DIY Archives - Page 6 of 6 - Knowledge Weighs Nothing

DIY Secret Wall Safe For Less Than $3

I have kind of seen this idea before, but this video tutorial below is great at showing just how simple this is to do, and how effective it is for keeping small valuables hidden and safe. You could have several of these throughout your house.

Another method is to use a real (obviously not wired up) socket cover plate to hide the safe, rather than just using the blank plate. It would obviously cost a little more, but I think it would be way more secure. In fact, towards the end of the video, he demonstrates how to do this with an existing aerial/cable socket.

Another tip – if you position your safe close to the ground, on the ground floor, you can do away with the blue box and fit loads more stuff in the safe – just reach inside the wall and placing the items on the floor between the partitions in the wall. Just make sure you can reach them to get them out! Anyway, plenty of food for thought…

(Image from: Grant Thompson – The King of Random)

How To Drill A ‘Water Well’ At Home — Video Tutorials & Step-By-Step PDF DIY Instructions

If you have some land, all the free water you could ever need might be just below your feet… Imagine the saving and the freedom of having your own water supply would bring… All you would need then is the solar panels for some electricity and a wood-burning stove to cooking and heating, and then you’d be pretty much off-the-grid.

If you have been thinking of looking into drilling your own water well, here is an awesome six-page PDF document, created by the Kansas Geological Survey, that has detailed step-by-step instructions on how to proceed. Click the link to open the PDF document. You can then save/download and print it out (you can usually do this by right-clicking on the PDF and choose the option ‘save as’) — Step-B-Step Instructions: Drilling A Water Well On Your Land

Additionally, here are some excellent video tutorials on how to drill your own well.

WELL DRILLING 101 | Every Step Explained

How to Drill a Well by Hand

Installing a Sand Point Well at the Off-Grid Cabin

(Image from: Kansas Geological Survey)

The 2 BEST Homemade Natural Pesticide Recipes

Both of the natural pesticides below work against snails, slugs, aphids, Armyworms, Leaf Beetles, Colorado Potato Beetles, Cucumber Beetles, Japanese Beetles, ants, fruit fly and more…

With both pesticides – only use them in the early evenings, so they don’t come into contact with bees and butterflies, that said, my experience is that the neem oil recipe doesn’t seem to affect bees and butterflies anyway.

Neem Oil Natural Pesticide Recipe (For Fruit & Vegetables)

This recipe is for edible vegetables and fruit, but be sure to wash all produce before cooking/eating (you can also use this on non-edibles too).

1/2 an ounce of high neem oil (preferably organic)
1 teaspoon of natural liquid soap (preferably organic like Dr Bronners etc).
2 quarts of warm water
Spray bottle

Mix all ingredients in a jug, then transfer to the spray bottle. This homemade pesticide works best when used fresh, so use within 24 hours of mixing it up.

Rhubarb Leaf Natural Pesticide Recipe (For Non-Edible Plants/Flowers)

This recipe is only to be used on non-edible plants and flowers. Rhubarb leaves are highly toxic to humans and should never be consumed. Do not use this on vegetables and fruits!

1 cup rhubarb leaves
6.5 cups water
1/4 cup natural liquid soap (preferably organic like Dr Bronners etc).
Spray bottle

Place the rhubarb leaves and water in a pan on the stove, and boil gently for 20 minutes, then leave to cool. Now strain and discard the rhubarb leaves, and then add the liquid soap to the strained liquid and mix thoroughly. Transfer to the spray bottle, and as with the neem oil pesticide, this mixture is best used fresh, so try to use it within 24 hours or so.

How To Waterproof Your Shoes & Boots In Minutes

I actually feel quite pleased with myself as I thought about this and actually did it to some hiking boots around 15 years back. It worked an absolute treat! I had the boots until recently and I never retreated them and they remained waterproof until the end… This method takes minutes and lasts for years.

I should clarify – this method only waterproofs the fabric/leather, if you step in water and it goes over the tongue/laces, water will get in here. That said this will keep the water/mud out for day-to-day hiking on trails and in wet grass etc. This method may affect the colour/appearance of the leather/fabric, so don’t use it on your best shoes!

Watch the video and see how it’s done. This is such a cheap and simple way to dramatically improve the water repellency of non-waterproof shoes and boots.

(Image from: CrazyRussianHacker)

DIY Snow Shovel Electricity Producing Windmill – Genius!

That’s right folks – those are everyday off-the-shelf snow shovels! The whole thing cost less than $200 to build… And if you think you’ll have difficulty getting some cheap snow shovels, Amazon is your friend.

Check out the video below to find out how to build this super simple windmill. This windmill, when connected to some kind of appropriate alternator, can generate 300 watts of power!

I was just wondering how much an alternator costs VS purchasing a complete wind turbine system… I did a quick check on Amazon and the only alternator I could find was this one and it costs $449, BUT I found a complete wind turbine system here for $299 (mixed reviews though).

(Image from: myshowmeamovie)

Find Out How To Build A DIY Backyard ‘Jar Beehive’

It seems strange to me now that K.W.N has been online for just over a year (2013), and we have done 100s of DIY, emergency preparedness and homesteading posts, BUT this is the first post we have done about beekeeping…

I keep reading about small-scale beehives in jars, apparently, with a bit of planning and consideration, a small jar beehive can even work well in a suburban garden. Anyway, I have done a bit of research and I found this jar beehive tutorial on a website called Remove and Replace. The tutorial lists all the materials required together with build photos and some rather brief building instructions. After a bit more research I found the YouTube video tutorial below, from Dave’s Homestead that goes into more detail on how to build a jar beehive.

UPDATE — since this post was published I have found some additional jar beehive tutorials. ‘Mason Jar Beekeeping Step-by-Step Guide’ and ‘An Introduction to Mason Jar Beekeeping‘

I think between the written tutorials and the video tutorial below there is enough information and advice for you to be able to get cracking and start building your own small backyard jar beehive.

(Photo from: Remove And Replace)

How To Prevent Or Defrost Icy Windshields With Vinegar

I don’t know how many times I have been running late taking the kids to school etc, I finally get their coats and shoes on and then open the door to find the car all frozen… It always happens when you are running a bit late already… You then have to scrape the car or use a store brought de-icer if you have one.

This scenario can be completely avoided, with the help of some cheap vinegar, and here’s how.

Get a jug and mix three parts white vinegar with one part cold water and then add to a spray bottle.
The night before – spray the car windows with the solution and wipe off any excess which runs, to avoid too much getting onto the paintwork. Some people say this solution can corrode paintwork, but I haven’t found this to be the case. If you are concerned, you could spray the solution on to a cloth and then wipe the windows, as this would stop it getting onto the paint.
If you forget to spray the car the night before and you wake up to a frozen car, you can also use this solution to quickly defrost the windows as well. Just spray and watch the frost melt away.

How To Build A DIY Water Wheel Generator

Who wouldn’t love free electricity? I would love to live completely off-the-grid and not have to worry about rising electricity costs. It would also be a nice feeling to know that if the SHTF one day, we would still have power… If you live by a source of running water, one option for electricity generation is a water wheel generator. I think a lot of people assume it needs to be a fairly sizeable source of running water, but if you watch the video below, you will see a water wheel generator built, running, and generating electricity from a tiny creek.

With a water wheel generator, electricity is generated when the flowing water runs through the water wheel and makes it spin. It is exactly the same principle as the old dynamo lights we used to have on bicycles, back in the day, where the electricity was generated by the revolving wheel. As I remember it used to make stopping at lights interesting, as no revolving wheel equalled zero electricity, and zero electricity equals no bike lights!

Here is a link to a tutorial on ‘Build It Solar’ which shows how to build a DIY water wheel generator from mostly recycled parts, making this an affordable DIY project if you can source the recycled parts required to build the generator. Additionally using recycled parts also allows you to source free backup, replacements part to stockpile and store in case an existing part fails. It also includes a FREE PDF with the build instructions, that you can download and print out. If you are lucky enough to have running water on your land, this would be an awesome project.

Below is an excellent video from ‘Off Road/Off Grid’ detailing their DIY water wheel generator.

The ‘Build It Solar’ and the ‘Off-Road/Off Grid’ DIY water wheel generators are just two examples of water wheel generators. There are several different varieties of generators that utilize running water sources in different ways. Basically, the running water still turns the wheel on each model, but the wheels are positioned differently in the running water. There are ‘stream’, ‘undershot’, ‘breastshot’ and ‘backshot’ water wheels to choose from… Here is an excellent explanation of each type of water wheel, together with the pros and cons and efficiencies etc.

Below is an undershot water wheel, similar to the one used for the ‘Build It Solar’ DIY water wheel generator.

Below is an example of a stream water wheel

Below is an example of an overshot water wheel.

BONUS Tutorial: How to Build A 5 Gallon Bucket Hydroelectric Generator

Here is an awesome 35 page PDF instruction manual on how to make a low-cost hydroelectric generator, in a 5-gallon bucket. I’ll be honest, it is not the simplest thing in the world to build, but if you are competent, technically-minded DIY-er, this shouldn’t present too many difficulties.