Tag: Homemade

Creating Your Own Survival Kit from Things Around the House

Posted on by Brittany Lockheart
Image Via: home stead survival

In this day and age, it is a wise move to have a survival kit stashed around your house just in case. While there probably won’t be a zombie apocalypse anytime in the near future, there are a hundred reasons why you still might need such a kit. Keeping one handy just means you are well-prepared and ready for emergencies. Like Ben Franklin said, “If you fail to prepare, then you prepare to fail.”

There are many expensive survival kits you can purchase online or in stores that are ready to go, but you can save quite a bit of money by putting one together yourself. Plus, you can customize it to your exact needs: consider the survival scenarios that are most likely to occur in your geographic region, store a month’s supply of a special medication you require, or select food options to your personal taste.

In fact, you just might have everything you need for a survival kit in your house right now! You wouldn’t even have to go out and buy anything, just walk around your house and gather some items. Below is a list that could help you out in your preparation for constructing your own private survival kit.

A Duffel Bag or Backpack
We all have an old duffel bag lying around the house from our trips to the gym that we don’t use anymore. Perhaps you have a backpack from you or your kids’ school days just sitting in the closet. Both these storage items are perfect to contain your survival kit. Blow off all the dust and shake out all the cobwebs. Your survival kit is about to take off.

You could get one of these babies for $200+, or you could pull most of the same stuff out of your garage. Image source: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/137782069829388992/

Medical Supplies
Having basic medical supplies in your survival kit is a good step in preparing for what could go wrong. Take some band-aids, rubbing alcohol, tweezers, a towel, ibuprofen, Tylenol, and anything else you believe could come in handy. It is always a good habit to store these in small plastic bags, especially anything that is liquid. You don’t want loose items floating around in your duffel bag. Keep everything as tidy as you can so you can locate it quickly in a pinch. Also, packing a bit of toilet paper might be a very good thing.

Food and Drinks
You want to be sure to pick food items that can last for at least a year to store in your bag. There are probably cans of fruits and vegetables in the back of your pantry that you have forgotten all about that would be perfect for a survival kit. Be sure to pack a can opener as well otherwise you might be beating yourself up later on.

Beef jerky can last a long time and provide you with much-needed protein. Also, a perfect addition to your survival kit would be protein powder. Just being able to mix it with bottled water could provide you with an instant meal replacement.

Cash
Right or wrong, cash is king in our world today. Having a few hundred dollars on hand in your survival kit will give you a bit of spending money if there is an emergency.

Knife or Gun
Unfortunately, bad things happen in this world (they might already be happening if you’re utilizing this kit!). If you don’t have some sort of weapon in your survival kit, then you are putting yourself and your family at risk of being victims. Even if you don’t believe in guns, one could save your life someday in an emergency. Just because you don’t like them doesn’t mean that other unsavory characters won’t be packing.

Matches or a Lighter
You probably have extra lighters laying around your house right at this moment. Throw a few those into your survival kit. In addition, having a few candles and a flashlight could be beneficial down the road as well.

Extra Clothes and Blankets
We all have a closet full of clothes that we seldom wear. Throw in some of these into your survival kit. If there is an emergency, you don’t want to be stuck wearing the same dirty clothes each day. Additionally, depending on where you live, extreme temperatures could become a very real threat to your survival.

Create a Bag for Each Member of the Family
Don’t just think ahead for yourself. Having enough food and water for everyone is essential for surviving, so make sure you have enough in your kits to last you awhile. Prepare an individual kit for every member of the family. Of course, with kids, you may not want to include weapons into their bag, but they may have ideas about other things they can store in there. I’m willing to bet they’d enjoy creating their own, and parents can use the opportunity to initiate a “thinking ahead and being prepared” lesson in a hands-on, more-fun manner.

How to Make a Knife Out of Aluminum Foil

Posted on by Patrick McCarthy

Need a knife, but all you have is a roll of aluminum foil? Don’t worry, here’s how to forge one!

The basic procedure is to apply mechanical pressure to shape the blade, and heat it to alter its properties. The heat makes the metal flow so that you can compress it into a new shape, which it then holds better after cooling. Aluminum is a highly malleable metal, as you may have noticed from how easily you can bend aluminum foil. However, this also means that the edge will dull quickly, one reason why you don’t see a lot of aluminum knives at the store.

These steps are based on a Japenese YouTuber. A link to the video is included at the bottom of this post. Enjoy!

1. Gather Supplies.

2. Gradually pull out the foil, rolling it into a new wad outside of its box. The wad should be quite hefty, about half a roll. Rip off the wad for future use. (0:21)

3. Remove the remaining roll of aluminum foil from the box. This will become your knife. (0:22)

4. Hammer the fresh roll of aluminum foil flat, striking it repeatedly against an anvil. It should now resemble a rectangle the length of the original roll. (0:28)

5. Drive out the inner cardboard tube, using the handle of a mallet to loosen it, then a pair of pliers to pull it out from the aluminum foil. (0:45)

6. Flatten the foil more, again hammering it against an anvil. (1:08)

7. Heat the flat bar of foil on a gas stove. Set the burner on low, and heat one end of the bar. (1:32)

8. Hammer the heated end. Use a pair of pliers to hold the foil. Aluminum conducts heat. (1:43)

9. Flip the foil over and hammer it flat on the other side (1:59)

10. Cool the pliers in a wet cloth. (2:03)

11. Return the foil to the burner. (2:05)

12. Continue hammering the bar of foil flat. (2:09)

13. Hammer further on the foil until it is a flat, hard, compact bar. At this point it should have enough rigidity that you can hit the aluminum foil and it rebounds solidly, instead of squashing. You now have a solid bar of aluminum – the body of the blade! (2:36)

14. Take a knife with a shape that you want to copy. Place it on top of your flat bar of aluminum foil. Use a permanent marker to trace the outline of the original knife on your aluminum foil. (2:52)

15. Secure your aluminum foil bar in a vise. Use a jigsaw to cut out the shape that you traced on the flat aluminum foil bar. (3:02)

16. Lubricate the jigsaw as necessary. Cutting an aluminum knife is hard work! (3:22)

17. Place your new knife form in the vise. (3:58)

18. File down the edges of your knife form. (4:00)

19. Use a whetstone #150 to create the surface of your knife tang. (4:12)

20. Heat your knife over a gas burner, set on high. (4:30)

21. Chisel midway to separate the block of aluminum into two, lengthwise. (4:44)

22. Hammer one half further until it is extremely flat. At this point it should roughly resemble a knife. (4:56)

23. Sand down your knife blade. (5:27)

24. Use whetstone #150 to carve a bevel in your knife. (5:40)

25. Use whetstone #400 to refine the knife bevel. (5:53)

26. Use whetstone #1000 to give your knife a sharp edge. Cool the whetstone repeatedly with precise amounts of water. Higher number whetstones have finer surfaces, producing more contact with the knife and more heat, and requiring more cooling. (6:00)

27. Use whetstone #2000 to polish your knife edge. (6:33)

28. Use whetstone #6000, then #8000, then #12000, then #30000, for progressive rounds of final sharpening. (7:02)

29. On a block of wood, trace the outline of your tang with a marker. This will become your knife handle. (7:53)

30. Place the wood block in a vise, and saw out the shape. Then saw the handle in two lengthwise, so that you can place the handle on both sides of your tang. Sand down the handle wood, and brush away the debris. (7:58)

31. Draw two points on your knife tang. These will become the attachment points for your handle. Drill out holes in these points, using a wood board to receive the excess drilling. File the knife smooth where you drilled out the holes. (8:25)

32. Drill holes at the same locations on the wood handles. You can see the distance from drilling the knife into the wood board. (8:46)

33. Screw together the knife between the two handle sides. (8:48)

34. Use a diamond jigsaw to cut away the excess screws from the handle. (8:57)

35. File down the remaining screws in the handle. (9:19)

36. Use sand paper to smooth out the joined handle. File down the wood until it sits flush with the aluminum tang. (9:26)

37. Use a razor strop to straighten the knife and give it a reflective sheen. (9:52)

38. You should now have a knife that looks like the original. (10:17)

39. Cut up your favorite food! (10:42)

40. Place your aluminum foil roll knife proudly on display. (10:52)

Kiwami Japan is a Japanese YouTube Channel that creates unique knife making and sharpening tutorials in Japanese.

The Japanese title hilariously translates as “I want to make kitchen knife of roasted aluminum foil!”

The video demonstrates the creation of a sashimi knife, however you can choose your own shape.