Make an Aluminum Can Lamp

December 26, 2006

...lamps back during the war. You can also use these lamps to heat up water. Making one is easy: 1. Remove the top off a can. We like to do this by scoring the inner ring of the top with a razor blade and then using a pair of pliers to bust it out. The fastidious and safety conscious may want to file down the sharp edge. 2. Cut a 2 1/2 inch square window out of one side of the can with a pair of scissors. 3. Now cut the bottom 1 1/2 inches off of an...

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Buddy Burner

Mr. Homegrown

January 12, 2007

Preparedness

10 Comments

...up, or perhaps stack up some bricks on either side, or best of all, make a stove for it out of a big #10 can. That will be the subject of another post. To light the BB, light the wicks and turn the can up on its side so that the cardboard catches fire too. The cardboard is a huge wick. That inferno effect is what you want. Control your flame by making a damper out of a piece of aluminum foil folded into a long rectangle three or four layers thick...

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The Sundiner–A Groovy 1960s Era Solar Cooker

Mr. Homegrown

February 28, 2013

Appropriate Technology, Solar, Water and Power

5 Comments

...e seen, both commercial and homebrew, have shelves with adjustable angles, making it easier to use them as crock pots. Nevertheless, I admire the efficiency of the design–the legs also double as a handle and the panels unfold and snap together in seconds. It’s easy to aim. The instructions are even printed on the back of the panel that covers the reflectors. More info via the April 1963 issue of Desert Magazine: Here’s a new product that suits des...

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The Future is Biomorphic

Mr. Homegrown

November 4, 2014

Design

4 Comments

...inds me of the wisdom of what Nassim Taleb calls, “non-predictive decision making.” Why? Futurists and prognosticators are as accurate as a dead clock. Twice a day they get it right and the rest of the time they end up looking foolish. We can be especially thankful that the washing machine for people on page 179 of The Futurist never caught on. That said, the point is not always to predict the future. Architects, artists and designers push the env...

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Tolkien and Trees

Mrs. Homegrown

September 8, 2016

Nature Awareness, Thoughtstylings, Trees

6 Comments

...abashed partisan of trees. A couple of quotes from him regarding trees are making the rounds on the internet, but I’ve learned to distrust popular quotations. They are often misattributed or downright made up. So I searched his edited letters for references to trees. There are many–he always mentions trees when he describes places, has funny things to say about artists who can’t draw trees, and has many trees of significance in his books, which he...

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