Are Hand Tools and Hardware Included in your Survival Preparations?

I haven't been a hardware store that I didn't want to spend thousands of dollars in, and I have a significant collection of hand tools and hardware, just in case, so this article on non-power tools interested me. Very good article from Survival Cache on the 10 Non-Power Tools you will need for Survival:

• Cross Cut Saw
• Hacksaw
• Standard Hand Saw
• Large Hand Drill
• Small Hand Drill
• Battery Free Battery Tester
• Battery Free Circuit Tester
• Hand Powered Grinding Wheel
• Hand Powered Air Pump Scythe

Pretty decent list, but why limit it to 10 tools? This above list is completely diferent from my own. Survival Cache is a very good site, just disagree on this one! But his recommendation of hand grinding wheel is something I did not consider before- great idea and will incorporate it into my preps.

Urban Man's Hand Tool and Hardware List:

• Claw Hammer. Don't forget about boxes of nails of all types as well, concentrating on 8 and 16D size.
• Cross Cut Saw. These usually have a removal blade so have an extra blade or get a different type of blade.
• Hack Saw and extra blades,.....many extra blades.
• Long Handle D shovel. In fact, have a couple of these.
• Short D handle shovel,...again have several.
• Axe. Better yet a wood axes, a wedge and a fire axe which is a regular axe with a pickaxe end.
• Combination pliers/wire cutters. Include a couple of rolls of fencing wire, sometimes called baling wire.
• Box and Open wrench set, standard and metric. Have a couple of cans or buckets of assorted bolts with washers, lock washers and nuts as well. Think 1/4, 1/2 and 5/8ths diamter in legnths of 2, 4, 6 and 8 inches long.
• Screwdriver set, slotted tip and cross tip. Include boxes of medium and long wood screws, metal screws and rubber washer sheet metal screws.
• Sledge Hammer.
• Ball Peen Hammer.
• Garden hoe. Makes things easy when you have to put in that survival garden,.....which you will have to do if you want to eat and suplement your stored food supply.
• Hand air pump is a good idea. I did not think about this. These are cheap - have several.
• Hand drill - another thing that passed me, but brought to my attention by the article referenced above.
• Wire Cutters and/or fencing tool.
• Slip Joint Pliers.
• Needle Nose pliers.
• Pipe Wrench.
• Steel pry bar and smaller crow bars.

I think the thing to do is to carry a notepad around with you to write down your prep ideas as they occur to you.  One of these headings can be hand tools, hardware and material.  Work off the list as you can. 

Related to hand tools would be material such as lumber, PVC and you could probably add some metal stock to this list.  Mush like people in Florida have pre-cut plywood to cover windows to hurricane protection, having some plywood, 2x4's and PVC pipe (don't forget the connectors, etc.) can be stored in your garage.

I have flower beds around the house with rail road ties as borders.  I intended this so I can pull the rail road ties up and use them to fortify the house, provide small arms protection and/or build protected fighting positions if necessary.  Sure would piss my wife of, but it's there is needed.   

More on Community Organization for the Collapse

Anonymous left a new comment on your post Green Beret versus Doomsday Prepper: "I don't really disagree with this story. But I don't agree that 400 neighbors is necessarily better then going it alone. I can assure you some of those 400 neighbors don't like you and some want what you have. If you think politics and human greed will suspend itself until the crisis ends you are wrong. The difference will be that you will have enemies within AND outside. You will not know who is your friend. Those people who openly dislike you are probably harmless while those who dislike you but put on a fake front will probably do you harm. The lady down the street with three kids and a husband thrives on drama and enjoys turning one person against another. That middle aged quiet guy is infatuated with your wife and thinks if he could eliminate you he would have a chance with her. That sullen guy that never talks much is still pissed at you for parking in the street a year ago in a spot he thinks is for him alone. Some of these people will do you harm directly or indirectly and you probably won't see it coming. "

UrbanMan's reply:" I do not disagree with you. Most of us that have ever been involved with some sort of Mil or LE team would rather have a small team of trained and trusted individuals as opposed to having dozens of individuals with suspect motives and character.

Let's say you decide to Bug In. If you make no effort to develop your neighbors into at least a loosely based group for mutual support, then you face, potentially, a much larger close threat. Again, I agree with your supposition that you would have neighbors who dislike you, even hate you and want what you have be it supplies, weapons,...or as you put it "your wife". (side note: he would have no idea what he would be getting into!).

I think there will be several categories of people in your possible Survivor Group:

1. People who would gladly welcome leadership and assistance in the confusing chaos of the collapse. These people may initially be the least useful, but you would need the manpower to do everything from main observation posts and checkpoints; construct necessary things; garden and grow crops; procure and/or filter water; procure (scrounge) necessary items.

2. People who will worthless. Not able to do anything, but expect someone to take care of them because we have bred that into our population the last 50 years. You may be able to make some of the types marginally useful, but the trick is to not let them such up resources at a ratio that far exceeds their contribution.

3. There will be people who disagree with most or everything you would be trying to do such as establish OP/LPS, checkpoints, develop teams to garden, procure, etc. They may be disagreeing out of fear, or out of some character flaw like wanting status and power. There will be people who are jealous of you and your "stuff". There will be people who may exploit the situation to bully or harass or even sexually assault women. You would have to deal with these people in order to develop the bigger team. Use your "spidy sense" in detecting these people if their overt actions and words don't expose them first. Hunkering down by your lonesome, in my mind is not an option.

Let's just say, worst case scenario, you don't do any team building, ......don't interface with your neighbors,.......or anything. Then the collapse starts. Let's say it's an oil boycott, followed quickly by a stock market collapse and within days food deliveries to groceries and stores are drying up and the local government basically collapses as hyper inflation hits. Going to your nearest neighbors, the ones you think are approach-able and asking how they are doing and make some suggestions on security, protection, water storage, food stocks could only build rapport and enhance your standing with them. At a minimum they could become eyes and ears for you enhancing your security.

I have a bunch of FRS radios that I can give out to my neighbors, albeit at the right time, so we can communicate. I can replace their batteries periodically with my solar powered re-chargeable systems. If a neighbor makes comms with me saying he has some suspicious people lurking about, my choices are to address the potential or actual threat now or to wait until they try and loot my house. Me and mine? We're being pro-active.

Who knows maybe your neighbors have some skills that will augment your survival plan. Maybe the old lady down the street grows tomatoes and cans them. Maybe there is a young couple across the street wit hthe husband being a welder and his wife a practical nurse.

It is much better knowing all this before the collapse. It would makes organization much easier knowing your neighbors, having rapport, building respect between you and them now as opposed to when the collapse and therefore panic hits.

You are absolutely right about be wary of the shitheads, but you'll have to deal with them in order to build that community survival group for the benefit of all. Afterall, you can always Bug Out if need be.

The Horrifying Collapse of America Predicted

Chris Hedges saying "Brace yourself,...the American Empire is Over and the Descent is going to be Horrifying". Mr Hedges paints a terrible picture on the decline of America, why it is happening and how it is irreversible. While some of Hedges says I personally disagree with, it is really irreflutable that debt, corruption, over burdening and heavy handed government and simply incompetence has doomed this country.

Why Survivalist's Should Buy Silver

This is a good common sense and straight forward article on why you should have silver in your Survival "portfolio", along with foods, gear, firearms and ammunition, and of course, a PLAN. This is from GE Christenson, aka the Deviant Investor.  Preppers should consider bookmarking his site and refer back to it from time to time or subsribe to e-mail updates as I will.

Why Buy Silver?

•  Silver has no counter-party risk. It is not someone else’s liability. Silver Eagles or Canadian Silver Maple Leaf coins are recognized around the world and have intrinsic value everywhere. The same is NOT true for hundreds of paper currencies that have become worthless, usually because the government or central bank printed them to excess to pay the debts of governments that did not control spending.

•  The price of silver in US dollars since the year 2001 has been strongly correlated with the ever-increasing official national debt of the United States. Read $100 Silver! Yes, But When? I doubt that anyone believes the national debt will decrease or even remain constant over the next four years. We have every reason to believe that it will increase by well over $1,000,000,000,000 per year for many years. If the national debt is rapidly increasing and it correlates, on average, with the price of silver, then we can be reasonably certain that the HIGHLY VOLATILE price of silver will increase substantially over the next few years.

•  Silver has been used as money (medium of exchange and a store of value) for over 3,000 years. In most cultures, silver has been used for daily transactions far more often than gold. I have read that the word for “money” is the same as the word for “silver” in many languages.

•  In the United States silver was used as money – coins – until the 1960s when inflation in the paper money supply caused the price of silver to rise sufficiently that silver coins were removed from circulation. Do you remember silver dollars? They contained approximately 0.77 ounces of silver. Currently the US Mint produces silver eagles which contain 1.0 ounce of silver – and cost approximately $35.

•  Argentina has devalued their currency several times and has dropped eight zeros off their unbacked paper money in the past 30 years. The United States has not dropped any zeros from dollars, but it took approximately one-half of one dollar to buy an ounce of silver 100 years ago, while it takes over 30 in today’s reduced value dollars. It took about 20 dollars to buy an ounce of gold 100 years ago and it takes over 1,600 dollars to buy that same ounce of gold today. There are many more dollars (paper and electronic) in circulation today compared to 100 years ago. Hence the prices, measured in declining value dollars, for silver, gold, wheat, crude oil, bread, coffee, and ammunition is MUCH larger.

•  Throughout history the prices of gold and silver have increased and decreased together, usually with gold costing 10 to 20 times as much as silver. A historical ratio of 15 or 16 is often quoted and that places the current ratio, which is in excess of 50, as relatively high. Since Nixon “closed the gold window” on August 15, 1971 and allowed the dollar to become an unbacked paper currency that could be created in nearly unlimited quantities, the gold to silver ratio has ranged from a high of approximately 100 to a low of approximately 17. There is room for silver prices to explode higher, narrowing the ratio to perhaps 20 to 1. When gold reaches $3,500 (Jim Sinclair) and subsequently much higher in the next few years, and assuming the ratio drops to approximately 20 to 1, the price of silver could approach $200 per ounce, on its way to a much higher number, depending on the extent of the QE-Infinity “money printing,” panic, hyperinflation, and investor demand.

•  If you think a silver price of $200 per ounce is outrageous, I suspect you would find near universal agreement among most Americans. But is a national debt in excess of $16,000,000,000,000 less outrageous? If unfunded liabilities are included the “fiscal gap” is, depending on who is calculating it, approximately $100,000,000,000,000 to $220,000,000,000,000. For perspective, that places the unfunded liabilities of the US government at approximately $700,000 per person in the United States. Is $700,000 unfunded liability (debt) per man, woman, and child more believable than a price for silver of $200?

It seems likely that the populace will eventually realize that:

•  Government spending is out of control and will not be voluntarily reduced.

•  “Printing money” or debt monetization (QE) is necessary and inevitable in order to continue funding the excess spending of the US government. More money in circulation means a declining purchasing power for the dollar. The decline is likely to accelerate at some time in the future.

•  The real value of our savings and retirement diminishes as the dollar declines in value.

•  People will panic and shift into real assets to preserve their purchasing power. (There is no fever like gold fever!)

•  That panic will cause gold, silver, and many other real assets to drastically increase in price, as measured in devalued dollars.

•  It is better to be early than late if a panic-moment is about to arrive.

•  Silver is less expensive per ounce than gold and more available for purchase than gold, particularly for middle-class westerners. An investment into silver is likely to appreciate more than a similar investment in gold.

What Do You Believe?

•  Do you believe that excessive spending and debt will be reduced?

•  Do you believe that the decline in purchasing power of the dollar over the last 100 years will suddenly reverse?

•  Do you believe that congressional promises for Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and government pensions will be broken?

•  Do you believe the Federal Reserve will continue to print the money to pay for those promises?

•  Do you believe your savings and retirement are totally safe in paper investments denominated in dollars?

•  Do you believe, as history indicates, that paper money eventually devalues to zero while gold and silver retain their value?

•  Do you believe that the world will suddenly stop using silver, instead of finding new uses for it every year?

Would you rather trust silver coins in a safe place or paper money and political promises?  Most people will do nothing to protect their financial future.

Peak Oil and the Coming Collapse

Peak Oil and the Coming Collapse from the SGT Report and reprinted on the Martenson report the audio interview below with researcher and author of ‘The Crash Course’ Chris Martenson.

Chris has been following economical trends for decades now and has been one of the early guys warning of the coming collapse. Chris makes the case for "peak oil" being a fact and that because of it, our lives are about to change forever as the days of cheap liquid fuel are nearly over. Chris also covers the coming collapse and the need to continue stacking physical material goods.

There is just so much of the economy and life centered around our oil products, from basic homes energy needs,..heating, cooking and basic electrical service, to the freedoms we enjoy being able to use vehicles for personal mobility. Vehicles and fuel are vital for commerce,...from food stuffs being delivered by tractor-trailer rigs to people getting to and from work each day.

Part 1: PEAK OIL: A Fact? Life As We Know It WILL Change