Sustainable Decadence

A wind-powered spa built from scrap.

The Homemade Windmills of Nebraska

home made windmills of nebraska

“The merit of homemade mills has enjoyed such prompt recognition that they are going up daily. Not to the detriment, we are happy to say, of those important adjuncts to the farm, the shopmade mills, but in addition to them.

In a given community, the man who puts up the first mill generally furnishes the model for the rest of the community. Hence it seems the more desirable that good models should be at hand, the better models are often of quite as easy constructed and no more expensive than the poorer, and their efficiency considerably greater.

It is advantageous to have good models to copy, and the next best thing to the actual model is a good simple drawing. This is the first object of this paper on our homemade windmills; it aims to supply cuts illustrating all sorts of windmills, as found in this State.”

The homemade windmills of Nebraska” (pdf), Erwin Hinckley Barbour, 1899. Illustration: a wind powered sawing machine.

Related: Windmills and wind motors – how to build and run them (1910), Building plans of Dutch Industrial windmills (1850).

Handy Farm Devices & How to Make Them (1912 Book)

handy farm devices and how to make them

Handy farm devices and how to make them“, Rolfe Cobleigh, 1912.

Homemade Musical Instruments

Homemade musical instruments Moonmilk.com has, among other things, a great collection of extremely low-tech (and rather unconventional) electronic and acoustic musical instruments online. Most are built from scrap materials. Particularly geeky (and comparatively sophisticated) is the pixelated violin, which comes with building plans. Via WeWasteTime.

Downloadable Hasselblad Pinhole Camera

Hasselblad pinhole camera “This carefully produced downloadable and printable net file represents an iconic Hasselblad camera as a low impact and functional product that is available to all as an A4 sized, 8 page PDF. The camera takes 35mm film and takes 12-14 images per roll.”

Via Lloyd Alter (and others). Previously: The pinhole camera: low-tech photography

Hardcore Book Scanning

Needed: Chainsaw + scanner. Read the first comment before you try this at home. Via Mijns Insziens.