hobo tech

HOBO TECH


A comment was made from a loyal minion about a site where a homeless guy was preaching about making do and not buying new. Since, once you lost a junk item you just make another out of junk but if you buy new and lose it you must buy new again. Of course this is a great point, and I’m all for improvising and jerry-rigging ( in less refined circles this would be referred to as Afro-American Engineering ). Alas, as I can never ever never leave sleeping dogs lay, I must caution against taking this too far. But first, since it is always about little ‘ol me, my latest jerry-rigging adventure.

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You all know my trials and tribulations on the earth tube. I was far from satisfied with its performance. Granted, testing it on the hottest days of summer wasn’t really fair, and it might be a much better heater than a cooler, but since I was getting better performance before it was hooked up it was hard to be optimistic. My primary response was not, crap, what a waste on time and money. No, it was, thank god I didn’t pay a back hoe to do the digging or I really would have been screwed. But I couldn’t just let it stand. I wanted some kind of satisfaction. And, lo and behold, it came to me. Could I have done it wrong? Yes, it was true that sealing up the trailer and opening a vent at the highest point in the trailer drew the air through the pipe. But it didn’t draw enough. So, I reread the section on the pipe in the “How To Live Without Electricity And Like It”. The air intake pipe end should be above the elevation of the pipe opening in the trailer. Then you don’t need to seal up the trailer, it draws air in regardless, and I could open the vents at night to let in the colder air. Luckily I had all the materials. An extra piece of pipe was left, but no couplings, so I cut away vertically half the pipe sticking out of the ground and squeezed the sides inward as I beat on the top of the extra pipe to force it down. No, it isn’t a great idea since I could have damaged the L coupling four feet down, but at this point with zero effective performance it was worth the risk. The hole left where they joined ( about the size of a quarter ) was sealed by a piece of pipe and duct taped in place. I then dumped a butt load of dirt around the pipe sticking up and packed it down to support the pipe ( the winds are usually brisk ). I have about two feet mound of dirt holding it up. At the top I cut away a side section, taped a screen over it and then placed a poly five gallon bucket upside down over it to keep out the rain. The handle hanging down is zip tied and duct taped holding the bucket rigid. I then used my last two cans of dollar paint to cover the pipe ( left over from my wood trap door projects from the skirting and covered pit ) to avoid sun damage. It looks incredibly ghetto, but I’m not trying to impress any neighbors ( I believe that Elko county has an unofficial ordinance that all yards must have at least two derelict cars in them ). Of course, I also now have a big “tax me more” sign sticking up.

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That was last night. I might or might not test it out today. If I forgot to close all the vents it will kind of be hard to see how well/poorly it is working ( I know I closed the bathroom vent but I can’t remember if I closed the other two ). As soon as I installed the extra length of pipe I felt the air flow increase substantially ( keeping in mind of course that it was practically zero to start, so this is comparatively better but still in the “sloth pace” category ). You know I’ll keep you updated. My point is that I love to fix things for free. Improvising has a great deal of satisfaction behind it. But, you need to keep in mind that this is all a frugal exercise, not a sustainable one. Just as the minion advocating a suppressed rimfire wasn’t thinking of sustainable ammunition ( they were talking more about the bow ), hobos building with junk are also not looking far enough into the future. I have to go with Greer here, and declare that living off Industrial Societies junk is a dangerous long term course. It is great short term, because a beat up old aluminum can is a much better drinking cup than a lumpy unglazed pottery piece. Steel girders from a building are easier than traveling three hundred miles to cut down a suitable sized tree. But relying on junk is just as bad as relying on oil. In the long term, after just a few generations, it is gone and all your skills and infrastructure was built on an unsustainable source of supply.

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Junk is great but you need to always plan for its demise in supply. For instance, if you can get a flintlock industry going ( there is a great book coming out on a new and improved Ferguson rifle- the breech loader- that allows you to do away with the four or five shot fouling problem. It is about the rifles inventor but should contain the ball/barrel dimensions/other rate of twist that is a better design than commonly thought. Go e-mail and pester them to print the bitch. Mention where you heard this so I get all the credit. http://www.everyinsultandindignity.com/ ). You aren’t going to go mine the ore. More than likely you’ll just recycle steel from this last centuries junk. But you will also need to keep an ore and fuel supply area in mind. Occupy and exploit. There used to be a web site, Anthro-something or other, that discussed in depth the issue of “mining” steel junk. Worthless after rusting?, etc. They aren’t there anymore. A shame I never saved the articles. They knew you had to be sustainable rather than just a scavenger. Going back to the hobo example which was concerned with a junk can stove originally, you could always substitute junk cans with a Dakota hole, for instance. But what about the metal pot/pan? This might not be our generations worry, running out of junk post apocalypse, but you shouldn’t leave your kids or grandchildren a diminishing asset legacy.

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My e-mail is jimd303@netzero.com
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