craft-supplies-msg - 11/7/91

Scavenging tools and supplies.

NOTE: See also the files: bone-msg, ivory-msg, glues-msg, tools-msg, 
lea-tooling-msg,  polishing-msg, urine-uses-msg, wood-msg, metals-msg.

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This file is a collection of various messages having a common theme that
I  have collected from my reading of the various computer networks. Some
messages date back to 1989, some may be as recent as yesterday.

This file is part of a collection of files called Stefan's Florilegium.
These files are available on the Internet at: http://www.florilegium.org

I  have done  a limited amount  of  editing. Messages having to do  with
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Thank you,
    Mark S. Harris                  AKA:  Lord Stefan li Rous
    mark.s.harris@motorola.com            stefan@florilegium.org
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From: DEGROFF@intellicorp.COM (Leslie DeGroff)
Date: 7 Nov 91 23:37:13 GMT
Organization: The Internet

   Lady Annabell asks about least expensive crafts that might suit a
poor college student, I would offer a serious aside.

   "Learn to scavange and make do, get together a set of minimal tools
and think about uses"
Thats the essence, now I'll ramble around and put a few examples:

A single knife can be the start of carving, whistle making, reed,wood or
quill pen making, block printing .... The materials for theses and many
others can be easily scavenged. If you stay over a semester or summer
break and go "dumpster inspecting" ("dumpster diving") you will be 
awed and amazed at the amount of useful or reusable stuff discarded
as too much to move. Even badly damaged furniture can provide 
project material.

 A basic "enabling" tool kit for scavenging would be:
     Hammer or two, cheap carpenters claw hammer first, then a heavy
                    engineers or smithing (cheap claw 4$ or less,
                    good heavy one (>10$ to <30$)
     Vice grip plyers, they work better than a claw for pulling nails,
act as handvice for many purposes as well as regular plyer like things.

    some kind of short crowbar (I have a nice one about 14 inches long
with a claw, it gives enough leverage to separate glued or multinailed
funiture and disassemble pallets. 

    Heavy knife and pocket knife  for cutting and ripping rope,fabric, wire ect. 
Now having reveled to you the blessing and curse of the holy order
ragpickers, scavengers and gadgeteers here are some more enabled 
crafts..  knoting and braiding given a short time of dd (dumpster diving)
you will almost certainly come up with wire or string usable for practicing
various of these diverse arts, if you are patient enough to disassemble
fabrics you can extend to various patchwork and assemblage arts 
(beware of authenticity for SCA but materials for practice can an
issue, I think this especially true of those crafts that beautify 
common materials... you need to spend lots of time and accept the waste
of material as a cost of learning.  For example small whittling, carving...
unless you are especially gifted or practiced in related arts you will 
need to do several to many before you will feel like it's good (but
you probably can get some pleasant feedback as soon as you do one 
complete carving)  Carving can easily be applied to useful easy 
functional objects, wood stiring spoons or forks...

 (Oh, safety bit I forgot... many scavengers believe in heavy gloves
to protect the hands, and scavengining is a good reason to have
a tetnus update shot, handling junk is a risk of puncture wounds)
The next stage of scavenger/gadgetering is to start concerning you
self with making tools from scavenged materials. Three points are
worthy of consideration by a student here.  First, what kind of
shop facilities and courses can you get into to boost your access to
expensive tools. Second is reading some books on scavenging/toolmaking
to expand your mental tool kit. Third is investment or scavenging up
some more "enabling tools".  My list of fundamental enabling tools
would include.  Hacksaw and blades, coping saw, another vice grip or two,
set of screw drivers, needlenose plyers, files and socketset+ nutdrive
small sockets. The most crucial expensive tool that is a maximal enabler
is power grinding wheel.  Authenticity would make many cutting tools
by smithing(expensive and significant investment to develop skill)
or by hand filling (cheap in tool cost, outragous in time and requires 
skill)   With access to a grinder, hacksaw and vicegrips you can
easily make chisels, punches, scribers, specialty knives and consider
such common crafts as block printing, wood engraving, leather work with
handmade tools and coin blank making.  One common source for material
suitable for fine steel tools is the larger peices of spring mattresses.
:) :) Beware however, having been abandoned in a dumpster makes them
dangerous to kill, the worst scavenging scar I have is the 1/4 inch
hole a bed spring put in my palm.:)   

Besides the common vice grip and hacksaw and the more expensive bench
grinder an uncommon tool valuable in both tool making and directly 
in crafts are the small hand grinders either Dremel mototool style with
motor in the hand or the hanging Fordom tools with a flexible shaft.  
Starting at 50$ and expanding forever as you add tooling this is not
a poor student item but you may be able to find someone willing to 
lend or gift you one.   

  If you wish to discuss more or need references to "making tools"
books email.  Best luck in some new craft.  Les  

<the end>
Edited by Mark S. Harris	craft-supplies-msg