Survival and Emergency Preparedness

I was posting in the thread on advice to someone new to prepping. It reminded me of a post Gene put up years ago on inexpensive stuff you can buy that still fills the role just fine while still being inexpensive. So that got me thinking of starting this thread. Let's list stuff that you can purchase for $5 or less that would fit a role in emergency preparedness for anyone on a budget to show just what can be purchased/stockpiled if they were consistent.

Not everything needs a link but If you can put a link to what your suggesting that would be great for folks new to prepping. Can be anything useful such as food, water or gear of all types. Let's see what kind of list we can put together for $5 or less.

Starting out with a staple item and a piece of useful gear...

• Easy to find a case of water, perhaps even two cases for $5 or less.

• Four mylar emergency space blankets for $4.39 at Walmart. https://www.walmart.com/ip/4-Emergency- ... thena=true

P38 Can Opener: Maybe the greatest invention of military/industrial complex. Back in the days of C rations, everyone had these on their dog tags. With a little practice, these are about as fast as an electric can opener and are very light and compact and it is a good idea to have a few around for opening cans when the power is out. The P38's are a little hard to find in the MRE era, but they are still out there. The ones made in the USA (usually by Shelby) are better than the Chinese knock-offs.


Fiskars Garden Trowel: Light, low cost and tough. Great for digging cat holes, little drainage ditches around your tent or shelter and for constructing fire pits. The orange plug on the end of the handle can be pulled off to allow the hollow handle to be used as a match safe; there's room for really long matches plus some tinder.



Duct Tape: Great for all sorts of repairs – easy to carry if you wrap it around a hotel key card or other smooth faced “credit card”.

Pea-less Whistle: Each member of the family should carry one of these on a break away lanyard when out in the foods. Even fairly little kids can be taught to reply with their whistle when they hear someone else by making a game of it.

Bic/Mini Bic Lighters: Much easier for most people to get a fire started with a Bic than a fire steel, just make sure to carry a spare of two (in addition to other fire starting methods) in case one fails.

Mineral Oil Cotton Balls: Easier to make these with mineral oil from the pharmacy than Vaseline and they work just as well. These can be used for lubricating, cleaning and keeping steel rust free and since mineral oil is food safe/indigestible, it can be used on knife blades used for food. Also makes a decent lip balm. You can seal them up in plastic straws (big ones like the Slurpee straws from 7-11) with your lighter to water proof them for storage.

Victorinox Paring Knives: Come in different handle colors, blade shapes, configurations, starting at around $5. These are great little knives popular with everyone from chefs to commercial fishermen who use them as net knives. Don't be afraid to get the serrated versions, the little serrations cut smooth as a straight edge without snagging and are super easy to sharpen on a Sharpmaker.



The top one with the yellow handle came from Wenger.



This is one set up as a little kit with a fire steel and a P38 taped to the tip to keep it from punching through the pouch.



I carry it on the back of a machete sheath.

xxo wrote: ↑Sat Jan 04, 2020 11:36 pm P38 Can Opener: Maybe the greatest invention of military/industrial complex. Back in the days of C rations, everyone had these on their dog tags. With a little practice, these are about as fast as an electric can opener and are very light and compact and it is a good idea to have a few around for opening cans when the power is out. The P38's are a little hard to find in the MRE era, but they are still out there. The ones made in the USA (usually by Shelby) are better than the Chinese knock-offs.

That is a great idea/suggestion! Took a look and they're all over Ebay and I found this site as well;

https://www.armysurplusworld.com/p38-ca ... yJEALw_wcB

Cheaper on Ebay and I see the Shelby version you recommend. These are small/light enough to toss in a bag/pack/glove compartment and take up no room at all. Or put on a key chain.

Duct Tape: Great for all sorts of repairs – easy to carry if you wrap it around a hotel key card or other smooth faced “credit card”.

Even good for an injury as well. I really like the orange Gorilla.

Pea-less Whistle: Each member of the family should carry one of these on a break away lanyard when out in the foods. Even fairly little kids can be taught to reply with their whistle when they hear someone else by making a game of it.

99 cents at HFT

Bic/Mini Bic Lighters: Much easier for most people to get a fire started with a Bic than a fire steel, just make sure to carry a spare of two (in addition to other fire starting methods) in case one fails.

Does anyone else have a problem with the wheel seizing up after a while on Bics? I have/had the mini's but I can't turn the wheels any longer. The cheap versions I got at the flea market though for like 10 cents each are fine and I've had them for several years now. Bought like four boxes of them so I have close to 200 of them in the closet.

Victorinox Paring Knives: Come in different handle colors, blade shapes, configurations, starting at around $5. These are great little knives popular with everyone from chefs to commercial fishermen who use them as net knives. Don't be afraid to get the serrated versions, the little serrations cut smooth as a straight edge without snagging and are super easy to sharpen on a Sharpmaker.

Victornox puts out a quality product and I've always like them.

Speaking of HFT, they do have a lot of different items that would come in handy on the cheap.

https://www.harborfreight.com/magnesium ... 66560.html



While the magnesium bar is on the hard side (I've had softer magnesium which is easier to shave off in other products), it is usable.

I got one of those hft firestarter blocks just to see if it was any good, unfortunately, it sucked bad. If the metal was magnesium, it was cut with a bunch of some other metal because it really didn't burn and the fire steel was cheap and crappy – definitely something to avoid IMHO.

The real ones made by Doan are much, much better in that they use real magnesium metal and the fire steel they use is excellent, but I still would not recommend them. Its too difficult to scrape off enough magnesium and you end up dulling the crap out of your knife if you use it as a scraper. Even if you do manage to scrape off some magnesium it comes off in a fine power that is easy to blow away and get lost and when it does light it goes up in a flash making it very hard to get fire going with it in damp and windy conditions.

For anyone who insists on using these things, I would recommend making the magnesium shavings at home with a drill and taking them with you in a little zip lock bag (holes drilled through the blocks make it a little easier to scrape out shavings with a knife as well) and use a piece of duct tape to catch the shavings and keep them from blowing away. The duct tape glue is will probably work better as a tinder than the magnesium will any way.

If you know any one who works in a machine shop that works with Magnesium, ask them if they can hook you up with some of the magnesium chips from a lathe or milling machine – these work much better than the blocks.

The HFT mag bar must be a crap shoot. I've gotten a bunch of them, and yes, the magnesium is hard to scrap off using the little hacksaw blade. But I was able to get a fire started with it. But yeah, not the easiest tool to use and there are better choices.

I got one of these mag bars that is on the wooden handle. Kinda looks like a hair brush. That was like $5 give or take and the magnesium on it is extremely easy to shave off and ignite. This one is a real pleasure. I'll have to see if I can find the link I used. That would be my first choice if using a mag-style fire-starter.

I was thinking of making a fat wood version of the Doan Mag block out of a block of fat wood with a groove cut on the side to epoxy in a fire steel – never got around to doing it. Fat wood is much easier to shave off curls with a knife and fat wood does not go up in a flash when you light it.

BTW I see people are selling little bags of magnesium chips for fire starting on ebay....I might get some to play with putting into home made wax/mineral oil cotton balls, though I think I may still have some magnesium that I got from a machine shop many years ago.

This isn't the specific ad that I purchased from, but it looks to be the exact type that I bought a few years ago.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Magnesium-Ferr ... 3626!US!-1

I got the idea to look for one after seeing a YT video that was an ad for a much more expensive version that was around $35+. That version looked better and some came with compasses and such but I always try to look for a bargain and skip the frills. So this is plain wooden handle whereas the fancier version had different woods and maybe even bone and stag horn handles. The one I bought was less than $5 IIRC. And WOW! it worked fantastic. I remember one SEP gathering a couple of years ago I got a pile about the size of a quarter (just like they always say to do) and lit it up on the first stroke of the ferro rod. That spot stayed hot enough that maybe 10 minutes later I could still put tinder on it and it would ignite. Was like a hot molten glob. And like I mentioned, it was very easy to shave. That was a great bargain.

OK, I've seem ones like that before but never used one. Glad to hear that they work well!