Years ago I bought one of those survival guide books, pictured below and I was wondering if there was a modern version that teaches thing like how to build your own dynamo to power say a light bulb or or somekind of electrical appliance or can teach you how purify water on a large scale?
I would imagine there is some sort of doomsday peppers guide, so if anyone knows of one feel free to let me know.
David I don’t know the answer to your question, but I purchased that book while stationed in Germany in ‘85 and still have it. Fascinating book
This is a start.
This series of books was created to document the ways pioneers and mountain people did things. People went into the hills and interviewed the elders on how they did and made things. The idea was to write down the old ways before the knowledge passed away.
Iron working, making flintlocks, shoes, cooking, making soap, making candles, canning, it’s all there.
The idea is not to just survive an event, but to be able to be able to continue on indefinitely. If things get that bad, it will not be a long camping trip. More than likely, it will be permanent situation. For that, long term must be thought of. Seeds and raising your own food. canning and preserving the food you harvest. You must be equipped with items ahead of time to make it work. The idea of someone taking their hatchet and knife into the wild to live for years is fallacy. If you already have a small farm, you will probably have most of what you need. If not, you better start collecting the materials you will need, and that’s a lot.
Quite recently while on various sites I was being hit with adverts for something called The Book: A Guide to Rebuilding Civilisation. Must admit it did intrigue me so I did look into it but didn’t buy it. It’s quite expensive and in reality is the story of civilisation. There are articles on salting and preservation but then things like making a Sitar so in my mind it’s an interest book rather than a practical one.
Now the Foxfire books Greg mentioned above really do interest me and they are available here in the UK at a very reasonable price. In my mind we have come so far and invented lots of thing, not all of them for the best (think social media) but we have also forgotten a lot.
Yep, only need a small power outage or solar flare for people to start losing their minds when they don’t have the internet for a few hours, let alone a few days.
Used a brushed DC motor.
@metalhead85 I bought that book and the pocket version years ago and it was very interesting.
@Maximus8425 I agree total, we gave advanced technologically speaking but we have lost so many important knowledge and skills
@Tank_1812 @TopSmith I’mgoing to look for those books at the weekend they sound fascinating.
@18bravo I’mlooking for a book that has step by step guides on how to build small dynamo and wind turbines. I saw people making on TV during conflicts of yugoslavia.
Holy smokes, I haven’t seen Foxfire in 42 years. Lady I babysit for had the whole set.
The problem preppers often ignore is the time line. They prep for 6 months, not 20 years.
If the fan hit the shizz, you will need to be self sufficient. What you make or grow is what you will trade with if someone does not kill you for it. Having a small farm is about the only solution to start with. Can you run your car or tractor without fuel? So plowing will be done by….mule? Transportation by the same mule? My grandfather had a 10-acre farm. He never threw something away made of metal. He would make tools he needed from the items in the metal pile. He would plant about 4 acres and can the food in mason jars. In the fall we would cut several trees and make fire wood for his wood burning stove. He would raise one or two hogs and butcher them in the fall when it got cold. Clothes and shoes were about the only thing he bought. He would repair his shoes as long as he could before buying a new set. He has a small black and white TV and would watch the news from Daytona Beach each evening and the farm report in the early morning. Every day he would write down the temp and rainfall on his calendar. He kept the old calendars to predict the weather. If your plan does not have you on a farm from 1910, you don’t have a plan.
Bloody hell David; I know the UK’s a bit crap right now, but do you have inside knowledge of something we don’t know about?!
Gotta say, when I look around at what passes for civilisation these days I wonder if I’d bother to rebuild it if it collapsed…
Sadly I doubt anyone with a farm would last very long in the post-apocalyptic chaos, as too many others would soon come to take what was yours! But having a shelf with Scouting for Boys on it seems a good start.
Maybe a good wine cellar?
Funnily enough Tom, in the pursuit of sartorial improvement, I’ve resolved to wear a suit a little bit more often.
There’s hope for the world yet! 
that’s a bit like saying the titanic has a touch of rising damp.
my concern is that we’re heading for another war in Europe and this country has no leadership, a degraded military, police and health service and an ability to ignore those in need in favour of scroungers and layabouts. we could defend our borders and shores in the 1940’s but we can’t people paddling across the channel in inflatable rafts.
I hope I am wrong but I don’t think the UK can carry on like this much longer and that collapse is inevitable and now the government is increasing military recall to 65.
Can’t argue with much of that; funnily enough, I’ve been casting my eye around for somewhere else to go (which is so bloody galling when I’ve served the same country and its system for 45 years, paid my taxes, raised a family, bought and paid for a house, played by the rules etc etc).
I do get where you’re coming from I assure you - and the question is what to do about it. I have no ready solution as it’s all too late to await another general election and for a tribe of fools - probably no different from the others - to remedy anything; it’s all too broken (sorry, this is all some way away from a request for a survival manual!) to be fixed really by anyone.
The one thing I am pretty sure of is any military recall to 65 will never get though the Commons let alone the Lords - though who really knows with a government that strangles free speech and cancels elections? Hmmm.
Any war in Europe is nothing to do with us in any case; we ‘ve enough social and economic problems to sort out before the luxury of conflict - with, as you identify, a fat, unfit woke-driven armed forces who aren’t really capable of very much at all.
I would suggest an atlas as opposed to a survival manual, but I really do agree with you.
All a bit bleak; let’s get back to talking about models(!) and as it’s my birthday today, share a gin or two!
Happy Birthday Brian, and many more!
Many thanks Matthew.
