Wind. Solar. HomemadeTools.net -- 1,000's Of Homemade Tools. Farm Hack. Tools: Tips, Info & Homemade Tools. Energy creation. The Museum Of Old Techniques. For almost every electronic device or oil driven machine there used to be a low-tech alternative that was powered by human muscles, water or wind. The Museum of Old Techniques aims to collect and study these historical alternatives to modern day machinery. Why, you may ask? To quote the Museum: "Evolution doesn't necessarily mean progress, what we consider to be primitive solutions are often not primitive at all". We could not have said it better ourselves. The website of the MOT contains, among other things, some 2,000 simple drawings of hand tools (ordered by shape, and by profession) and a collection of illustrated trade catalogues (up until 1950, in French).
A somewhat related publication is Edward H. Knight’s American Mechanical Dictionary (1881) : an almost 3,000 page encyclopedia with descriptions and illustrations of tools, instruments, machines, processes and engineering dating from the 19th century. Old Skills, Hand-Made Tools & Primitive Technology. No Tech Magazine. Small Farms Library - Journey to Forever. Classic manuals online.
The following 46 books include many classics for backyarders, homesteaders, small farms and tropical development, many of them hard to find, with direct links to the CD 3rd World online library for free downloading. They are in graphic pdf format, with files from 1 or 2 Mb to 60 Mb. , by Robert Berold et. al., Environmental and Development Agency, Johannesburg, South Africa. 41.7Mb pdf Teknologi Kampungan -- A Collection of Indigenous Indonesian Technologies, by Craig Thorburn, 1982, Volunteers in Asia, ISBN 0917704169. 6.4Mb pdf Village Technology Handbook, Volunteers in Technical Assistance (VITA), 3rd edition 1988, Vita Publications, ISBN 0866192751, 441 p, 14Mb pdf Backyard Composting, by Helga Olkowski, Ecology Center, Berkeley, CA, USA, 1975, 21 pages, 8.5Mb pdf.
Common-Sense Compost Making - Contents. This book describes a way of making compost, i.e. humus, which is simply, labour saving (no turning) and quick, both in ripening the compost and in getting results in the soil. It is adaptible to all conditions and to every size and type of garden, allotment or farm, the process being based on nature's own methods. Miss Bruce tells how to make use of the natural heat of disintegration, which liberates the vitality of the plants; how to retain that vitality within the heap, and how to quicken both the disintegration of plants and the energizing of humus by treating the heap with a simple activator. This is a herbal solution which contains in living plant form the chief elements necessary to plant life; formulae are given.
From Vegetable Waste to Fertile Soil affirms a belief in the universality of Life, this Life being manifest in varying 'rhythms' in the mineral, vegetable, animal and human kingdoms. Table of Contents Foreword by L.F. Appendices 1. Bibliography How to use Q.R. By L.F. Handy Farm Devices - Cobleigh - ToC. Oil Press. By Jeff Cox -- from Organic Gardening, April 1979, Rodale Press IN 2,500 SQUARE FEET, a family of four can grow each year enough sunflower seed to produce three gallons of homemade vegetable oil suitable for salads or cooking and 20 pounds of nutritious, dehulled seed -- with enough broken seeds left over to feed a winter's worth of birds.The problem, heretofore, with sunflower seeds was the difficulty of dehulling them at home, and the lack of a device for expressing oil from the seeds.
About six months ago, we decided to change all that. The job was to find out who makes a sunflower seed dehuller or to devise one if none were manufactured. And to either locate a home-scale oilseed press or devise one. No mean task.Our researches took us from North Dakota -- hub of commercial sunflower activity in the nation -- to a search of the files in the U.S. Patent Office, with stops in between. Tools Required 1. Table Saw 2. LOW-TECH MAGAZINE.