How to make your own tools

This video is one of the best and is well worth watching.

Alloy number one: 23% Cu, 23% Fe, 46% S, 3% Ni, 1% Au, 1% Ag, 1% Bi, 1% Zn, 1% Sn. Alloy number two: 65% Ni, 31% Cu, 1% Au, 1% Ag, 1% Y, 1% Co. Alloy number three: 23% Co, 23% Mn, 46 % Fe, 4 % Ni, 2% Cu.

Alloy number four: 45% Al, 35% Co, 20% Cu. Alloy number five: 40% Ni, 30% Co, 20% Cu, 5% Al, 5% Ag. Alloy number six: 32% Cu, 32% FE, 20% Co, 10% Mn, 4% Ni, 1% Au, 1% Ag.

Alloy number seven: 30% Al, 30% Cu, 30% Cd, 5% Ni, 5% Bi. Alloy number eight: 30% Co, 30% Ti, 20% Ni, 10% Ag, 10% Cu. Alloy number nine: 60% Ni, 30% Ag, 5% Fe, 5% Cu.

Keep up the great work.

I have taken a college metallurgy course.

Definitely good knowledge to have.

Let the "spear people'" run around in loin cloths and use wooden tools.

Ferrous Alloys changed everything.

Defintely saving to my book marks.

reply to post by liejunkie01

Don't limit yourself to Ferrous alloys(Iron); Copper and silver are easy to (s)melt and can be very useful. Nickel is also ideal if you have access to it. Use Calcium,Cellulose, and Rutile( Titanium Dioxide) as your flux.

reply to post by TheWetCoast


I have been thinking about aluminum.

It's everywhere.

Not as strong but definitely available and workable.

With all the copper thieves, it isn't as available as it used to be..lol

reply to post by liejunkie01

If you are in needing salvaged metals; Iron, nickel, Cobalt, Manganese,Copper, Silver, Tin, Gold are the best to work with.

reply to post by liejunkie01

I would be very interested in your opinion of the Nine Alloys I have presented. They DO have practical applications(but you will have to figure them out yourself). I have many more but I'm in no hurry to share them. 50% Fe, 30% Cu,10% Ni, 10% Zn.

TheWetCoast
reply to post by liejunkie01

 

I would be very interested in your opinion of the Nine Alloys I have presented. They DO have practical applications(but you will have to figure them out yourself). I have many more but I'm in no hurry to share them. 50% Fe, 30% Cu,10% Ni, 10% Zn.

I definitely need some time to research a bit.

I know you are going for an iron copper alloy with more tensile strength and corrosion resistance.

I'll dig a little deeper tomorrow night.

Just one question though.

Are your alloys actually used in real world applications, or are they something you came up with for a certain purpose?

I need to dig out my papers from school. Unfortunately I had to sell my metallurgy book back to the school. They gave me $40 for it after I paid three times that much...lol...

This subject interests me.

reply to post by liejunkie01

My own applications. Alloy number 1 is an ore( I thought the sulfur impurity would give it away). The only ore that I have had problems with is the Colbalt ore(High-carbon steel won't make a dent in it-It destroys my tools(wonderful).

reply to post by liejunkie01

I do lack Bismuth. I have it as an impurity but not in useable quantities.

reply to post by liejunkie01

My true goal is to smelt an Iron,Copper, Manganese,Cobalt bloom with a titanium and Calcium Impurity.

Sorry for delay with my response. The other night ended with fisticuffs( I got even by putting hot sauce in his shoes tonight).

reply to post by TheWetCoast


No problem man.

Work is killing me. Along with the kids.

I havn't had the time or strength to look anything up.

There are two ways you can think about survivalism from scratch when it comes to building your own tools.

#1) You could build everything from scratch, ignoring any metal that may be around which is possible if you're doing deep woods survival. Building the necessary tools will have to begin somewhere and improving technology to get to metal may happen a few months down the line in a survival situation if you can find the metal ores and are able to identify them.

The ideal thing to do is to first begin building brick, adobe brick from my understanding is the easiest to make in contrast to the standard brown brick you see used for houses and schools in the US. Those ones can take up to two-weeks to dry but are also very easy to build. Drying in direct sunlight is difficult because weather is unpredictable so unless you're surviving in an area where rain rarely ever happens, then building brick will become difficult. You may have to build something to cover the bricks in the event of rain. I'm uncertain about cooking up the bricks, I only know how to do it without fire.

Brick is generally going to be the next step up from using clay and wood. But that doesn't mean that clay and wood is a bad thing, in fact you can do a lot of stuff with clay, wood, and string. In fact, you'll have to learn how to create string before brick because you'll need to build brick racks. You can build fire pits with clay, and even storage for food deep underground. Meat doesn't expire as quickly as what conventional believe says. It may begin to culture an hour or two after being set out but if cooked right it should be okay if the meat is eaten within 2-3 days outside of winter. I don't know the specifics but I do know that in the province, people leave meat out because they tend not to have a fridge and I've eaten it plenty of times without getting sick.

So.. after building brick racks you can build your brick, and after your brick you can build a furnace which then can turn into your forge for the ore etc.. But the problem is the heat of the fire and being able to melt things into place / creating hammers and other tools that are necessary to work the forge. But, it had to be done once long ago so it can be done again right? The trick to this at least to the best of my knowledge is to start rough, just like prototype concepts. You don't need a strong anvil at first, you just need something that will do the job at the best that it can do to build your poorly crafted tools. We've watched the Flintstones right? They used to use a rock and a piece of stick as a hammer. I honestly don't know if that's even remotely possible without the hammer breaking at every hit, but the idea is similar. You have to work your way up to higher technologies.

But, working a forge is great and all but you'll need a lot of other, more important things for survival like having a table, a bed, a roof, a place to store food / meat, comfort, etc... Humans need comfort and if you don't address that early on, you might go crazy.

So now I go on to #2) Which is if you do have access to metal, and modern technology. This is the most likely scenario in survival because honestly what happens in survival? It depends entirely on what scenario it is but say for some reason or another everyone is fighting for food and such, there's going to be no chance of survival even in the back woods if you don't make use of modern technology because someone else will. People will begin going door to door and steal everything they can to survive. But I think in most of our minds, we like to believe that survival will end up like in the middle-ages, but deep down we know that won't be the case. In a more realistic scenario we'll probably be waiting until radiation kills us slowly. lol

reply to post by Em2013

Thanks for taking the time to post your thoughts. The problem of radiation is definitely one of my primary concerns. All the skills and knowledge I possess become useless if the area I live in becomes contaminated(and that does seem to be a likely scenario). I have an almost unlimited supply of raw materials at my disposal(I can even make my own cement). Dealing with radiation might be beyond the scope of my abilities.