heimlaga
Established Member
I am not talking about the extremists who clam that they are self sufficient on everything...... usually either the word self or the word sufficient is an exaggeration well past the minimum requirements for being called a lie.
I am talking about the everyday activity of making more or less necsessary stuff out of materials that are rather cheap and not very highly refined. Whether the raw material is waste or surplus from something else or materials from nature.
Just to prove to mr Custard what can be done I am showing a few things that I have made and request you all to chime in and show what you have made. PLEASE JOIN IN!
We are just doing our best each in his own way.
Waterstone grinder.
The worm gearbox comes from an old Alimak waterstone grinder. The motor is a 1950-ies Strömberg which I found cheap and fixed up with new bearings. The stone had been handcranked in the past and was purchased at a flea market. The rest is materials from the scrap yard.
24" Band saw
This is a line shaft driven E.V.Beronius bandsaw from the 1910-s which got new guards made to modern standards and new roller guides for the blade and a motor mount and a secondhand motor and a swith box with electronic brake (swith box was still missing when I took the picture).
Ball bearings and wheel tyres and some nuts and bolts and minor electrical components and the hinges for the doors and one of the pulleys are store bought the rest is scrap yard materials. The complete switch box was a dumpster find. A coil was faulty in one of the contactors but a new coil costed some 10 euros.
Before the rebuild the saw looked like this with someone else's home made motor mount and with the table removed for transport.
Theese are the new upper blade guides:
A 4x4 metre shed
5 wall logs are reused from an exactly similare hay shed probably built in the mid or late 19th century. The rest was rotten and had to be replaced.
The logs are part windfallen part trees that were cut down for a power line plus a few standing trees which I bought cheap. The roofing is recykled from a demolished fur farm but the ridge sheets came out of a dumpster. The roof boards are mostly from windfalled trees though I ran out of boards and had to buy 10 or 12 to get the roof finished. Half the rafters are from windfallen trees and the other half were left behind by the crew building a bridge over one of the local river arms. The floor comes from a threshing barm which was torn down in the 1940-ies and was then reused as sub-floor in a house until a new owner built entirely new floors and I got the old for 70 euros.
The hinges came from a collapsed poultry barn.
The portable coal forge had been stored in an old hay shed until the roof collapsed over it some 50 years ago. Then it had been outside until I got it for free 3 years ago and rebuilt it. The frame and the crankshaft were badly bent by the collapsing roof and all moving parts were rusted rock solid.
The 40kg Lokomo anvil is a scrap yard find. The edges of the face were totally destroyed so I built up them again and now it is almost as good as new
They were used amongst other things to make scrapers
And the scrapers were used to scrape the new bearings I had poured for my cirkular rip saw.
A hay rake....very necsessary in the garden. I made two while I was at it
And so on.........
I don't claim to be self sufficient..... I am just poor and often underemployed and has lost several jobs due to a bad back.
I try to utilize periods of unemployment and periods when my back is good enough for a few hours a day but not good enough to keep a regular employment.
This way I can stretch my money a bit further and avoid ending up as the stereotypical apatic fat benefit case watching television all day.
My current project is a fence for my l'Invincibile T160 spindle moulder. With all the features that the original had plus complete shaw guards. All made from scrapyard materials.
My back is heading towards a full recovery after 12 years of illness so I will try to set up a jooinery business and need more machines.
Now over to the others.....Please post pictures of your creations!
I am talking about the everyday activity of making more or less necsessary stuff out of materials that are rather cheap and not very highly refined. Whether the raw material is waste or surplus from something else or materials from nature.
Just to prove to mr Custard what can be done I am showing a few things that I have made and request you all to chime in and show what you have made. PLEASE JOIN IN!
We are just doing our best each in his own way.
Waterstone grinder.
The worm gearbox comes from an old Alimak waterstone grinder. The motor is a 1950-ies Strömberg which I found cheap and fixed up with new bearings. The stone had been handcranked in the past and was purchased at a flea market. The rest is materials from the scrap yard.
24" Band saw
This is a line shaft driven E.V.Beronius bandsaw from the 1910-s which got new guards made to modern standards and new roller guides for the blade and a motor mount and a secondhand motor and a swith box with electronic brake (swith box was still missing when I took the picture).
Ball bearings and wheel tyres and some nuts and bolts and minor electrical components and the hinges for the doors and one of the pulleys are store bought the rest is scrap yard materials. The complete switch box was a dumpster find. A coil was faulty in one of the contactors but a new coil costed some 10 euros.
Before the rebuild the saw looked like this with someone else's home made motor mount and with the table removed for transport.
Theese are the new upper blade guides:
A 4x4 metre shed
5 wall logs are reused from an exactly similare hay shed probably built in the mid or late 19th century. The rest was rotten and had to be replaced.
The logs are part windfallen part trees that were cut down for a power line plus a few standing trees which I bought cheap. The roofing is recykled from a demolished fur farm but the ridge sheets came out of a dumpster. The roof boards are mostly from windfalled trees though I ran out of boards and had to buy 10 or 12 to get the roof finished. Half the rafters are from windfallen trees and the other half were left behind by the crew building a bridge over one of the local river arms. The floor comes from a threshing barm which was torn down in the 1940-ies and was then reused as sub-floor in a house until a new owner built entirely new floors and I got the old for 70 euros.
The hinges came from a collapsed poultry barn.
The portable coal forge had been stored in an old hay shed until the roof collapsed over it some 50 years ago. Then it had been outside until I got it for free 3 years ago and rebuilt it. The frame and the crankshaft were badly bent by the collapsing roof and all moving parts were rusted rock solid.
The 40kg Lokomo anvil is a scrap yard find. The edges of the face were totally destroyed so I built up them again and now it is almost as good as new
They were used amongst other things to make scrapers
And the scrapers were used to scrape the new bearings I had poured for my cirkular rip saw.
A hay rake....very necsessary in the garden. I made two while I was at it
And so on.........
I don't claim to be self sufficient..... I am just poor and often underemployed and has lost several jobs due to a bad back.
I try to utilize periods of unemployment and periods when my back is good enough for a few hours a day but not good enough to keep a regular employment.
This way I can stretch my money a bit further and avoid ending up as the stereotypical apatic fat benefit case watching television all day.
My current project is a fence for my l'Invincibile T160 spindle moulder. With all the features that the original had plus complete shaw guards. All made from scrapyard materials.
My back is heading towards a full recovery after 12 years of illness so I will try to set up a jooinery business and need more machines.
Now over to the others.....Please post pictures of your creations!
