I've been thinking about tools lately. Usually you see topics about "what gun" for shtf but what about tools?
Last weekend I restored a pick axe and I bought a farm jack.
I don't need either but I figure digging tools are always useful even in normal times and I was thinking that a general purpose farm jack would be really really good to have in a natural disaster like an earthquake.
Anyway, what are some of the lesser thought about tools that would be good to have around?
Odds are very good that repairs to your bug in/out location will be needed, or critical. And checking Angie's list will probably NOT be an option at the time!
Basic construction gear - unpowered - is a must! Hammer, saw, nails, tarps, plastics, a few 2x4's and some plywood are always in style.
Axe (NOT chainsaw!), shovels, etc….
Way more important than another AR or Russian shotgun. Hard to make a latrine without a shovel!
Aceman makes an excellent point, and don't forget some gardening tools. A "come along" can be very useful for moving things as well as some 5 gallon buckets. If you have gutters, a hacksaw can be used to alter your downspout for water collection. Wire cutters/stripper can be useful for minor electrical repairs.
Please tell us more. How long have you lived with just those three things? Did you ever wish you had hand drills, hammers, chisels, picks, shovels, various saws or other tools? While living with only those three things were there hot babes saying "I need you to be my man when the SHTF? :breastfed:
Most of us have seen the PBS show about the guy who built a cabin in Alaska. I think he had a few more tools.
Axes (and more so hatchets) can truly be a life-saver BUT one must be taught how to properly use each.
It may sound simple but in the last 40+ years, I have seen (firsthand) the results of accidents by folks who should have never hefted either in the first place.
That deep laceration through your instep may cost you much more than simply your boot, especially in a true SHTF scenario.
Yes well we all can't be ax experts, a SHTF situation would require learning a great many new survival skills in short order, some more dangerous than others but all necessary such as first aid.
Odds are very good that repairs to your bug in/out location will be needed, or critical. And checking Angie's list will probably NOT be an option at the time!
Basic construction gear - unpowered - is a must! Hammer, saw, nails, tarps, plastics, a few 2x4's and some plywood are always in style.
Axe (NOT chainsaw!), shovels, etc….
Way more important than another AR or Russian shotgun. Hard to make a latrine without a shovel!
I like the choices. Now here is a preparation that can be done now with the handled tools. If you use bare hands with a hoe/rake/shovel/pick/axe/hatchet/hammer you will run the risk of blisters.
You can address that right now. Wrap the wood handle with good tape. Then, put a second layer on consisting of tennis racket tape. Of course, if you prefer wearing a pair of gloves when it is humid or 100 degrees, it is a poor second choice.
I think you're wiser to acquire the proper tools now and take good care of them so that you're not relying on a tool that's does three things but isn't really great at doing any of them!
A basic mig welder. Have used it to repair a few garden tools this year. Mostly my shovel. Our ground us extremely rocky.
A come along can be invaluable in many many ways. Some good rope is a goid idea too. Learn a few basic rigging knots, otherwise you may never be able to untie the knots after.
A good drill, preferably with an adjustable clutch. I have almost half of that. Got a $20 plug in from harbor freight 3 years ago. Still goes strong, but it has no middle ground. It's either off, or 100%. Very easy to strip screws if im not careful.
Get a few boxs of 1 1/2" - 2 1/2" square drive wood screws, and at least a dozen bits.
Hands saws, hack saws, coping saw. Wood and metal files.
I have had a lot of luck with basic hand tools from harbor freight. Maybe 30% failure for anything electric. Worth a trip.
A few years ago, a medical condition caused me to be housebound for a while. So, I went on eBay and other sites and purchased hand tools (drills/braces/saws and even a hand operated manual grind stone) that my dad would have used as a kid before lithium battery powered tools. Restored them and boxed them after lubricating. Remember, when shtf, you might not know when the electricity is going to become available again.
Oh, my girlfriend's son borrowed my brand new chainsaw a couple of years ago for a job, is still using it! Hope I get it back one day. He flips houses for a living. Based upon the thievery in the construction business, it would behoove you to lay in a few manual tools if you expect people to do work on your home. Ditto for car repair tools.
So many things can be battery powered these days. Yes in a long-term SHTF recharging may be a problem but frankly that would be really far down my list of things-to-worry-about.
For starters: You buy the tools you use and use the tools you buy...
Owning a chainsaw for SHTF is kinda goofy if you have never actually used a chainsaw. Forget the steep learning curve...If you have never used a chainsaw before but all of a sudden decide its SHTF time and by golly...I'ma gunna use it! Good luck with that and hope you keep your arms and legs attached. That's not exactly the time to take up the sport of chainsawing especially since you probably don't have a gallon of oil/gas mix ready to go either...
If you aren't really the guy who cuts a couple of cords of wood every year you really should leave chainsawing to folks who know how to do it.
For the fella who mentioned a MIG welder...what if there's no 'tricity? Maybe you would be better off learning to gas weld with an oxy-acet torch? Just sayin...
People who think they are going to go hunt to survive a SHTF scenario are deluded. First off--every ******* with a gun and an ATV within 300 miles of your house has the EXACT same idea...how long do you think it takes to shoot out the game in an area? Pretty damn fast! Secondly, exactly WHERE do you intend to do all this hunting and how do you intend to get there? I mean. I would bet there's more than a few landowners who might have a problem with you tramping across their farm shooting up game out of season! Ohhhhh...you are going to the public land....yeah, again, like nobody else ever thought of that! Next--trapping! C'mon. Most people wouldn't know a game trail if the were walking in the middle of one. And again...where do you intend to do this and how do you intend to get there?
Farming? Yeah...that's something you just pick up and do just like hunting!
Or you have missed the point. And that point doesn't disagree with what you're saying but rather expands on how much more is involved in long term survival. And, as the OP questioned, how tools play a part.
Or you have missed the point. And that point doesn't disagree with what you're saying but rather expands on how much more is involved in long term survival. And, as the OP questioned, how tools play a part.
What Canterbury said was very realistic.. I don't think he was suggesting that a city with a population of 200,000 people were going to live off of trapping in the woods. I think he was speaking to skills needed in general for primitive survival. What he said was correct and what he said about skills vs firearms, was correct in my estimation. Outside of a warzone, survival issues rarely come down to combat and although criminal violence can be a real threat worth mitigating, .. what Dave said is simply common sense over Ramboism. I don't agree with everything he says but the guy knows what he is talking about and he lives what he preaches.
The guy talks out his butt on stuff. I've killed over 80 head of big game. I know how to shoot a deer and have done so at ranges out to 350 yards. That may not be everyone. But he acts like its some magic feat to kill a deer at 50 yards with a rifle. Its not. This is all a moot point anyhow. You won't be hunting game in a SHTF scenario. It will be shot out. You will trespass and get shot at. You have to get back and forth from you shelter to the place you hunt. If your plan is to establish a home in the woods the deer will leave the immediate area and you will still have to travel to where they are now. Which means you abandon your camp, supplies, etc... There are simply too many logisitcs to make it work.
Here's why its simply not going to happen. In my home state the deer herd is estimated at around 750,000-800,000 animals. There are approximatley 125,000 animals harvested every season, 70% of which are killed during the 2 week modern gun season... Got that? 16% of the total herd killed in REGULATED hunting in 2 weeks time. There are 6 million people in KY. You don't have to be a genius to understand the deer will be shot out for food in less than 2 months in a SHTF situation. Gone... Done... Squirrels, Rabbits,...you name it. Shot out.
You think you will preserve the game you shoot? Where will you get the 10-15 pounds of salt you'll need to jerk a deer carcass? I'll tell you what Daniel Boone and other Frontiersmen did...they went to a natural salt spring with bushel baskets and a big cast iron kettle strapped on the back of a mule and cut firewood for 2 weeks to boil down the brine until it formed salt crystals... You going to travel a 150 miles to a salt spring and cut wood for 2 weeks for 80 pounds of salt to last a year? Don't make me laugh... Again, read the Journals of Lewis and Clark. See if I'm full of crap. See what the journals say the men did all Winter long at Fort Clatsup on the Pacific Ocean. They boiled sea water to make salt ALL WINTER LONG and ate 8-10 pounds of elk every day (and still lost weight--I guess the Atkins diet works!)... They ended up trading guns and tools to the Indians in exchange for vegetables... And they still looked like concentration camp victims when they got back home.
Brother.. I live in rural America. There are plenty of people off grid and who go to town perhaps once a year to purchase repair parts to machinery. These people grow, hunt and trap along with their extended families who do the same and have for generations.
If you are suggesting that if a person was dropped off into the Alaskan wilderness with some tools and nothing else- would probably find themselves in a heap of trouble, I agree. That is not what this discussion is about. Its not 1600 or 1800, there are no hostile Indians and we have an abundance of self sustaining technology already in place.
Would things be hard.. sure. Will I give into despair over the thought of it or disparage someone elses desire to be better prepared for a crisis?... nope
Brother.. I live in rural America. There are plenty of people off grid and who go to town perhaps once a year to purchase repair parts to machinery. These people grow, hunt and trap along with their extended families who do the same and have for generations.
If you are suggesting that if a person was dropped off into the Alaskan wilderness with some tools and nothing else- would probably find themselves in a heap of trouble, I agree. That is not what this discussion is about. Its not 1600 or 1800, there are no hostile Indians and we have an abundance of self sustaining technology already in place.
Would things be hard.. sure. Will I give into despair over the thought of it or disparage someone elses desire to be better prepared for a crisis?... nope
You might think you can "Country Boy can Survive" your way through something like this but you won't. Again, hunt or trap what? You are not arguing with me you are arguing with simple math and logic. There won't be any game to shoot.
You don't have what you need to preserve it. You have a couple hundred pounds of curing salt on hand? Have you ever even put up a country ham or cured and smoked a side of bacon? Or is your plan to freeze it in your electricity-less freezer.
Or maybe you are one of those people who will learn how to can things when you don't own two cases of canning jars to your name.
Who's gonna watch the house while you are out running the trap line?
See I've lived this kind of thing before. In the Army...we lived in tents for 6 months in the desert at a stretch. Do you know what one of our biggest logistical challenges was? It wasn't bullets, or fuel, or anything you can imagine. It was water. Keeping people supplied with more than 2 days of water was nearly impossible. You can't carry it. You can't store it. You can't make it. You want to shut an Army down in the field quickly? ...destroy its water supply capabilities. When the 101st went out on a mission do you know what the number one loadout concern for the planners was? Should the soldiers carry an extra bottle of water or an extra magazine?
Laugh all you want. I've lived it. I worked the problem in some really nasty places for a dozen or hundreds of people not for days or weeks on end but years of experience. Screw up the water and its game over. A friggin bow saw and some ferro rods won't fix it.
Again, the focus is wrong. How many people will listen to him and say...gee I better get me a bow saw and some ferro rods. When they really should be saying something like...I have enough storage capacity in my garage to store 500 gallons of potable water. I have a filtration system than can make 5-8 gallons an hour of safe drinking water. My plan to source the water is from...a pond, collection barrels off my gutters, etc etc etc.
I'll guarantee you 99% of the people there will can't answer the most basic survival need of water. I've set it up and tested it for a week, used the water we made and I had a problem with...X I need to find a source if used plastic 30 gallon barrels at $15 a barrel. etc etc etc. Instead of I need to buy a bow saw....forget the fact that you have never in your life needed or used a bow saw up until that point...
Focus on the important things....bow saws, axes, ferro rods, wire snares are all distractions that won't save your ass. Clean water will save your ass.
You don't need a bow saw or an axe to make a shelter. I used to teach wilderness survival...I've spend many many nights with nothing more than the clothes on my back, a canteen and a knife. You can build a great shelter with nothing more than a knife. I've probably trained over a hundred people to do it. We made fire without matches, lighters or ferro rods... trust me...it can be done. You can die quickly if you don't have clean water. In hot weather it can kill you in a few hours. How will you avoid heat stroke building your shelter with your axe and your bow saw...when you don't have water?
A lot depends on ones level of need.We have 30+ years of stored and renewable food without leaving either home.Heat/water/garden and fuel,both wood and diesel.We have med/vet folks,we have meat rabbits/fowl.Some folk spend money on tvs and fancy vacations.We just got 800lbs of dry goods.We also have a barter community up and running.Some folk figure they are responsible to take care of family and do so.
We produce our own vinegar/wine/mead and have a means to trade for bio-diesel.I started my preps in the 80s,my wife is on board.There are folk that don't believe in living off "game",we won't havta.'08.
Do you use your own alcohol to make vinegar? White, or....?
The basic white vinegar seemed like a lot of work to do myself when it's about $2 a gallon at the store.
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