Cowgirl's Country Life. Old Skills, Hand-Made Tools & Primitive Technology. Primitive Skills Links. Being Somewhere - Low Impact Living. How-To's: Online Low-Tech Resources. Energy Bulletin pointed us to the website of Practical Action (previously known as the Schumacher Centre for Technology & Development), an online resource devoted to low-technology solutions for developing countries.
The site hosts many manuals that can also be of interest for low-tech DIYers in the developed world. They cover energy, agriculture, food processing, construction and manufacturing, just to name some important categories. We would like to add to this the impressive online library put together by software engineer Alex Weir. 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 book contains not only early electric equipment and steam driven machinery, but also human and animal powered machines. Storm Spotting 101: How To Predict The Weather. Weather Predict Without Technology. How to Weather Forecast And Weather Predict Without Technology We have no control on the weather yet it is a part of our lives which influence what we do, what we eat, what we wear and many times where we live.
How did people predict the weather before there was the Internet, television, radio or the weatherperson with all of their gadgets? Modern Tools for Weather Forecasting. Straight Razor Shaving For Beginners. Learn How to Shave Like Your Grandpa. Proper shaving has become a lost art.
Today’s average male has no clue about the fine art of the traditional wet shave that their grandfathers and some of their fathers used to take part in. Instead, they’re only accustomed to the cheap and disposable shaving products that companies market. Bushcraft Pit Oven How To. Bushcraft Oven Experiment. Weaving A Wicker Basket; Most Detailed Basket Tutorial On The Internet. How To Weave A Grass Basket. How To Make A Peg Loom & Rag Rugs - Steward Community Woodland - Music In Your Pocket With A Thumb Piano - DIY. Like many people, I'm attracted to folk music . . . primarily because I like its innate "personal" quality.
While folk tunes often do reflect universal human feelings and ideas, they're just as often played on instruments created by the individual performer. A good example of this sort of music maker is the African "thumb piano" (also known as the mbira, zanza, or kalimba) . . . which isn't a piano at all, but can be more accurately classed as a plucked idiophone. Appearing throughout Africa in virtually whatever shape strikes the musician's fancy, the mbira may have tines made of any springy material from metal to rattan, while the whole instrument can range from hand to lap size.
How To Tan A Rabbit Hide - DIY. Make A Reed Pipe. Walking on the lakeside brought to my mind a childhood memory of making reed pipes...
A reed pipe is easy and fast to make and this teaches some simple things of making sound with a reed instrument and instrument making itself. Also bigger children can make these themselves although it can be a little challenging with using a knife and not breaking the cane. Instructions: * Get some reed. Best reed you can find in the end of the summer or winter when it is dry enough. Clean it from the leaves. You can test the pipe now. *Cut the fingerholes, starting from about 1/3 of the length of the pipe.
DIY Stitch And Glue Kayak. Although I had never actually kayaked before, one day I decided to make a stitch and glue kayak.
For a non-kayaker I'm not sure why, but it had to do with a rowing class I had taken once, and I wanted to get out on the water on my own boat. Also, building a rowing shell seemed difficult, better to start with a kayak. For those of you who don't know, stitch and glue is a well established method of building all kinds of boats. It involves cutting plywood into the right shapes, stitching the shapes together with wire, and then permanently gluing the whole thing up. A quick web search will yield loads of info about it. Hemp String In Archery - Primitive Bows Forum. Longbow Making. {*style:<b> <b><b>The Hunting Society </b></b><b><b><b> Over 4,272 pages of information on hunting, guns, archery and bowhunting, hunting guides, archery and gun histories, hunting dogs, wild game recipes and even the wines to serve with game.