Water Powered Rope Making Machine

October 2, 2010 by kris de decker Filed Under: Ropes, Water powered machines, Water wheels

Water powered rope making machine

Drawing of a water powered wire mill, taken from “The Pirotechnia” by Vannoccio Biringuccio (1540). Illustration credit. For the hand powered method, see: Lost knowledge: ropes and knots.

Update January 2015: Kurt B. writes us to say that “what you are looking at is a wire drawing machine, not a rope making machine. That is, taking a large wire and drawing it through a series of ever decreasing dies (holes in the die plate) to make the wire smaller. It is powered by water. The fellow with the rope in his hands is taking up the slack on the tongs which grip the wire. Every stroke of the wheel crank pulls the wire through the die just that amount and he takes up the slack each stroke, or tries to. Here is a guy drawing wire on a much smaller scale  Home made electric jeweller wire puller  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sieNdwdCQug“.

Workers of the World Relax !

September 30, 2010 by kris de decker Filed Under: Video, Work

We work too hard. Thanks to Leah Temper.

Sewage, Toilets, and Nutrient Cycles for Dummies

September 28, 2010 by kris de decker Filed Under: Composting, Humanure

Toilets_of_the_world

Mathew Lippincott writes: “I read with great relish your new article on human manure. I’ve been working on a project along the same wavelength. There is a small group of people (including ourselves) here in Portland, Oregon who have really gone for humanure, and we’re organizing. Through ReCode Oregon we’re proposing code changes to allow for user-built composting toilet systems. My partner Molly and I just completed six posters on the the topic of sewage, toilets, and nutrient cycles. I hope you like them. We’re working to design composting portable toilets right now, and the lack of knowledge amongst most people on soil processes and nutrient cycles was making us crazy.”

[Read more…]

Tom Wilson’s Monster Bikes

September 20, 2010 by kris de decker Filed Under: Bicycles, Bikes, Pedal power, Recumbent tricycles, Travel, Tricycles, Trikes

Monster Bikes. Via Treehugger. Previously: Macho Pedal Power.

Flint Knapping

September 20, 2010 by kris de decker Filed Under: Primitive technology

Flintknappers 8

Flintknappers 1 “Flint knapping is the process of making stone tools (arrowheads,
projectile points, hand axes, etc.). The ancient art of flint knapping has been around for about 4
millions years. Flint knapping has evolved as man has evolved. And it
was not until recently that man quit knapping for survival purposes.
Only a few small groups of people in remote parts of the world still
knap as part of their daily lives.”


Small wind turbines put to the test (2)

September 15, 2010 by kris de decker Filed Under: Wind Power, Wind turbines

The Oil Drum runs an extended and rewritten version of our 2009 article on small wind turbines – including additional tests results from the UK.

“Two real-world tests performed in the Netherlands and in the UK confirm our earlier analysis that small wind turbines are a fundamentally flawed technology. Their financial payback time is much longer than their life expectancy, and in urban areas, some poorly placed wind turbines will not even deliver as much energy as needed to operate them (let alone energy needed to produce them). Given their long payback period relative to their life expectancy, most small wind turbines are net energy consumers rather than net energy producers.”