Field Improvised Fixes, whats yours?

[trackmagic]

had a good friend fix a thermostat in a truck with a pencil, rubberband and a piece of cardboard...don't ask particulars as I am no mechanic, and all the fix looked like to me was a a pencil poked thru cardboard with a rubber band around it....made it 2+ hours home though :-)

I should have known McGyver would be a member of m4carbine.net

[hambeast]

You can sharpen knives on the bottom of ceramic plates, coffee mugs and on the edge of a car window. I sharpen my kitchen knives on coffee mugs all the time and it works great....especially when it impresses the girlfriend!

Going to try this when I get home tonight

Will report back if girlfriend is impressed or not.

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2

[dseduce]

All about the tampon thing...we gave them to the afghan army along with pads for wound dressing when supplies were getting low...for some reason we had a bunch lying around from care packages on our all male COP...haha

[UnauthorizedAccess]

Drink 10 to 15 drops of 35% Hydrogen peroxide USP diluted in 8oz of water 2x daily for 2 days on empty stomach only.

[Shao]

I don't know if this has been posted, but high strength cordage can be made from plastic grocery bags, twisted and pulled tightly. Plastic grocery bags make great plugs and can be wrapped and taped around cardboard to make weatherproof panelling.

[RogerinTPA]

You can sharpen knives on the bottom of ceramic plates, coffee mugs and on the edge of a car window. I sharpen my kitchen knives on coffee mugs all the time and it works great....especially when it impresses the girlfriend!

What was old is new again...I think using ceramic to sharpen knives has been around for a very long time. I used to think it was a 'southern thing' until I used to see my grandmother sharpen knives in ceramic pots back in the 60s. She said she'd been doing it most of her life, and she was in her late 80's at the time and in Michigan... Then I started traveling around the country and internationally. Come to find out older/rural folks across the world were doing the same thing...

[Shao]

What was old is new again...I think using ceramic to sharpen knives has been around for a very long time. I used to think it was a 'southern thing' until I used to see my grandmother sharpen knives in ceramic pots back in the 60s. She said she'd been doing it most of her life, and she was in her late 80's at the time and in Michigan... Then I started traveling around the country and internationally. Come to find out older/rural folks across the world were doing the same thing...

I've been showing folks this for years. For a badly chipped blade 200 grit sandpaper on a notepad or mousepad can totally change the profile within a matter of just a few minutes.

Here's a great one I discovered as a child - if you're alkalines every die or if you find dead alkalines - try beating them together repeatedly positive to negative end - you're usually able to get an at least useable amount of juice from them afterwards.

[PLA]

In my experience the only plastic trash bags that will work in a low humidity environment are the clear ones. Ive made a group of solar stills to prove this for non believers.

What works the best are the 3 mil plastic drop cloths painters use, cut them into 9x9 foot squares and use a pot or a bucket to collect water. Most who build solar stills underestimate how large they have to be to produce enough water for keeping you alive in the desert. Its quite a hole to dig for a truly effective operation.

BTW my first post here. I like the knowlege base here, answers a lot of my questions about the platform Ive had but never knew to ask. I have a lifetime of farm/trapping/outdoor/LE experience, but always looked at the AR as a tool more than an ornament like so many on other sites.

[JohnnyC]

De-core some paracord, splice a locked brummel on one end, and you can use it as a makeshift snare. You can also make a reduced-rating soft shackle out of it. It's not rated the same as an amsteel soft shackle as you're compromising the integrity of the core, but it still holds up pretty well.

[DukeNukem]

These aren't fixes, but they're improvisations...here's what I've actually done for extended periods of time....

Cook meat - Wrap meat in aluminum foil with tails at both ends, the wrap tails around the exhaust manifold pipe. Push the foil and meat against the pipe for best heat conduction.