Posts tagged primitive-tools
An example of the earthen material I have in mind, this video shows some daub prepared for a wattle-and-daub house at timestamp 7:45: https://youtu.be/wPWLlVVVDN0 Cob, cobb or clom (in Wales) i...
Sometimes natural building techniques just aren't suited for a certain environment. For example, an exposed cob oven in vermont vs. a stone oven would turn out very differently, the cob falling apa...
Cedar is a great example of a log that makes a good log cabin foundation. Solid and naturally rot resistant. Are there other species' logs suitable as foundations in northeast USA? Rocks can also b...
According to Wikipedia, slingshots did not exist prior to the invention of vulcanized rubber. Slingshots depend on strong elastic materials, typically vulcanized natural rubber or the equivalen...
I'm exploring primitive shelter building in northern cool temperate climates. I mean primitive as a compliment: the prime, first, original, indigenous, low-tech/base-tech. Things like the Haudenosa...
What are uses for red spruce (picea rubens) by humans in wilderness settings (e.g. in primitive technologies, bushcraft, wilderness survival, low-tech rural livelihoods, frontier homesteading)? Whi...
Context: Rope, aka cordage, is useful in many bushcraft projects. Cordage can be useful to hang things up, and it is particularly valuable in constructing tools (e.g. bow drills for fire making, m...
I have some obsidian and I know that it can be made into knives and other sharp objects such as arrowheads. Historically this was done for a long time in the United States before there were steel b...
We carry a flint and steel instead of lighters to light our camp stoves when backpacking because the flint and steel always works and weighs very little. One of our routine camp activities is to t...
If I am in a survival situation with a knife as my only cutting implement, and I need an axe to chop trees (because I know burning through them is not practical) how would I make one? What attri...
Hematite is one of the more common ores for smelting iron, but as illustrated in the comments from this question—the answers to which focus on the processing of iron—there are apparently other sour...
How do you smelt and forge iron sources from & in the wilderness? People must have started somewhere with this sort of thing! I once saw a video from a primitive technology practitioner on Yo...
