Outdoor Life Prepare for Anything Survival Manual (42 page)

Whether serving as a small light source or powering an improvised camping stove, those cans of Sterno are a great resource. With a few household ingredients, you can make your own by creating a substance that binds with alcohol to make a gel.

STEP 1
Crush your antacid tablets into fine powder. (You can substitute crushed eggshells, powdered gardener’s lime, or calcium supplements.)

STEP 2
Add vinegar to the powder, about 2 teaspoons (10 ml) per tablet, and stir the mixture together until the powder dissolves and the fizzing stops. Allow it to dry overnight and thicken into a slurry; its volume will shrink by half.

STEP 3
Measure out an amount of alcohol about twice the volume of the slurry, and stir in slowly and thoroughly, a bit at a time. The mixture will thicken into a jelly.

STEP 4
Collect into a container and seal it airtight to avoid any alcohol evaporation. When needed, you can open the container and light the material (after placing into a fireproof vessel, if needed).

Need a light? You don’t necessarily have to fill up a lantern with gas, petroleum, or paraffin oil; you don’t even need a specially built lantern. People have been lighting their way with lamps for millennia, fueled by oils from plants (most notably, olive oil). All you need is a sturdy container, a fuel source, and a wick to draw it up.

STEP 1
Get a jar or bottle to hold your fuel. (You can even use the container that holds your olive oil.) Puncture a hole through the lid to hold your wick, and make one more hole to avoid a vacuum effect when the wick burns later.

STEP 2
Acquire a wick (you can find various sizes in craft stores), or make your own from an absorbent cotton or linen cord. You can also cut a long, thin strip from an article of clothing.

STEP 3
Soak the wick in a mixture of 1 tablespoon (15 g) salt per 8 ounces (230 ml) water, which will help keep the wick from charring. Gently wring out the wick and dry overnight.

STEP 4
Fill your container with whatever oil you’re using as fuel. You can use olive oil, paraffin lamp oil, vegetable oil, or even used cooking oil. Pure olive oil or paraffin burns the most cleanly, with the least smoke, while other vegetable oil types will smoke more. Dip the wick into the oil to soak it, and then feed it through the opening on the lid. Screw the lid on firmly.

STEP 5
Pull up between 1/4 inch (6 mm) and 1/2 inch (12 mm) of wick and light it. As the oil burns, more should be drawn up through the wick, assisted by air flow through the second hole, and continue feeding the lamp.

An ideal emergency light source, candles can be stored for years at a time, and aside from whatever part is melted while lit, their fuel cannot be spilled. There are plenty of substances that can be used for the body of the candle: the remnants of other candles, beeswax, paraffin, or tallow (a solid, whitish animal fat). You can even use lard like the kind found in bacon or cooking grease, although it is softer and will need to stay in a container. To make candles, all you really need is the wax, a heat source, a container, and a wick. There are two main methods to making candles:

DIPPING
This method starts with a long wick dipped into a container of hot, liquid wax (either in a special heater or a double boiler—such as a pot full of wax in a larger pot filled with hot water). Layers of wax are built up around the wick with each successive dipping, creating a broader, heavier candle as you go.

MOLDING
A container is used to hold this sort of candle—a jar, can, or similar container (sometimes disposable, like votive candles in small aluminum cups)—or a mold that can be reused or discarded (such as a paper cup). You can tie the end of the wick around a stick and let it hang down into the mold while it is filled with wax, or drill a hole into the wax after pouring, and thread the wick into it.

When the lights go out and your appliances stop working, you can of course resort to a gas-powered generator. But if you’re short on fuel, or don’t have solar power as a fallback, you can gather a few spare parts and create a power supply fueled by your muscles instead.

At a steady pace, your average bicyclist could pedal out between 120 and 300 watts of power in a 20-minute session on this generator. Your typical 12-volt car battery holds up to 500 watts, so you could fully charge it (and get some serious cardio, too) with a little time on the bike.

Most small household appliances don’t draw a lot of power. Your laptop runs on 50 watts, so 20 minutes of cycling will run it for almost an hour. Lightbulbs start at 25 watts, but LEDs and fluorescents have a base of 5 watts—and give 21/2 hours of light! Your morning coffeemaker needs about 130 watts to brew you a full pot in 10 minutes. Consider the wide range of your power needs, and make sure your battery can handle several recharges.

STEP 1
Measure and cut two 4x4 posts of equal length, tall enough to keep the back wheel of your bicycle at least a couple of inches off the ground when its axle is rested on top of the posts. Cut grooves into the posts for the axles to rest on.

STEP 2
Fasten the posts onto the plank with screws through their undersides, leaving enough space between them to accommodate the bike’s frame.

STEP 3
Remove the bicycle’s back tire, and replace it with the drive belt. Set the bike’s rear axle on top of the posts and secure in place with metal brackets.

STEP 4
Attach the 12-volt motor to the plank (add brackets if the motor has none), in line with the bicycle’s rear wheel, and wrap the drive belt around the motor’s axle. Make sure the drive belt has no slack.

STEP 5
Attach electrical wire between the negative terminal of the motor and the 12-volt battery, then connect the battery to the inverter’s negative terminal.

STEP 6
Run wire from the motor’s positive terminal to the anode end of the diode. Connect another length of wire from the diode’s cathode end to the battery’s positive terminal, and wire the battery to the inverter’s positive terminal.

STEP 7
Plug in your appliance to the inverter, climb on your bike, and pedal away.