. That old personal responsibility thing.

 

My first attempt at repairing the kayak met with dismal failure. It seems that although plastic milk jugs and such will readily melt, they immediately solidify once in contact with anything away from the heat source and will not remain fluid and pour from the crucible. I pondered this for a while and reached a solution that did work. I mentioned earlier, that I have a number of flat rocks being utilized as an improvised oven? I took another flat rock and placed it on corner stones to make an elevated flat heat sink. I built a fire pit beneath it and kept it stocked with hot coals until the stone reached a sufficient temperature to keep molten plastic malleable. I then placed my damaged canoe atop the stone to heat the damaged and distended material. Once the bottom became soft, I supported the vessel at either end to prevent it from bending due to the heat. I then took a piece of steel pipe that I scavenged and heated it cherry red, using a simple bellows constructed from a piece of canvass and some bamboo. I used the hot steel to melt the torn edges back together but there was still an area the size of my hand that was missing. I melted a pot of milk-jug plastic using a large tin can as a crucible. Once melted, I place this can inside my paint bucket filled with hot coals to keep it fluid, sort of like a double-boiler. This allowed the molten plastic to remain heated until it poured from the crucible onto the flat hot rock and remained malleable enough to spatula it into a most adequate repair. I then just allowed the rock to slowly cool while my boat remained in place. Thursday is now working diligently with his pocket knife, to carve a paddle from a broken piece of 2x8 that he removed from the section of old boat-dock that I had dragged back to the cave.

 

I am now considering attempting to mold some plastic items that may prove useful, such as eating utensils, maybe. If I can make a mold from clay or some other substance, with my plastic double-boiler, I could start a small-scale manufacturing process from salvaged materials and make items fo trade. There seems to be an abundant supply of various plastics in the flotsam along the river banks. I don't want to hurt Thursday's feelings but his home-made boat paddle is a bit unwieldy and cumbersome. I believe that I might mold a flat plastic blade to the end of a stout bamboo rod and have a very fine paddle!

 

That is pretty creative, Mr. Ticious. I am suitably impressed with the utilization of modern refuse to repair ancient technology. It makes me wonder what other modern refuse could be utilized in creative manners. Bottles can be cut into glasses using a burning string and cold water. With your home-made bellows, forging scrap steel into useable tools is something to consider. There are some excellent threads in the knife making section here about home-made forges and even one on how to make steel from dirt. The ideas abound! I have spent most of my adult life learning how to work with primitive tools and master the skills our fore-fathers used to carve this life but it never occurred to me to recycle modern materials into what I need.

 

Another thought? Does anyone know how to extract salt-peter from bat ****? Charcoal is easy to make, if he has a paint bucket. You can fill the bucket with wood pieces tightly packed, place the top back on the bucket and punch a single small hole in the top to allow gasses to escape. Place this bucket in your fire and leave it over night, the gasses will burn off through the small vent and what remains will be gun-powder grade charcoal, also very useful for many other purposes such as water filtration, certain digestive ailments, cooking, forging steel...
I can't help you on sourcing sulfur though.

 

I found this at a site called "Caveman Chemistry" and thought it might help in problem solving.
Gunpowder and Explosives

Introduction

What if some evil-minded purpose bent on destructive acts reads this page? He (or she, to be as inclusive as possible) might make up some of the explosive mixtures discussed here and use it to hurt people. Perhaps this information should be carefully guarded, with fines and prison sentences for those who dare to reveal the secrets. But it is my opinion that evil-minded people don't need this information to perform acts of destruction. Guns are freely available, the grocery stores are full of poisons (in the automotive and household chemical sections, second aisle past the greeting cards, top shelf), and gunpowder is sold over the counter anywhere they sell reloading supplies. If you are worried about such evil-minded people, rest assured that they will find a way to do evil whether or not the information in these pages is freely available. If you are such an evil-minded person you will probably be bored with these pages unless you happen to be curious about the chemistry of your intended deeds.
Gunpowder

Gunpowder was invented by Chinese alchemists of the 9th century as a mixture of sulfur, charcoal, and saltpeter. It was employed in military applications in 10th century China. By the 13th century the secret had spread to Islamic Asia where it was used against Europeans. Ever since, gunpowder has been a staple of the military and political establishments.
Consequently the ingredients of gunpowder, especially sulfur and saltpeter, have had strategic importance. Sulfur is mined from underground deposits. Saltpeter is mined, typically from deposits in caves, where it is leached from guano. In fact, salpeter was mined in Virginia during the Civil War and was central to the Confederate war effort. However the largest deposits of nitrate are in Chile and up until the first decade of the 20th century the mining and shipping of Chile saltpeter (sodium nitrate) were of strategic interest to the world powers.
Saltpeter

Saltpeter, or niter, is the common name for potassium nitrate. Biringuccio tels us how to extract it in his Pirotechnia:
As I told you in the chapter on salts, saltpeter is a mixture composed of many substances extracted with fire and water from arid and manurial soils, from that growth which exudes from new walls or from that loosened soil that is found in tombs or uninhabited caves where the rain cannot enter. It is my belief that it is engendered in these soils from an airy moisture that is drunk in and absorbed by the earthy dryness...
Biringuccio goes on to desrcibe a process for extracting saltpeter from this "manurial soil," i.e. soil that has formed from human or animal manure. On the surface of such soil or in certain caves there will be a white crust on the surface of the soil. The important feature of this soil is that it should contain organic material which contains nitrogen: chiefly proteins and their decomposition product, urea. Bacteria in the soil oxidize these nitrogen compounds to a family of nitrate salts: sodium nitrate, potassium nitrate, and calcium nitrate, depending on the other minerals present in the soil. These nitrate compounds are among the most soluble of all compounds. The solubilities of sodium, calcium, and potassium nitrate in boiling water are 952, 376, and 247 g / 100 mL. That is, boiling water will dissolve more than nine times its own weight of sodium nitrate.
The process for making saltpeter is very similar to that for making potash, the chief difference being the starting material. The soluble part of wood ash is mostly potassium carbonate and so when we purify it by recrystalization, the resulting product is purified potassium carbonate. The soluble part of these manurial soils are mostly mixed nitrates. The reason for this is that while the original animal waste may have had a wide variety of soluble materials, as the water wicked up through the soil and evaporated, the less soluble parts fell out of solution as it became more and more concentrated. Only the most soluble parts, in this case the nitrates, made it to the top of the soil and when the last bit of moisture evaporated, they were deposited as a white crust on the surface.
So the beginning of primitive saltpeter production is to collect this white crust leaving behind as much as possible the underlying soil. Of the three nitrates present, potassium nitrate is the one we need. To extract it, we use a metathesis reaction in much the same way that we have previously produced lye:
Ca(NO₃)₂(aq) + K₂CO₃(aq) -----> CaCO₃(s) + 2 KNO₃(aq)
This removes all the calcium as insoluble calcium carbonate leaving mostly potassium nitrate and a little sodium and potassium carbonate which can be further separated out by repeated recrystalizations in much the same way that we produced potash.
Saltpeter has been mined in Virginia, particularly in the dry caves of the Shenendoah valley. Most of the nitrate mined today comes from Chile and is called "Chile Saltpeter," which is chiefly sodium nitrate. However, most of the nitrate used in explosives and agriculture is today derived from nitrogen in the air (see acids).
Sulfur

We have seen several compounds of sulfur in the form of the sulfide ores: galena, sphalerite, pyrite, and chalcopyrite. But for gunpowder, we need elemental sulfur. Sulfur is one of only a few elements found free in nature, i.e. as the element rather than as compounds of that element. It is a yellow solid with a melting point of about 120 C. It occurs in beds, chiefly in Italy, Texas, Louisiana, Java, Japan, and Mexico. Until the turn of the twentieth century, 95% of the world production was from Sicily, where it was mined in a manner very similar to that of coal. The vast sulfur beds of Texas and Louisiana lay beneath layers of quicksand which were impossible to remove by conventional methods. In the first decade of the twentieth century, Herman Frasch devised a method whereby this sulfur could be drilled similar to oil rather than mined similar to coal. A well is drilled into the sulfur bed and superheated steam is forced down the well shaft. This steam melts the sulfur, which rises up a concentric pipe in the wellshaft. the molten sulfur is cooled above ground and returns to the solid form. By 1919, American exports of sulfur exceeded the entire sulfur production of Italy.
Charcoal

The third ingredient of gunpowder is charcoal. As we have seen, charcoal is produced from wood by heating it in a reducing atmoshphere, i.e. one low in oxygen. Charcoal is almost prue carbon, but the mechanical properties of charcoal, grain size, shape, and structure, depend somewhat on the wood used to make it. Willow is the traditional wood of choice, followed by grapevine, hazelwood, elder, laurel, and pine cones.
Charcoal is not the only fuel we can use, however. Anything that burns can be used as the fuel in a gunpowder-like explosive. We will make gunpowder using either charcoal or sugar.

 

Look it up in the yellow pages.

I appreciate that Frank and Thursday are subsisting in the wild...and making do with found materials pretty much, however, although it is likely that shopping centres and malls will have been looted to virtual nothingness in this post apocalyptic world....sulphur never the less may be found in some industrial areas, agricultural and horticultural operations and educational institutions. Find a copy of the yellow pages and you'll probably find enough sulphur to meet your black powder needs and then some.

I still have about 2Kg of sulphur which I bought from a stock and feed store, so that I could paint my chicken perches (a mixture of sulphur, flour and water into a thick gluey paste) with it to keep the bird lice and mite populations under control. The body heat helped to release the sulphur which the bugs didn't much like.

Sulphur can be used for a number of things including balancing soil ph.

 

Thursday has a weekly delivery of goods to a near-by rendezvous point. Supplies are cached in an abandoned barn. His compatriots are apparently not interested in the early stages of his cash-crop enough to want to deal with ticks, snakes, mosquitoes, and other vermin. Each Wednesday, they meet at the barn and Thursday tells them of any special need he might require and it is brought in the following week. A supply of atropine pens and some Benadryl was on this week’s list, as well as a hammer and some chisels: yes! My first project with my new tools will be to separate the tops from a pair of 20lb. propane cylinders that I found on the river bank. These should make a couple of excellent cooking pots and may allow me to make soap. I now have more tooth-paste and a large bottle of liquid dish soap that is very handy for laundry, bathing, and dishes. Thursday has a small backpacker guitar and he is teaching me to play. Life is beginning to regain some quality. For the first time in weeks, I am beginning to believe that I can survive and maybe even prosper in this new and dangerous economy.
Thursday still does not know where I live, I believe he thinks that I am a woods spirit. I deliver a wheelbarrow of bat-poop every day now and our barter now includes items that he has in his encampment that theoretically could break or wear out and need replacing. I have taken the advice of caution offered by Mr. Ghrits and try to fly under their radar with any requests for barter items and Thursday seems to think he will be well compensated for the amazing health and growth of his crop facilitated by the miracle-grow bat poop. He has asked to borrow my wheel-barrow or wagon to retrieve his weekly supplies; I am stalling on that one because his compatriots might question where he acquired it and want to further investigate.

 

If you know the location of the abandoned barn, there is probably the remains of an old homestead of some sort there and will also possibly be salvage in the way of tools, building materials, etc. Just a thought that you might want to investigate.