What have done towards your prep?

[Straight Shooter]

I have a dynamo off a morry 1000....need a regulator though ....given me by John the farm....will get a regulator off ebay ....ok men what do i need to do next ? .....checking ebay now !

[Straight Shooter]

Okay men i have the regulator coming Wednesday .

[Mortblanc]

First thing to do is start a new thread specific to this project in the proper section so we can ramble on for the appropriate hours in that spot.

My own setup was simple, a GM brand 1980s era alternator cross-wired so it would charge from the first spin and a set of jumper cables wired to the alternator and hooked to whatever battery I had in use.

I had the generator bolted to a brace I installed by the grass outlet on the mower deck. A big wooden pulley wheel made from plywood replaced the mower blade and the V belt ran from wooden wheel to alternator wheel. I used the mower deck so it would be highly portable and I could roll it in and out of the shop.

I swapped batteries out often and did not want a permanent wiring setup. From there I had an inverter bolted to a two wheeled dolly so I could set the battery on the dolly platform and roll it about. I also had 12V running down the center wall of the cabin and ran directly off the battery for some applications. I stole the idea/system from a caravan.

I found that it was much easier to charge the battery at work ad plug the house into the caravan wiring on the truck!

As for the cycle dynamo, I may try that! I am on a cycle exercise program now and I could put a pretty good charge on a battery during my daily hour of peddling. We can even get 12V wheel charged bike systems over here.

[Straight Shooter]

Good idea MB....... dedicated thread.

[Straight Shooter]

Yesterday morning ,got the beast out (power barrow ) and filled with split firewood done 15 loads and stacked out in the drying shed, i logged up and did 8 loads of log ready to split and moved them to the lower shed so i can split undercover (where i normally do ) because the tractor and trailer unit could not get to the sheds forced me to log and split at the top of the drive , but now with obstructions removed in the week access is now sorted.

Snow again and very cold high winds will slow me up this week, so its time to revisit my stores in the storeroom, the lesson i have learnt (the hard way) over the last seven odd years is regular inspections are crucial ...i had a quick look this morning and found MORE evidence of tinned food degrading ....i will give this my full attention this coming week ....i will check EVERYTHING...... today Sunday lunch was cooked on the wood stove ....beef stew and dumplings along with home made crusty bread uummm living the high life here in (Y) front cottage .

[Pete Grey]

Took some bits and pieces down to a local charity shop the other day, had a good look around, among the books were a couple of school textbooks.

Also this week i stocked up on A4 refil pads, graph paper, pencils, pens, ink, 2 geometry sets and a couple of rolls of lining paper (for use with my tee square and drawing board) put them all together with my old set of logarithm tables and my old slide rule.

These will not be of use to me and mine, but may be of use to someone rebuilding society after a total collapse, (but really hope i have just wasted a little money).

[Pete Grey]

By the way SS our Sunday lunch was pork chops cooked in a slow cooker with onions and cider, served with new potatoes and beans (from last year), enough for 3 servings so 2 in freezer.

[Straight Shooter]

Sounds good to me Pete ! btw we use our slow cooker all the time , the first thing visitors say " oh whats that lovely smell" ......
wild child has always got something on the go, i consider myself very lucky ....none of your dinners in a plastic boxes here ...everything done from scratch in these here parts.... this is probably one of the main reasons i am so incredibly good looking
i don't think i have ever mentioned this before ? .

[Straight Shooter]

Up at 6 pm ...into the storeroom i go, i remove six barrel kegs to get at the shelves holding the canned food , i take out and bag up 62 tins .......chopped tomatoes, carrots, baked beans,sardines, peas,red kidney beans, pickled onions,pickled eggs,red and green tomato chutney and some green /black olives ......i load the bags and i dump them in the council recycling yard.....there will be more !....i get home and check the six kegs, i open and remove everything inside ....all okay except two sardine tins everything looks very good....i have ten plastic dust bins and twenty 10 ltr plastic pails with clip on lids not counting plastic box containers.... twenty eight of different sizes to go...its been cold here today been back and forth having a warm and a cuppa all day ......i pull one dust bin off the shelf only to find a leak in the roof right on the corner ....i inspect outside a branch off a nearby oak has come down in the winds and damaged the roof ....could not see it (the bin was in the way ) i decide to call it a day ...its to bloody cold for the roof repair (fibre glass) .

So lets take a look where am i going wrong (this is a ongoing reoccurring problem) .....open timber shelves tins stacked three high with cardboard between layers .....some tins (lower bottom) rotted through brown stains a few empty tins ....checking dates 2014 umm so why are not all effected ...same date ?

The storeroom faces north (by design) its insulated floor ,roof,and all sides .......its cold...VENTILATION ? i did add more vents some months back.....but i think it may need more or forced ventilation one side on a timer......NEWBIES NOTE when you start your preps DO not do what i did with tinned food .....buy lots of it ....cheap....from Aldi's only to throw it out later just like i'm doing two things here.....false economy and false hope ! beware ! .....should i have put tins into a plastic keg or box ? well lets see what the boys and girls say ! ....on the up side tins of Ham, Spam, corned beef appear to be doing well along with steak n kidney pies (Fray Bentos) and although honey has crystallised this is perfectly fine and expected zero problems there.....onwards tomorrow.

[Mortblanc]

With no climate control tins are going to expand and contract and eventually split. That is simply a function of physics.

Even with even controlled temps and a good roof I have to check my stores of tinned food constantly to watch for rust. Stored in a shed with a leaky roof I would expect rust to ruin tins within a couple of months.

The problem is not how you stacked the tins, it is WHERE you stacked the tins.

My greatest problem with tinned foods is the breakdown of the plastic liner inside the tin. I have opened soups to find bits of plastic floating in the contents where the liner had decomposed. That was with major brands too, not the cheap tinned stuff.

I no longer store soups. Besides, they are "death in a can" if one checks the contents and nutrition info on the label. Probably would not matter in a crisis and all the salt, sugar and empty carbs you could cram into a tin would be welcome.

Apparently that "use by" date actually means something with tinned foods. The food might not go bad but the tin has a definite lifespan.

I have never had any problems with canned meats spoiling. Never had a problem with tinned vegetables either, except for tomato based foods. The acids in tomatoes will eat through a tin in a few months. They go from the inside too, so it is the acid that does the damage.