Go Back   Professional Soldiers ® > Kit Tips > Special Forces Fieldcraft

Reply
 
Thread Tools Display Modes
Old 09-14-2004, 09:59   #1
The Reaper
Quiet Professional
 
The Reaper's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jan 2004
Location: Free Pineland
Posts: 24,779
Redneck/SF Engineering

Let's light a fire on this forum.

I would like to see a post from anyone who has a way to "do almost anything, with absolutely nothing".

Catastrophic failures should be relegated to a Darwin Award thread.

As an example, I was in the 25th ID in Hawaii during a pretty bad hurricane. It took a couple of days to clear enough streets to get to post 10 miles from my house.

When I got in, lots of people were milling around the motor pool unable to operate their vehicles due to a lack of fuel. Most had run out, the deadlined vehicles had already been siphoned dry.

We had almost 20,000 gallons in the ground in tanks, but the power was out.

I took a quick look around the motor pool, found a 1.5KW generator, a Light Set, a pair of lineman pliers, and a 5 gallon can of waste fuel.

I set up the generator as far from the pumps as the extension cords from the Light Set would reach, cut off the plug end of the cord, pulled the pump breaker, took the cover off the pump, and hot wired the drop cord directly to the pump motor, taping everything up well.

I fueled up the gen set with the waste fuel strained through a screen, and it started. I plugged in the cord, and five minutes later, we were operating the only operational fuel point on Schofield Barracks for the next three days.


Second story. Old one. Inherently dangerous, do not attempt at home. OTOH, if your vehicle is dead in Afghanistan and you are being being shot at, you have to make your decision and live with the consequences.

I saw a guy with a dead battery in a 7-11 parking lot. No one had any jumper cables.

One of his buddies pulled up in front of him till the front bumpers touched.

He then took the tire tools out of both vehicles. This appeared to be an unconventional approach, so I had to see what happened next.

He placed the socket ends of the tire tools on the positive terminals of the batteries, and slapped the other ends together with a little sparking.

The owner of the dead car was able to crank it right up.

Adaptive thinking. THAT is what we are looking for.

Anyone else?

TR
__________________
"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat." - President Theodore Roosevelt, 1910

De Oppresso Liber 01/20/2025

Last edited by The Reaper; 09-14-2004 at 10:01.
The Reaper is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 09-14-2004, 10:43   #2
Air.177
Quiet Professional
 
Air.177's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jan 2004
Location: Central TX
Posts: 1,390
I once saw a Broken Case extractor for a 1919 made from a Bolt that happened to fit the 30-06 case. A few slots were cut in the bolt with a file to make it vaguely resemble a tap. It worked after a few attempts.
Air.177 is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 09-14-2004, 10:49   #3
The Reaper
Quiet Professional
 
The Reaper's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jan 2004
Location: Free Pineland
Posts: 24,779
Quote:
Originally Posted by Air.177
I once saw a Broken Case extractor for a 1919 made from a Bolt that happened to fit the 30-06 case. A few slots were cut in the bolt with a file to make it vaguely resemble a tap. It worked after a few attempts.
Excellent!

Where is Mr. Harsey and his vast wealth of RE knowledge?

TR
__________________
"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat." - President Theodore Roosevelt, 1910

De Oppresso Liber 01/20/2025
The Reaper is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 09-14-2004, 15:53   #4
Bill Harsey
Bladesmith to the Quiet Professionals
 
Bill Harsey's Avatar
 
Join Date: Feb 2004
Location: Oregon, Land of the Silver Grey Sunsets
Posts: 3,879
Quote:
Originally Posted by The Reaper
Excellent!

Where is Mr. Harsey and his vast wealth of RE knowledge?

TR
I'm getting there, got to finish up the day work first! Been keeping notes in the shop on this, got some good ones!
Bill Harsey is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 09-14-2004, 17:49   #5
Bill Harsey
Bladesmith to the Quiet Professionals
 
Bill Harsey's Avatar
 
Join Date: Feb 2004
Location: Oregon, Land of the Silver Grey Sunsets
Posts: 3,879
Wrenches

Here's a simple but very effective one, Ever had an end wrench on a nut or bolt and can't move it? Two things, if it's a bolt, hit the head with hammer first. This may break the bind free, don't do this on a nut because you will probably mushroom the threads the nut needs to twist off over. Then if the typical end wrench your using (one box or closed end, the other end open) can't turn the bolt, get another end wrench about equal size. Put the box end of the first wrench over the bolt. Then place the box end of wrench no.2 over the fork of the first wrenches open end so you can double the length of the wrench therefore increasing greatly the leverage. Reef on the second wrench. Something will give. Do not let the owner of the wrenches see what your doing because he may not let you borrow them again. Aircraft mechanics go away, this will get you in deep doo-doo.
Bill Harsey is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 09-14-2004, 21:26   #6
Bill Harsey
Bladesmith to the Quiet Professionals
 
Bill Harsey's Avatar
 
Join Date: Feb 2004
Location: Oregon, Land of the Silver Grey Sunsets
Posts: 3,879
Fast splice an eye in cable!

Most folks here know I grew up logging, spent years at it. Any of you guys have to handle cable? Sometimes we need to put an eye in one end to attach to other rigging so we can pull on stuff, this is what cable does, it pulls on stuff. Most wire rope is 6 strands over a core. To do a proper spliced eye takes the right tools and some learned skills. What I'm going to describe takes almost no skills, is fast and will work with anything from 1/8th inch to 2 inch or bigger if you have the personal horsepower to bend it. If you have say 3/4 inch cable, unravel the six strands of cable completely, go back about three feet. Ignore the core. Use a screwdriver or similar tool to pry them apart to get started if you have to. Take three strands to each side. Grab one strand from each side and point them toward each other until they cross about midpoint. Wrap them back together, just like they came apart. Do this with each strand from each side until you've put the cable back together in a loop. It'll look just like it was made that way. Ignore the free ends hanging past this fast eye we call a "Farmers Splice" It's as strong as the entire cable for a little while but it lacks the long term durability of a true spliced eye. I should charge for this, it's that good.

Last edited by Bill Harsey; 09-14-2004 at 21:38.
Bill Harsey is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 09-14-2004, 11:39   #7
Ambush Master
Quiet Professional
 
Ambush Master's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jan 2004
Location: DFW Texas Area
Posts: 4,741
Quote:
Originally Posted by Air.177
I once saw a Broken Case extractor for a 1919 made from a Bolt that happened to fit the 30-06 case. A few slots were cut in the bolt with a file to make it vaguely resemble a tap. It worked after a few attempts.
Yes, I did do that !!
__________________
Martin sends.
Ambush Master is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 09-14-2004, 10:54   #8
Air.177
Quiet Professional
 
Air.177's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jan 2004
Location: Central TX
Posts: 1,390
Quote:
Originally Posted by The Reaper
Let's light a fire on this forum.

I would like to see a post from anyone who has a way to "do almost anything, with absolutely nothing".

Catastrophic failures should be relegated to a Darwin Award thread.

As an example, I was in the 25th ID in Hawaii during a pretty bad hurricane. It took a couple of days to clear enough streets to get to post 10 miles from my house.

When I got in, lots of people were milling around the motor pool unable to operate their vehicles due to a lack of fuel. Most had run out, the deadlined vehicles had already been siphoned dry.

We had almost 20,000 gallons in the ground in tanks, but the power was out.

I took a quick look around the motor pool, found a 1.5KW generator, a Light Set, a pair of lineman pliers, and a 5 gallon can of waste fuel.

I set up the generator as far from the pumps as the extension cords from the Light Set would reach, cut off the plug end of the cord, pulled the pump breaker, took the cover off the pump, and hot wired the drop cord directly to the pump motor, taping everything up well.

I fueled up the gen set with the waste fuel strained through a screen, and it started. I plugged in the cord, and five minutes later, we were operating the only operational fuel point on Schofield Barracks for the next three days.


Second story. Old one. Inherently dangerous, do not attempt at home. OTOH, if your vehicle is dead in Afghanistan and you are being being shot at, you have to make your decision and live with the consequences.

I saw a guy with a dead battery in a 7-11 parking lot. No one had any jumper cables.

One of his buddies pulled up in front of him till the front bumpers touched.

He then took the tire tools out of both vehicles. This appeared to be an unconventional approach, so I had to see what happened next.

He placed the socket ends of the tire tools on the positive terminals of the batteries, and slapped the other ends together with a little sparking.

The owner of the dead car was able to crank it right up.

Adaptive thinking. THAT is what we are looking for.

Anyone else?

TR
I like it

The Tire Iron in my jeep has been used for MANY things, but not that. Hammer, jack handle, lug nut wrench, pick/shovel, and Improvised Weapon in a real pinch. Never jumper cable though.
Air.177 is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 09-14-2004, 11:15   #9
The Reaper
Quiet Professional
 
The Reaper's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jan 2004
Location: Free Pineland
Posts: 24,779
Quote:
Originally Posted by Air.177
I like it

The Tire Iron in my jeep has been used for MANY things, but not that. Hammer, jack handle, lug nut wrench, pick/shovel, and Improvised Weapon in a real pinch. Never jumper cable though.
Remember that you have to have the two vehicles in solid metal to metal contact (common ground) for it to work.

TR
__________________
"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat." - President Theodore Roosevelt, 1910

De Oppresso Liber 01/20/2025
The Reaper is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 09-14-2004, 11:19   #10
Air.177
Quiet Professional
 
Air.177's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jan 2004
Location: Central TX
Posts: 1,390
I'll keep that in Mind.

Not sure if this qualifies for the purposes of this thread, but you can do damn near anything with a Forklift. (As if you folks didn't already know that)



Come on Guys, This isn't the TR and Some Punk Kid Show!!!

Lets see some of those Off the Wall "Southern Engineering Stories"

Last edited by Air.177; 09-14-2004 at 11:24.
Air.177 is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 02-09-2007, 11:07   #11
Goat Bandit
Asset
 
Join Date: Feb 2007
Posts: 19
Need more leg room in your HMMWV?

This came to me a couple of days ago...

If you are a tall guy like me, you might have a hard time fitting in the VC's seat with all of your kit on. So after a couple of months of trying to fabricate some sort of seat back extension for my chair a light bulb came on. The back rest has 4 inches of padding on it, but the bolt holes are in line with the back side of the seat back (behind the padding). I just took off the entire back rest off and bolted it back on, but now facing aft. And that gave me another 4 inches of leg room. Sure, all of the padding is now on the wrong side but now my seatbelt fits and my knees aren't burning up on the dash.

If anyone else has another solution, I'd like to hear about it.
Goat Bandit is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 02-09-2007, 11:37   #12
The Reaper
Quiet Professional
 
The Reaper's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jan 2004
Location: Free Pineland
Posts: 24,779
Does the seat padding not have some sort of cushioning effect in the event of an IED?

Would injuries not be worse for an unpadded person, sort of why we changed dashes to padded ones in the 60s?

Just a question.

TR
__________________
"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat." - President Theodore Roosevelt, 1910

De Oppresso Liber 01/20/2025
The Reaper is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 02-09-2007, 12:38   #13
Goat Bandit
Asset
 
Join Date: Feb 2007
Posts: 19
There is a good post by SwatSurgeon that talks alot about blast injuries.
More specifically he stated this:
 Tertiary injuries – Blunt trauma.
– Physically thrown through the air and strike or impale themselves on objects.
– Collapsing structures.
– Other objects propelled through the air striking the victim

I think that the foam would qualify as a collpsing sructure. I do know that the bolts sometimes shear off in certain situations where the vehicle is hit hard enough or is involved in a serious wreck. It would make sense to have as much padding as practical to absorb the shock of being thrown around, but I have never experienced the concussion of an IED inside of my vehicle. Nor do I know someone that was wearing a seatbelt when they were. What we have experienced in the realm of IED's was mainly a lot of fragmentation for those that were effective. We have lost more men to vehicle wrecks than from enemy action, and it was determined that not using seat belts was one of the reasons why the injuries were so severe.
So I really don't know the answer. I'm sure the seats were tested in the standard configuration with a crash test dummy in a lab. I doubt if the test HMMWV had a Frag 5 kit on it and if the dummy was wearing body armor. I'd like to see more research on blast injuries inside of a HMMWV, and ways to mitigate. If anyone has links please post them on the proper forum. I'll do some more research on the seat and post what I can.

Last edited by Goat Bandit; 02-09-2007 at 13:13.
Goat Bandit is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 03-19-2007, 11:04   #14
Dieter
Asset
 
Join Date: Feb 2007
Location: Ft. Sill, Oklahoma
Posts: 6
Not sure if this qualifies as "Redneck/SF Engineering" but if you plan on going camping and know ahead of time that your gonna be limited on resrouces that you can bring, bring a thing of cotton balls, and petrolium jelly (not sure on spelling). If you coat the cotton balls with the jelly, and stick them together it acts as a wick, and slows down how fast the cotton balls burn away. We went on a camping trip in my Outdoor Education class, and it was wet and windy outside and trying to sustain the fire was getting hard. So our teacher taught us that little trick and made the whole procerss alot easier.
Dieter is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 04-28-2007, 17:04   #15
RTK
Guerrilla
 
RTK's Avatar
 
Join Date: Apr 2007
Location: Fort Carson, CO
Posts: 338
Quote:
Originally Posted by Goat Bandit
This came to me a couple of days ago...

If you are a tall guy like me, you might have a hard time fitting in the VC's seat with all of your kit on. So after a couple of months of trying to fabricate some sort of seat back extension for my chair a light bulb came on. The back rest has 4 inches of padding on it, but the bolt holes are in line with the back side of the seat back (behind the padding). I just took off the entire back rest off and bolted it back on, but now facing aft. And that gave me another 4 inches of leg room. Sure, all of the padding is now on the wrong side but now my seatbelt fits and my knees aren't burning up on the dash.

If anyone else has another solution, I'd like to hear about it.
If you take out the bottom bolt on both sides the seat will pivot like a recliner. If you're 5'7" to 6'0" it works out pretty good with kit on.
__________________
Example is better than precept.
RTK is offline   Reply With Quote
Reply


Currently Active Users Viewing This Thread: 1 (0 members and 1 guests)
 
Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is Off
HTML code is Off

Forum Jump



All times are GMT -6. The time now is 08:37.



Copyright 2004-2022 by Professional Soldiers ®
Site Designed, Maintained, & Hosted by Hilliker Technologies