Why be Sustainable?

Sustainability, a key feature in our next generation, is what we need to have now. Sustainability means to make use of our resources and use them wisely, to use our renewable resources rather than our non renewable resources.
But why bother? Our efforts may even be wasted, because not everyone is going to be sustainable. But WE can make that change.

But how? Eco bulbs may not be sustainable because they use mercury, and solar panels only soak up 5% of the available energy from the sun.
We could rely on new technology, like water powered car and motorbike engines, or we could ask our grandparents. They may tell you they didn’t even have cars back then, and they used flame torches for lighting. They might also tell you that they had many resources left, and they didn’t use them up so fast. THIS is how you could help. Also, if you have an open fire, you could install gray water systems, which have water pipes running around and behind your fire, naturally heating the water for your shower.

What‘s going to happen if we don’t be sustainable?
If nobody is sustainable, there are many things that could happen, so I’m just going to go over some of the possibilities. Lakes could dry up, the polar ice caps could melt, causing the oceans to flood and drown us. Even if we don’t drown, we would choke on the gas released from the melting ice, or the gas released from factories, and that’s not even the start of it. And what’s with Computers? Admit it, when it gets slow and outdated, it only a tiny chip that you need to buy, and you can’t replace it, because it is a different shape every year! What a rip-off!

Here are some examples of sustainability: When you go fishing, don’t over fish, and throw the small ones back in so they can grow up to replace the ones you ate for dinner.
When trees are cut down for timber to make things like houses, make sure you replant some so you don’t use all the trees and the ones you plant can grow up to replace the trees you cut down. You could look at alternative renewable sources of power instead of coal, like hydro power, or wind power.

Some things that kids could do are: have a shorter shower, leave the water in the bath for their brother or sister, turn the lights off, recycle, convince people to be sustainable, etc.

So don’t say you’re too young, because by the time you can, and mean it, you can be sustainable.

Kris Wilson, My Cousin

We had a presentation explained to us from Kris, who is an architect, and is also my cousin, and so I know a bit about him, and is marrying my student teacher!!!! Freaky, huh? Anyway, he had a presentation setup about sustainable living, and Eco houses. He told us that an Eco house is a house that is safe with the environment and keeps heat in in the winter, and heat out in the summer. They also should have at least 1 of the following:

Energy Efficiency Waste Management

Passive Solar Design Through Designing In Modules
Avtive Solar Design Recycling While Building
High levels of Insulation Grey Water Systems
Efficient Heating of Air and Water Low Flow Taps And Showers
Thermal Mass
Ventilation
Efficient Lighting

Building Materials

Use of Renewable, NonToxic Materials
Use Of Renewable, Recyclable Materials.
Locally Sourced to Reduce Transport


He also said that when you build or design a house, or building, to keep it warm you should place more windows north, and less facing south. You should also Glaze those windows to keep in heat.
It would be a much better idea to have hanging light bulbs, rather than the kind that sticks to the roof, because you get better insulation with hanging. Douglas Pine is a very good brand to get your wood from. Pine trees are excellent for the house.
A renewable source of energy is a great way to be sustainable, like Solar Power, Hydro Power, or Wind Power!

When designing a house, it is good to put overhangs on the roof as this blocks out the full force of the suns heat.

Extra Jobs!

I have decided that for my extra job I will do Leather Tanning. I have chosen this because it interests me, and it would be quite useful to have a tanner on the island, also, I already have one of the main resources: Rabbit Hide or Leather. I have found a site that tells me how to make different types of leather armour. Click Here to view.

Making Leather:
CUTTING INSTRUCTIONS
A hide of genuine leather is nature's product and caution must be exercised in cutting one. The above diagram shows various areas of a hide and they are cut as follows:
Section A should be used in cutting seat tops, inside backs, cushion bands, and other sections that will receive the most strain and usage of flexing. Section A is the prime portion of the hide.
Section B should be used for outside arms, backs, hidden bands, or other parts of furniture that will receive little or no flexing. The flank sections must be used on outside backs and nonwearing surfaces in order to avoid trouble. Flank fibers run generally in one direction as indicated by the arrow. In applying flank sections to a chair, the first pull should be taken in the direction of the arrow. A stretch at right angles to the direction of the arrow may cause the finish to crack.

THE LEATHER PROCESS Follow this step-by-step process to see how tanneries convert a natural resource into leather hides ...	1 CURING Deterioration begins immediately when a cow is killed. After the hides are removed from the carcass, they are salted through and through at the slaughterhouses to prevent decay. After they are salted, 55% of the water in the hide is removed, and they are dried for 3 to 6 days. The rawhides are then sold to tanneries.	2 SOAKING In order for the tanning process to work properly, the dry salted hides must be washed free of the salt. This is done by soaking the hides in water to which chemical wetting agents (similar to household detergents) and disinfectants are usually added for 8 to 20 hours, depending on the thickness of the hides. This soaking procedure rehydrates the hides to their original flaccid condition and removes the dirt.
3 DE-HAIRING The hair must now be removed from the hides. This is done by soaking the hides in chemicals, or depilatory agents, which destroy the hair by attacking the hair root so it will release freely from the hides, loosen the epidermis, and remove certain soluble skin proteins that lie within the hide substance without destroying the desirable collagen of the hides.	4 FLESHING Excess flesh, fat and muscle must now be removed from the hides. This is done with a fleshing machine.	5 DE-LIMING All the depilatory chemicals must now be removed from the hides. This is done by washing the hides in ammonium sulfate or ammonium chloride and then clear water in big drums. These chemicals not only clean the depilatory chemicals from the hides, they also adjust the acid-alkaline conditions (pH) to the proper point for receiving the bate-which are enzymes similar to those found in the digestive system of animals. When the bates are applied, they attack and destroy most of the remaining undesirable constituents of the hide.
6 PICKLING The hides must be placed in an acid environment (low pH) so they will be ready to accept the tanning materials, because chrome tanning agents are not soluble under alkaline conditions. This is accomplished by adding salt and acid to the hides. This is a preserving process in itself, and hides can be kept in this state for extended periods of time without any deterioration.	7 TANNING The raw collagen fibers of the hides must be converted into a stable product which is no longer susceptible to rotting. This is done by adding chrome tanning agents to the hides in a revolving drum. These tanning agents also significantly improve the hide's dimensional stability, abrasion resistance, resistance to chemicals and to heat, the ability to flex innumerable times without breaking, and the ability to endure repeated cycles of wetting and drying.	8 WRINGING The excess moisture must be removed from the hides. This is done by placing each hide through two large rollers similar to those on a clothes wringer.
9 SPLITTING The hides must now be split into the desired thickness. Unsplit hides average to be 5mm thick. The thickness for upholstery leathers range from .9mm to 2.0mm. The hides are put through a splitting machine that is set to split the hides to the desired thickness. It cuts the top grain off first. Another layer, and sometimes two, are cut. These layers are called splits.	10 SHAVING The thickness of the hides must be made uniform all over the hide. This is done with a shaving machine through which the hides are run. The helical shaped cutting blades level the overall thickness to exact specifications and open the fiber structure to better receive subsequent chemical processing.	11 RE-TANNING This process is done to impart special end-use properties with other tanning chemicals. The substances used add solidity and body to chrome leather and help minimize variations in the character of the leather that may still exist between different parts of the hide.
12 COLORING As soon as the retanning process is completed, aniline dyes, derived primarily from petroleum and added to very hot water, are added to rotating drums to penetrate the hides for desired color.	13 FATLIQUORING This is the last of the wet chemical operations to which the leather will be subjected. Fatliquoring has the most pronounced effect on how soft a leather will be and it contributes greatly to its tensile strength. The more fatliquors that are added, the softer the hides will be.	14 SETTING OUT This operation smoothes and stretches the hide, while compressing and squeezing out the excess moisture. This puts the hides in the proper condition for drying.
15 TOGGLING The hides are stretched across a perforated frame and held in place with clips called toggles. One hide is clipped to each side of the frame. The frames are then slid into channels in drying ovens.	16 STAKING Leather is staked to make it pliable. In combination with the correct fatliquoring treatment, staking governs the final firmness or softness of the leather.	17 DRY MILLING The hides are placed in a large dry drum and tumbled until the desired softness is obtained.
18 BUFFING This process improves the final appearance of the hides by lightly sanding the surface to remove some of the natural imperfections such as scratches, healed scars, etc. It provides the hide with better cutting yield.	19 FINISHING This process applies film-forming materials on the surface of the hide. Here is where layers of pigments are added if required. This process also adds the protective sealant to the surface.	20 PLATING (EMBOSSING) This is the final step in the leather process. During this process, heat presses a chosen grain into the surface of the hides.

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Making Leather Armour:

Suppose you were drawing up specifications for the perfect armor. It would be easy to make from inexpensive materials using commonly available tools. It would be light, strong and rustproof. It would look good. And, of course, it would be period.

Hardened leather, also known as courbouilli, meets all of those requirements. Since discovering how easy it is to make, I have used it to make forearm and elbow protectors, greaves, a half gauntlet, body armor, and edging for my shield. I even made a hardened leather hockey cup, on the theory that the usual white plastic version was the most strikingly mundane item in my armor bag.

In this essay, I will describe how to make several pieces of armor out of hardened leather: a bazuband (a medieval Islamic forearm and elbow protector), a klibanion (Byzantine body armor), a gauntlet and a basket hilt. The techniques described can be applied to a wide variety of other pieces.

To start, you need some leather. It should be vegetable tanned leather rather than chrome tanned leather, and undyed. Chrome tanned, which is the most common modern variety, can usually be recognized by the grey color of the cut edge (unless the edge has been dyed). Vegetable tanned leather is used for carving, making belts and similar projects; it is often described as saddle skirting. Its color, before you harden it, is a light tan.

The thickness of leather is defined in ounces per square foot. One ounce corresponds to a thickness of 1/64"; what is actually measured is usually thickness rather than weight. Ideally you should use at least 12 or 13 ounce leather. Leather as light as 8 or 9 ounces can be used for armor, at least over places that are not too vulnerable; if you make your bazuband out of something that light, use two thicknesses over the elbow. The klibanion is made of overlapping lamellae, giving a total thickness of about twice the thickness of a single layer of leather, so 8 ounce provides at least minimal protection.

Before you start making hardened leather armor, let me give you three warnings. The first is that, although beeswax is attractive, pleasant smelling stuff, people who do not make armor and do share your kitchen may object to finding hardened drops of it scattered over the floor, stove, and countertops. The problem can be minimized by being careful with the molten wax. If you are not good at being careful, you will want to know that hardened wax is easier to remove if you use something soaked in hot water.

The second warning is that wax can burn-which is why it is used to make candles. I have never had beeswax catch fire on me when I was using it to harden leather, but I expect it could happen if you got it too hot. I have no experience with paraffin or other waxes that you might use instead. Be careful, and keep a fire extinguisher nearby.

My final warning is to remind you that the bag that separates your inside from your outside is made of leather. Any tool designed to cut leather is also designed to cut you, so be careful. As Kipling put it in "The Wrong Thing," "Do your work with your heart's blood, but no need to let it show."

Figure 1

To Make a Bazuband

Figure 1 shows what a simple bazuband looks like; Figure 2 shows the piece of leather you will use. The measurements are the circumference of the wrist (a), the maximum circumference of the forearm (b) and the distance from the wrist to the crease that divides the forearm from the upper arm (c). I have given the measurements of the piece for my arm as an example.

Cut out the piece, fill a pot with cold water from the tap, and put the leather in to soak; if you do not have a pot big enough, use the sink or bathtub. After the leather has soaked for half an hour or so it gets flexible and slightly stretchy. If you are making something that requires a good deal of stretching, such as a bazuband or greave, let the leather soak overnight, then take it out, cover it with a damp towel, and leave it for eight hours or so.

If you were simply making a forearm guard, all you would have to do to shape it would be wrap it around your arm (with padding), or around anything else about the same shape and size, and let it dry. A bazuband is a little trickier because of the part that covers the elbow, which is curved like part of a sphere. To make that, you have to stretch the central portion of the leather that goes over the elbow-the shaded area on Figure 2. The different degrees of shading are intended to give a rough idea of what is stretched how much.

Figure 2

One way is to use a medium sized bowl-say 6"-8" in diameter. Put the bowl upside down on a convenient counter and stretch the leather over it by hand. Another way is to use two bowls, one a little larger than the other, with the leather in between.

When the leather has been stretched enough, the next step is to tie it to the form. The form should be something about the size and shape the bazuband is going to be. That means that it should be cylindrical for eight inches or so, with a diameter of about four or five inches and an end that is roughly spherical-increase the numbers a little if you are a giant.

I happen to have a steel bazuband the right size, so I cover it with Saran Wrap to protect it from the wet leather and use it as my form. If you do not have any antique armor lying around, look on the shelf where you keep empty jars, wine bottles, and the like; you should be able to find something about the right size and shape. It does not have to be exact; you will be able to do a certain amount of reshaping of the damp leather after you take it off the form. If you are really ambitious and good at whittling, you could probably make a wooden form and use it to make bazubands for everyone in your group.

Tie the wet leather onto the form, using strips of cloth to avoid marking the leather. Better yet, use a roller bandage-one of those elastic bandages they sell to tie up a sprain, made out of stuff that sticks to itself. You probably have one left around from the time you sprained your ankle fighting.

The basic idea is to get the wet leather tied tightly onto the form, so that when it dries it will have the shape of the form. The only hard part is the spherical section covering the elbow. Work that onto the corresponding part of the form by hand, trying to get it as smooth and wrinkle free as possible. I generally leave it for fifteen or twenty minutes, in the hope that it will stretch a bit more, then untie that part and try again. When you are finally satisfied, leave it for a few hours to dry.

At that point the leather should be stiff enough to hold its shape as long as you treat it gently; take it off the form so the inside as well as the outside can dry. If necessary reshape it a bit-open up the cylinder that goes over your forearm if it is too tight, or close it a little if it is too loose. Then leave it somewhere out of the way to finish drying. Do not start the next step until the leather is thoroughly dry, which probably means waiting several days; if you try to harden leather that is still a little damp, horrible things will happen to it.

Leather is hardened by impregnating it with beeswax. Some people do this by melting wax in a large pot and putting in the leather. This method requires a lot of wax, and I have never tried it. I harden my leather in the oven, using a large pan or a sheet of aluminum foil. In the pan I put the bazuband, with the hollow side up and a large chunk-half a pound or so-of beeswax inside it. Then I put the pan, leather, and wax in an oven set at about 220deg. .

When the leather is hot and the wax beginning to soften a little, take the pan out, rub the wax all over the surface of the leather, and put the pan (and wax and bazuband) back in the oven. Try not to spill wax anywhere where it is likely to catch fire. Continue the process for half an hour or more, rubbing wax on both sides, letting chunks of softened wax melt in the hollow part of the bazuband and running the melted wax around the inside, until the leather is soaked through with wax. Then turn off the oven and take out the pan, bazuband, and what is left of the wax. As long as the leather is hot the bazuband is reasonably flexible, so do any last minute reshaping to get the size just right, then let it cool and harden.

This is a simple bazuband, made of only one piece of leather, so all that remains to do is to punch holes in it (as shown in Figure 1), run a leather thong through the holes, and put in whatever kind of padding you prefer. You are done. You now have light, strong, rustproof protection for your sword arm and elbow. It is a beautiful brown color and looks (and is) very real.

Figure 3

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Hydro Engines

If we wanted to bring a quad bike, like someone mentioned today, we could replace the engines with hydro engines. Which are engines which instead of burning fuel, use hydrogen (water) to power a vehicle, e.g. a quad, to a better standard than normal fuel.

'A hydraulic engine which uses liquid fluid as the working medium consists of a housing structure, a liquid fluid inlet passage, a fluid outlet passage, a liquid fluid pump, a fluid actuator, coupling means connecting the two, fluid flow diffusing means, a combustion chamber, an energy exchange zone, a fuel and air supply means, a combustion ignition means, a power takeoff actuator means, a power takeoff means, and a fluid separating means. Liquid fluid enters the engine inlet where it travels to the energy exchange zone. Here exhausted combustion product in the form of a gaseous fluid is introduced into the liquid fluid where it is combined. The mixture is exhausted through the outlet passage of the engine in the form of a liquid fluid-gaseous fluid stream. Upon entering the outlet passage, the mixture is directed to a fluid separating chamber where the working liquid fluid of the engine is separated from the gaseous combustion product. The liquid fluid is then recirculated back to the inlet of the engine to provide a constant liquid fluid source for engine operation.'
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As this idea progress's, I will find out more and if this would be a better idea.

Minister of Communication

Communication is a big thing, especially on an island, where we would need to call help to get medical attention, or something. The thing is, we can't do this without phones, or radios, so I need to make sure this happens.

How will I do this: Well, I will need to start by researching radios, and find out how to build one, I will show my research. Foxhole Radio Foxhole Radio2

You wouldn't be able to make a radio and pick up a station without there being one within range, so I should have to make one, as well. Radio Station Radio Station2

If a radio station was used to chat, how would everyone be able to access it without internet? A internet service provider would be used here. ISP ISP2

If you need more info, then Google is very useful.