Ron Brown - Member - The Prepared

Reply to: How to start a fire Posted January 28, 2021

Ah! Caught in the act! The Azerbaijani Lady’s husband is shown here, quite clearly starting a fire with kero-soaked rag. (Of course he’s not too handy with matches LOL.) But the soaked-rag technique is shown up close and personal. See 7:35 to 8:35. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ecEq0fVwAW4 To me, the question at hand is this. What do you need most? A fire? Or to parade your primitive skills? If it’s a fire you need, then a patch of cloth soaked in, or sprayed with, a flammable or combustible liquid is the most efficient way to get the job done.

Reply to: What car flashlights and associated batteries do you use? Posted January 12, 2021

The Maglite Solitaire AAA (both the old and the new LED version) has a feature that is, to me, priceless. To turn it on or off you must screw out or screw in the head end of the flashlight. It just never comes on accidentally and runs down the battery without you being aware (as just about all other lights do). Story Time. Some years ago I wrote a brief article describing the Maglite Solitaire AAA and read it to my writer’s club. Afterwards, one of the members stood up, raised an eyebrow, and proclaimed, “Well, THIS is what I use.” Whereupon he pulled a small flashlight from his pocket that was dead as a doornail. I tried not to laugh. I really did.

Reply to: How to start a fire Posted January 12, 2021

Hi Rich. Thanks for the questions. “Kinds of firewood” is a long ways off from the topic of starting a fire but it’s worth a quick answer. “Hardwood” consists of deciduous trees (with leaves). Examples are oak, maple, birch, and ash. Hickory (that baseball bats are made from) was the ultimate hardwood-cum-firewood but is nearly extinct. “Softwoods” come from trees with needles and include pine, hemlock, and cedar. Hardwoods are more dense that softwoods and make better firewood. A quick Google search will provide you with a long evening of reading entertainment. How best to preserve the glowing coals mixed in with the ashes? I wish I knew. The fact that the coals are hot and glowing means that combustion is ongoing. If you uncover the coals, thereby exposing them to more air, then the rate of combustion increases and the coals burn out faster. But if you remove all oxygen (by sealing the glowing coals in an empty paint can, say) then combustion stops completely and the coals die even faster. No kerosene laying around? Hmm. Personally I do go into the winter with a bunch of rags (torn up so they are 1/4 the size of a washcloth) that I refer to as kerosene rags. But they’re not all kerosene. Over the months, I save up all kinds of unwanted combustible liquid — kerosene, paint thinner, mineral oil, turpentine, etc. Stuff I’ve used to wash out paint brushes or wash my hands or wipe down machinery. The one thing these materials have in common is that they will burn. So I soak my rags in this Magic Solution and store them in empty metal paint cans with metal lids (mostly pint size) until needed. I handle the soaked rags with needlenose pliers and, after starting a fire, wash my hands with soap and water to remove any smell. (And no, BTW, kerosene does not “go bad.”) After all that, please note that if you do “color outside the lines” so to speak — by playing with fire or playing with firearms — then you must take responsibility for your own actions. Hope this answers your questions.

How to start a fire

Skills 7

7

Posted January 11, 2021

Reply to: What car flashlights and associated batteries do you use? Posted January 10, 2021

Here’s my el cheapo jerry-rigged solution for emergency lighting on the road. It hopefully solves the problem of a forgotten flashlight battery running down; as long as there’s juice in the car battery you’ll have light. Here we see, first, a male cigarette-lighter terminal wired to a male extension-cord terminal. Then we see an LED 1156 backup-light bulb (designed for 12-volt automobile use) wed to the female end of a conventional extension cord. If desired, we can add a long extension cord between the two sections and walk around outside the car with it. This will give light with which to change a tire, read a map, change a bandage, etc. You can use a salvaged a bulb; you don’t have to buy new. Note that I’ve soldered the wires to the base of the bulb. It works.

Reply to: Emergency lighting Posted January 10, 2021

That’s an interesting story, hikermor. Personally, I doubt there’s a one-size-fits-all solution to the lighting issue. If you live in Dallas or Phoenix with the sun beating down on your car in the parking lot to the point you burn your hand on the seat-belt buckle, then, yes, solar energy represents free power. And a lot of it. But if you live where I do in the cloudy, overcast Northeast, where a solar charger will not charge a flashlight battery even after a week or two of setting in the front window, then solar power is something less than thrilling. If you are financially strapped, a vegetable-oil lamp with its candle-size flame costs less than a penny per hour to operate. And a single-cell D-cell flashlight also costs less than a penny per hour to operate. Tough to beat. For comparison, the run rate for a propane camping lantern is almost 50 cents an hour. It all depends on your circumstances. If you’re toiling in the back yard at midnight, splitting firewood or butchering a cow, then a Petromax lantern fueled by kerosene and outputting 400 watts-worth of light might be your lantern of choice.

Reply to: Emergency lighting Posted January 9, 2021

Gideon, you pose four issues. First is the smell of canola oil versus olive oil. I grant you that rancid oil of whatever flavor smells bad while burning but, aside from that, all vegetable oils, including canola, have very little smell when burning. They all smolder and stink, however, when you blow them out. The way to stop the smoldering is to pour a spoonful of oil over the flame. It shuts off all oxygen and puts out the flame INSTANTLY. Second, have I tried coconut oil? Yes. It works very well. It’s similar to other cooking oils — corn oil, grape seed oil, olive oil, sesame oil, sunflower oil, peanut oil, the oil that tuna fish comes packed in, etc. I’ve tried everything I could get my hands on. Coconut oil solidifies at 75°F so it really should be grouped with the semi-solid fats discussed next. Third, you say, “Butter and animal fat can also . . . double as an emergency candle (though I haven’t tried it).” I have tried it. Lamps that burn semi-solid fats are named fat lamps. They’re also called Betty lamps, Dutch lamps, stone lamps, grease lamps, slot lamps, and crusies. I’ve made fat lamps and used them to burn butter, margarine, lard, Crisco, bacon grease, and Vasoline. The only thing on that list that doesn’t work well is bacon grease. It sputters. And ghee? Yes, I have close friends that are Indian (from India). They cook with ghee and eat ghee every day. I’ve purchased ghee and made ghee and burned it in lamps. It works. Please know that my lighting books, from candles to pressure lanterns, are not armchair science. They are based on first-hand experimentation, up close and personal. The beauty of the scientific method is that you don’t have to take my word for anything. You can repeat what I did, see the results, and judge for yourself.

Reply to: Emergency lighting Posted January 8, 2021

Alisa, thanks for your interest. What you’ve shown in the picture is a wick-fed kerosene lamp with a reflector behind it. These lamps give off light on par with a 7.5-watt light bulb. Vegetable-oil lamps give off less than that — a candle-sized flame. And so mirrors would be even more helpful. Another tip with a vegetable-oil lamp is to use a clear glass bowl (a Pyrex custard dish, for example) rather than an opaque tuna can. You want as much light as possible to escape the lamp and get out into the room. Then set a flat mirror under the lamp aimed upwards at the ceiling in addition to a reflector behind the lamp. No mirror? Use aluminum foil. Every little bit helps. Let’s hope we never have to do this, eh?

Reply to: Emergency lighting Posted January 8, 2021

‘Tis better to light one candle than to curse the darkness.

Emergency lighting

Advice 11

16

Posted January 7, 2021

Reply to: Best survival and prepper books Posted January 6, 2021

Yes, I am the same Ron Brown. How would I go about writing and/or sharing an article on The Prepared? To whom would I submit it?

Reply to: Best survival and prepper books Posted December 29, 2020

Thanks for providing a very worthwhile list of prepping books. Happy to say I already own several of them. I see an update is planned. Would you consider “The Non-Electric Lighting Series” for inclusion? https://www.amazon.com/s?k=%22The+non-electric+lighting+series%22&i=stripbooks&ref=nb_sb_noss There are 8 books in the series. Each one covers a different topic (candles, Coleman lanterns, etc.). The books range in length from 50 to 150 pages. All are available in paper as well as Kindle ebook format. Reader feedback is impressive: “I learned more about kerosene pressure lanterns in 30 minutes with this book than anyone ever told me and more than I’d learned in hours of watching YouTube.” — totallyfrozen