There was a dream. A dream of living tax free. Alas, its just a dream. The average home owning American family will pay roughly 30% of its income to federal, state and sales tax per year. Thirty cents of each dollar you make goes immediately out the door. I know this, because I pay taxes…and did some reading over at TaxFoundation.org. This 30%, of course, is before applying any tax breaks and credits. It has been this way for many years, so you wonder why its such a huge topic during political season if nothing really changes. Anyway, I thought I’d put a list together of the states with no income tax.
Alaska – Alaska doesn’t tax its denizens on income, and it doesn’t have a sales tax either. In fact, Alaska pays you to live there. Supplementing income and sales tax with petroleum revenues, residents receive a share of the state’s oil and gas royalties, which reached nearly $2,000 in 2014.
Florida – A favorite tourist destination for many, Florida gets revenue from sales tax and a higher than average property tax. Tax breaks for retired and elderly folks are also available.
Nevada – Nevada, Las Vegas in particular, is the world capital for gaming and gambling. The state derives the majority of its income from gambling and sales tax.
South Dakota – Home of the Badlands. This state derives its revenue from a low 4% sales tax coupled with a use tax.
Texas – The Lone Star state gets its money from sales tax and oil and gas production royalties.
Washington – The only state named after a president and AKA “The Evergreen State”. Residents here deal with a high sales tax and high gasoline tax.
Wyoming – There is no income tax and no corporate income tax. Wyoming gets its money from coal mining, mainly, along with property taxes.
New Hampshire and Tennessee do not tax wages, however, they do tax income from investments such as dividends and interest. This is not ideal for retirees who have worked hard building a retirement portfolio.
There is no hard evidence showing that people living in states with no income tax have a higher quality of life then others. Simply put, your state needs money to operate. Public services, that many take for granted are paid for from revenue generated by taxing residents. What those services are and how much of them that are provided are “normally” up to the voting public.
One of the key tenets that Warren Buffett uses when evaluating an investment is management. Can they get the job done? Are they honest with shareholders, and are they greedy? (In a nutshell.) If you were looking to invest in your state or city based on its leadership…would you invest? You may find out why your taxes are so high.
What are your thoughts on state income tax?
If your state eliminated personal income tax, how would it supplement that income?
Would you be in favor of higher property and sales tax vs income tax?
Should the next politician you vote for have a better understanding of budgeting and finance?
There’s something about old bunkers from past wars that always intrigues me. Maybe it’s the history behind them and the fact that they’ve survived for so many years after the wars have long been over. Or knowing that at one time they were occupied by soldiers fighting and possibly dying within the bunkers themselves. They stand as monuments and reminders for events that shaped history and the world. Many of these bunkers are in remarkable condition, considering they’ve been battling the elements for more than 70 years. Here’s a great list of some of my favorite bunkers from around the world. I hope you enjoy these as much as I do.
These small, fortified towers were built off the British coast and used by the Navy & Army to defend against ships and aircraft during WW2. The forts were decommissioned in the 50’s and some have since been damaged or removed. Over the years, these bunkers have been used by pirate radio stations and man decided to live there and declare his fort an independent state.
The Odeon in Alderney
The Odeon is located on Alderny in the Channel Islands and built by the Germans during WW2. It’s 4 story’s high and had anti-aircraft guns located behind the bunker during the war. It’s said that the allies had considered landing on Alderny as a rehearsal for the D-Day landings.
R636 Fire Control Post – Nord-Pas-de-Calais
This World War II bunker still stands guard over the beaches below in Nord-Pas-de-Calais, France just as it did over 70 years ago on D-Day. From this perspective, it’s easy to see how the allied forces struggled to take the beaches against these massive German bunkers.
Devils Slide Bunker – San Francisco
credit: youtube.com
The Devil’s Slide bunker was built in San Francisco, California during WW2 and used as a harbor defense observation lookout. The site was sold to private owners in 1983, but several of the bunker structures still remain including steel / concrete pill-boxes and concrete earth bunkers. Take a look at this cool aerial view shot of Devil’s Slide from a drone copter.
Salpa-Line Anti-Tank Gun – Finland
credit: http://forum.worldoftanks.eu/
This anti-tank bunker was constructed in Eastern Finland during WW2 with many other anti-aircraft & tank bunkers which housed large caliber guns & cannons.
Battery 223 – Cape May Point, New Jersey
credit: commons.wikimedia.org
This bunker was built just prior to World War II, on the beach of Cape May State Park, NJ. 70 years ago, it was covered with sod, earth & sand and provided security for the entrance to the Delaware Bay. The bunker is close enough to the shore that the water now flows under the pilings which are still holding it in place. I’ve visited this bunker in the past and it’s still in amazing condition considering it’s location.
Albanian communist dictator Enver Hoxha built over 750,000 of these concrete mushroom shaped bunkers during the cold war. Many of these bunkers have since been destroyed, at a cost of 800 euro per bunker. The elements and ocean have claimed thousands more. Many people have drowned while exploring the bunkers that sit near the ocean.
More than 14,000 of these massive concrete bunkers were built by Hitler’s Army during World War 2. These defensive structures were built along the Atlantic Wall, from Spain to Norway
The Mannerheim Line was a line of defensive fortification built across Finland from the Gulf of Finland to Taipale in the 1920’s-30’s after the Fin’s declared their independence from Russia. The fortifications worked against the Red Army in the Winter war of 1939, with only having 101 structures like the one shown in this photo.
Hill 60 Bunkers – Zwarteleen, Belgium
credit: https://thestoryofhistory.wordpress.com
Amazingly, bunkers from the World War 1 era are still standing around the world. This one is located near Hill 60 in Zwarteleen, Belgium and was used by both British & German armies. Bunker construction hasn’t changed much over the decades, as you can see this one was reinforced with concrete and steel back in 1915.
There are so many other cool abandoned bunkers from history located in across the planet. If you’re into these amazing relics from the past like I am, sign up for our newsletter so you’ll know when we add more articles like this one.
One in three Americans have high blood pressure and in the event of a disaster, heart medication is likely to be scarce. That’s a problem, because during a disaster, your stress level will be much higher, making people dependent upon heart medication more susceptible to a heart attack. While you could and should stockpile prescription medications to the extent that you’re able, it’s always good to have a back up plan.
Here are nine herbs and plans that can naturally reduce blood pressure when your prescription stash is gone. #WorldHeartDay
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If you have to navigate at night it’s easy to get lost. Landmarks which are normally visible in daytime can he hard to spot, and even maintaining direction can be difficult. You may feel like you’re waling in circles — and you probably are (we naturally walk in circles when when we lack landmarks).
“Just walking in a straight line seems like such a simple and natural thing to do, but if you think about it, it’s quite complicated thing going on in the brain,” said Jan Souman, a psychologist at the Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics in Tubingen, Germany.
“After these experiments, I would never go into a big forest or desert without a compass or GPS anymore.”
So: If you don’t have a compass, it’s dark, your phone is dead and you have no clue about your direction — how can you find north?
On of the best, and most reliable, methods for navigation at night is to use the stars. If you can find north, you can easily maintain a heading and find your way back or to your destination. Even though stars are light years away, they are still incredibly accurate when navigating on earth — near or far.
The only problem with navigation by the stars, is that they’re moving in relation to us. One star which may be above you right now, won’t be directly above you in some minutes. So you would constantly need a new star to maintain heading and direction.
The solution to this is to find Polaris — The North Star. In relation to us, the North Star will be above the North Pole, which is true North.
When knowing the direction to true north, you can find any heading — something sailors have been using for centuries, before modern tools were available.
The Easiest Way to Find Polaris
If you find the Plough, a easily recognizable group of 7 stars — you’re set!
You may know this group of stars as The Big Dipper or The Saucepan— I’m using all three terms interchangeably here (just to confuse you). I like to call it the Dipper or Saucepan, as it’s easier to explain the pointer stars we’ll get to in a second.
After you’ve found The Dipper, you will have to find 2 pointer stars. Think of these as the part of the ‘Sauce Pan’ where liquid would be poured from if you tip it up — opposite of the “handle”. It’s hard to explain this, so I’ve included an image from Tristan Gooley, author of several books on natural navigation, below.
The distance from The Dipper to Polaris will always be 5 times the distance between these two pointers (the two stars above the ‘North’ label in the animation), upwards from the bottom of the pan. True North is directly under Polaris.
Relation between Polaris and pointer stars (Wikimedia Commons):
The Plough will appear to rotate around the North Star. Sometimes it will appear upside down, or sideways, but it’s relationship with the North Star will never change. You can always — as long as the sky is clear — find The North Star as described above.
Other Ways to Find Polaris
Sometimes the Plow sits low or is obscured, it can then be better to use the the Cassiopeia (Orion). Cassiopeia will always be on the opposite side of the Plow with the North Star in the middle. When the plow is low, Cassiopeia will be high — and vice versa.
For our purposes — which is navigation and not astrophysics — Orion rises in the east and sets in the west. Orion’s belt is a highly recognizable pattern of three bright stars. These are the only three stars in a line appearing in the night sky, and their brightness makes them easy to spot. This is actually fairly accurate; where the first star in the belt to rise and set (Mintaka) will rise and set within one degree of true west and true east — no matter where you are in the world!
That’s pretty amazing if you ask me.
Fun Fact: The North Star and your latitude
As long as you are in the Northern Hemisphere, the angle between the North Star and the horizon will be the same as your latitude. It makes sense when you think about what latitude really is, and that the north star indicates true north — but I still think it’s an interesting fun fact.
I actually have one on my fireplace mantle, a decorative piece I picked up at an auction years ago — that’s usually what they’re used for nowadays. Anyways, most of us don’t carry a sextant around, let alone know how to use it properly, but we can still get a good ballpark number for our latitude.
All though we’re all differently made — some are big, some are small — for most people an outstretched fist will make an angle of 10 degrees. How many fists can you stack from the horizon to Polaris? You can use this to estimate your latitude — and it won’t be too far off.
That’s also pretty amazing if you ask me!
As always, to stay on top of all the survival tips we post here at Readytribe.com, make sure you sign up for our newsletter below — and we’ll send them straight to your inbox.
Featured image of the Big Dipper photographed from the International Space Station, Labeled for reuse
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Below we’ve a video showing you how to start a fire using a gum wrapper and a battery. The video shows this with a AA (double A) battery, but any battery will do, as long as you can connect the terminals as shown (small household batteries, don’t try it with a car battery … but I’m sure you know that).
And kids, don’t try this at home …
The important part here is the narrow ‘bridge’ between the terminals (where the wrapper is cut thinner). Also, it doesn’t have to be a gum wrapper, it can be any piece of aluminum foil. The benefit of using a wrapping paper is that it’s covered with paper on one side, and the conducting metal on the other, so the paper will easily catch fire.
Other variations of how to start a fire with a battery includes using a 9V battery and steel wool — which we’ve also included below, for your viewing pleasure.
These skills may seem trivial or useless when you look at them now, but maybe one day you’ll need them.
Starting a Fire With a Double A Battery and a Gum Wrapper
Starting a Fire With Steel Wool and a 9V Battery
Make sure you sign up to our newsletter below — and get more cool tips like these straight to your inbox.
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We’ve previously talked about Morse code and why it’s an essential skill for survival. In this article we’ll take a look at how you can use a signaling mirror to communicate over a long distance. Further down, we’ve added a video showing you exactly how to use it.
A small mirror (you should have one in your backpack) is the ideal, as it’s highly reflective. These mirrors, which are made for signaling, will have a retroreflective material which allows you to see through the “dot” and aim for the target where you’re signaling.
With a signaling mirror you can do Morse code, or just flash the mirror to show your location or indicate that somethings up. The flashing can be seen from long distances, and can be used to signal to boats at the sea, far away buildings or small airplanes.
What if I don’t have a signaling mirror?
If you don’t have one — I suggest you get one.
You can use a polished piece of metal or some other reflective surface — though I highly recommend that you get a proper mirror. Packing a small mirror like in the video below doesn’t take up any room at all — and it’s far better than other ad-hoc solutions.
The signaling mirrors we’re looking at today are both inexpensive (we’re talking 5$ here, add a signaling flute and you might hit 10$), and they come with instructions on how to properly use them on the back. The larger one is from Ultimate Survival Technologies called the Starflash, and the smaller one is from Adventure Medical Kits called Rescue Flash. They’re in principle the same, but I prefer the smaller one for packing in my backpack — and it also has a better retroreflective material.
Both the mirrors are made out of Lexan, a trademark for a particular kind of Polycarbonate. It’s highly reflective, and tough to scratch or break.
A video showing you proper use of a signaling mirror
You can pick up the mirrors here:
Ultimate Survival Star Flash (bigger mirror): Amazon.com (best price at the time of writing this).
Adventure Medical Kits Rescue Flash (smaller mirror): Amazon.com (best price at the time of writing this).
At Amazon you can grab most of the essentials you need in your survival kit (signaling equipment, radio, and other small stuff) for 50-100$, which I highly recommend. You never know when you’re going to need it.
Featured image showing a 1940s signaling mirror, from flickr user ‘Signal Mirror’ (CC). The United States developed the B-1 emergency signaling mirror (signal mirror) in late World War II, and production was started in 1945, but they did not reach the troops before the war ended. The B-1 used a ring of red retroreflective “ScotchLite(TM)” material around the sighting hold to create a red round virtual image of the sun focused at infinity as a “red dot” sight. The next generation of US military signal mirrors to be developed was the Mark 3 with the retroreflective mesh aimer, in 1949.
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They are becoming more and more popular both as a survival tool as well as for everyday cooking. This is because the traditional camp stove or barbecue uses propane, gas, charcoal or some other form of fuel to cook with. These fuels can be costly, can be dangerous if not stored correctly, may taint the flavor of the food and may contain carcinogens which can find their way into the food.
But with solar ovens (also known as solar cookers or sun ovens), you have none of these issues.
That’s because a solar oven cooks food using only pure sunlight. This could be the reason why many users of solar ovens agree that food cooked in one tastes better than food cooked by any other method.
And don’t forget that sunlight is free!
Now, who doesn’t like a free meal?
OK, so it’s not totally free, because you have to buy the solar oven to begin with. Or if you’d rather, you can make your own…
But if you do choose to buy, you should know that with regular use, an average family can make back the upfront cost of a solar oven within the first 7-9 months of use.
Now there’s food for thought…
How Does a Solar Oven Work?
Solar ovens work by reflecting and concentrating the light of the sun from a big area into a smaller space. This could be an oven chamber, a cooking pot or in the case of GoSun, a glass tube cooking chamber.
The light energy is then converted into heat energy which is then trapped within the cooking area.
A solar oven uses this trapped heat to cook the food in much the same way as a traditional oven. How well the solar cooker keeps the heat trapped is a measure of how efficient it is. With the different types of solar cookers, better efficiency equals quicker cook times.
Panel Cookers
Sunflair Portable Solar Oven
Panel solar cookers are perhaps the least efficient, but the most convenient type of solar cooker and are also usually the most cost effective. Typically they consist of a number of panels to reflect the light onto the cooking vessel. Their lighter weight makes them more portable, but the sun light is not as focused as an box oven or parabolic cooker, so the food will take longer to cook using a Panel Sun Cooker. Cooking times would consistent with a slow cooker. Sunflair make a range of solar ovens using this technology which fold down to the size of a cushion and weigh less than 2lbs.
Sun Oven Solar Cooker. Image – grit.com
Box Ovens
Box solar ovens tend to be the most popular type of solar cooker in use today as well one of the easiest and safest to use. They consist of an insulated box that is covered with glass and has external reflectors to focus the sunlight into the oven. A great example of a box solar oven would be the All American Sun Oven.
Box solar ovens offer more flexibility than either of the other two solar cookers discussed here. They are almost as portable as a panel solar oven and depending on which method suites your needs, you can use them like a panel solar oven and cook the food slowly over a number of hours, or if you re-align the oven every 30 mins, you can cook the food almost as fast as you would with a parabolic cooker.
GoSun Sport
Parabolic Cookers
Parabolic cookers require you to focus the sunlight on the cooking vessel. This vessel can be a pot that is suspended over the reflectors or it could be integral to the design of the cooker as it with the GoSun Sport. Whilst being quicker to cook food they require more care and attention to use safely and unlike other solar ovens or cookers, they can burn food. To get the best efficiency from a parabolic cooker, you will need to re-align it every 15 – 30 minutes.
Is a Solar Oven Easy to Use?
Yes, in fact a solar oven is as easy to use as the conventional stove you use at home – and just as flexible. You can steam, bake, fry, roast and boil just as you would with a regular stove. With cooking temperatures as high as 300C/550F you can cook your meals just as quickly too.
Depending on the type of solar cooker you own, you can use it like a slow cooker and leave the meal to cook over a longer period. Unless using a parabolic cooker, you’ll never burn your food in solar cooker and it’s extremely difficult to overcook food in one too. You’ll find that the food remains moist and retains more flavor than other forms of cooking.
Because there is no flame you can leave your box or panel solar oven unattended whilst it cooks your food – Set up the solar oven in the AM and point it due south and let it cook your meal slowly throughout the day. You’ll come home, or arrive back at your camp to a delicious, hot, sun cooked meal.
Sun Alignment Guides
To use your solar oven more like a conventional stove, you’ll need be about so you can re-align it every 30 minutes or so. You’ll need to do this to ensure that the oven and reflectors are pointing directly at the sun to make sure it receives the most light. Some solar ovens come with alignment guides like the one pictured here from Sun Ovens. You simply need to keep the light circle over the dot to get the best exposure.
Is a Solar Oven Safe?
Solar ovens or cookers are much safer than other methods of outdoor cooking. There are no burning coals or sparks, open flames, gas lines, or propane bottles to worry about. There is also little or no external thermal conductivity. You can use a solar cooker where you might not be able to use a barbecue e.g. National Parks & Forests, beaches, high fire danger or drought areas.
A Solar Cooker Reduces Your Carbon Footprint!
Many of us are aware of the need to take responsibility for the greenhouse gas emissions each of us create. A solar cooker cooks your food using only the energy provided by sunlight. That means you can cook without releasing any greenhouse gases as you might do if you used oil, charcoal or gas.
Solar Oven Prepping
Because a solar oven needs only the sun, this makes them ideal for emergency prepping. Adding a solar cooker to your emergency set up gives you self sufficiency when power outages happen and as we know, these are happening more and more for a whole host of reasons. But, no matter what the cause of the power failure, owning a solar oven will mean you can purify water as well as cook food when no other power source may exist.
If you have sun, then you should use your solar oven for cooking as much as you can. Save your other fuel for keeping warm or cooking when you can’t use the solar oven.
Most solar ovens are also compact and portable, so should you need to “bug out”, you’ll be able to take it with you.
Here, Paul Munsun talks about the benefits of adding a SUN OVEN into your preparedness planning:
Cooking with a solar oven can be a fun, safe, easy and nutritious experience. They are perfect for everyday use whether it be in your backyard, during picnics, on camping trips, or in times of power failure or natural disaster.
Many people today have no clue on how to navigate — except from using Google Maps or their car sat nav. Both of which can easily break or go down during an emergency. The same goes for your standard hiking GPS.
In this article, accompanied with instructional videos, we’ll take a look at how to properly navigate with a map and compass — in theory and in the field.
This is an essential skill, and something every man and woman should know. Knowing how to navigate, and practicing and honing old school navigation skills, may very well save your life one day.
Personally I recommend that you get a splash proof map case, and a quality compass. It doesn’t have to be expensive, a cheaper model like the one in the video is more than enough.
I bought a handful of these from Suunto (same as in the video above) to keep in my bug-out bag, in my hiking jacket and a few spare ones — so I can teach my grandchildren this essential skill when they grow up.
They’re plastic, but they last (Suunto is a quality brand, and these can take a beating) and they’re around 15$ at Amazon.
For splash/water proof cases, anything will do really — as long as the map is protected from water. I have this one. It’s cheap, nothing fancy, but it does the job.
If you’d like to learn more about navigation I can highly recommend the book “Be Expert with Map and Compass” by Bjorn Kjellstrom. You can pick up the third edition here.
Featured photo by Marcus Ramberg, Flickr CC
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Banks make more than $2 billion annually on ATM fees alone.
Did you know that the Top 3 Banks made $233 Million in the first quarter of 2015 on consumer deposit fees at the ATM? That’s just for depositing money at the ATM. You are paying the bank to take your money. That’s a projected $932 Million a year just being handed over to those 3 banks. This comes directly out your pocket. Actually, that part of your deposit never reaches your bank account.
…why couldn’t I get better at racking up digits in my bank account?
I consider myself a hobby gamer. I grew playing video games, from getting my first Atari 2600 to my son’s Xbox. The object of all the games was to rack up points in some form or fashion. These are just digits you see on the screen. These days I rarely carry that much cash on me. Why? Because sometimes it just easier to use that plastic card. So when checking my account balance online, or from my phone, I’m looking at digits. The bigger the digit the better! But I digress. In the games, sometimes you lose points for performing poorly. So you learn not to make those mistakes to maintain a positive score. So that got me thinking, I’m pretty good at racking up digits on a video game, why couldn’t I get better at racking up digits in my bank account? To start, I decided to be sure that I am not giving money away by making some of the simplest banking mistakes.
Looking down my bank statement, I see these little fees for $5 or $2.50. They are transaction fees made at an ATM. I recall pulling out $60 at the machine, I was charged $3. I just paid 5% of my $60 to access my money. Couple that with what the state and government takes out that $60 probably represents what is left over of $120 that I originally earned. But it doesn’t stop there.
There are lots of bank fees that you are agreeing to pay. Either wittingly or out of naivety. Now days, I avoid driving by my bank just in case there is some sort of drive by fee I am not aware of. The paltry interest that you earn for letting the bank have your money is sucked up many times over by all these fees. One thing to be aware of is that banks make an absurd amount of money from NSF (Non Sufficient Funds) fees.
What Can You Do?
Just by being aware of charges such as ATM fees can help you save a lot of money over the course of a year. It really does add up. Imagine that you use the ATM twice a week being charged $5 per transaction. That’s $40 a month, and $480 a year. That’s the price of an Xbox! Or a tank of gas a month.
The first step to avoid paying more then you have to is simply being aware of what fees you are charged by using the bank you are at. Some banks are better than others!
An easy way to avoid racking up ATM Fees is to get cash back when checking out at the grocery store. Most of your local supermarkets allow you to pull out a certain amount of cash from your debit card at the time of checkout. You can also plan ahead and sticking to a weekly budget. Over time, you this can save you quite a bit of money.
The Consumer Protection Bureau (CFPB) has this tip for avoiding ATM Fees:
“Generally, use your own bank or credit union’s ATMs – most banks or credit unions charge no fee for this service. Usually, when you use another bank or credit union’s ATM, both the operator of the ATM and your bank or credit union charge you a fee.
Some banks and credit unions offer to rebate ATM fees for customers that maintain high average balances. Check with your bank or credit union to find out what ATMs you can use without an additional fee.”
Try to locate your bank’s ATM machine on your smartphone.
Look for free checking accounts. If you notice that you are being charged a fee for a checking account that was advertised as free, complain to your bank about the issue. If that doesn’t work you can always submit a complaint to the CFPB.
Review all the fees your bank can levy against you. In the end, you may just end up moving to a better bank. Overall, you’ll be saving money that could go to benefit you and not someone else.
Here are some facts to be aware of from the banking section at The Motley Fool:
More than $1 trillion is currently in low (or no) interest checking and savings accounts.
ATMs currently charge fees as high as $5 for a single transaction. Banks make more than $2 billion annually on ATM fees alone.
There is virtually no use at all today for the inappropriately named “savings” account, yet it remains one of the most popular ways for Americans to store their money.
In this article I focused on ATM fees, mainly because it’s the most commonly overlooked fee that can be avoided. However, be aware that every time you perform an action online, at your bank branch or make a transaction you may be getting “charged a fee for that”.
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Fiberglass insulation (the foam looking stuff you would use in your attic)
Two surfaces to mark your cans (can be two blocks of wood, books or magazines). I recommend to have at least one block of wood, so you can also use it to rest the cans when cutting them.
Gasket sealant (heat resistant). In this video silicon based gasket sealant is used, but there are plenty to choose from.
Step #1 Marking and cutting the cans
The first thing you’d want to do is to mark where you’re going to cut the cans. Use the block of wood as a level and mark the first can about an inch off the bottom. Rest the marker on the block of wood and rotate the can to make an even line.
Do the same for the second can, but this time add another block of wood, or a book, to increase the height.
Punch a hole in one of the cans, well above your cutting line, and start cutting off the bottom part. Try to get as close to the line as possible, and keep the cut as even as you can, without warping or denting the can.
Repeat for the second can, and discard the top parts.
Use the file or sanding block to trim out the sharp edges of the cans.
Step #2 Make the ventilation holes
Take the larger can and turn it upside down. Use the sharpie marker to make a hole right in the center of underside. Then mark 4 other holes around this. Don’t make the spacing too big; you want to be able to cover all of these with a penny.
Start marking the outside rim. It’s easiest to do this in halves, then quarters and eights. You should end up having 16 marks evenly spaced along the edge of the can.
Use the hammer and a nail, or a punch, and puncture the can at the marks. Be careful not to crush or warp the can when you’re hitting it with the hammer.
These holes will be the jets of the burner, make sure you’re not making them too large, because the bigger the holes the faster the alcohol will burn.
Step #3 Fitting the two ends together
Take a pair of needle-nose pliers and carefully bend the edges of the shorter end. The two ends are of the same diameter, so in order to fit them together with the shorter end inside the longer, you have to bend the edges.
Now you should have two ends that fit together. Before doing so, pack the fiberglass inside the longer end. This will be the filler that absorbs the alcohol.
Push the ends together carefully. The less you warp the cans, the better it will seal — and the less sealant you have to use.
Clean any jagged edges with the file, so the sealant can adhere better to the edges.
Spread sealant along the edge, and make sure it’s all covered. You want to seal the crevice between the two ends.
You will now have to wait 24 hours before continuing.
Step #4 Fueling it
To fuel the stove, you can use denatured alcohol, rubbing alcohol, HEET (alcohol for your cars fuel lines to prevent freezing) or similar.
Fill the stove through the center holes, and let it drain down into the chamber.
Light up the stove, and once it’s burning, place a penny in the center to cover the 5 holes.
You now have a fully working portable penny stove!
A video showing exactly how to do it
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Today we’ll take a look at how you can purify dirty water to get drinkable water for survival situations. This method is just one of many ways you can purify water, but it’s a well known and widely used method (even in the military).
Step #1: What you need
To follow this tutorial, you’ll need:
A cup of dirty water
A bottle
Charcoal ~200 grams
A clean cup
Mixture of clean sand and coarser gravel
Tissues or a piece of cloth
Step #2: Prepare the bottle
Cut off the bottom part of the bottle, puncture the cap with 4-5 small holes and screw it back onto the bottle. Stuff the tissues through the bottom, and all the way up to the cap. The tissues will act as a filter.
Step #3: Add sand/gravel
Add about half the sand/gravel mix into the bottle on top of the tissue filter.
Step #4: Add Charcoal
Break the charcoal into smaller pieces and wash it. The pieces should be the same size as those in the picture below. Then add 150-200 grams of charcoal into the bottle on top of the gravel.
Add the rest of the sand/gravel mix and top it off with some more tissues.
Step #6: Start cleaning the water
Place the clean cup under the cap of the bottle, and slowly start to pour the dirty water through your newly made water filter. Once the water has run through the filter, you can filter it again and then leave it for a few hours in a bottle exposed to sunlight to further purify it.
Video of all the steps
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