Day 600:<\/p>\n
During the day, I dig toward the big mountain.<\/p>\n
At night, I’m learning how to make a carder for wool.<\/p>\n
I’m kind of glad my parents used to drag me to all those historical reenactment sites as a kid. I mean, I don’t have any idea how to make all the fancy complex tools that they had, most of which looked so old and rotted away I’m not sure I would have understood them anyway.<\/p>\n
But I do remember that to make the wool long and spinnable you had to brush it between two things called cards, which were like two big flat hairbrushes with metal tines.<\/p>\n
So like everything else here, it’s not as easy as run down to the local storage synthesizer, where as long as the computer had a 3-d image of a thing it could produce it. I’ve got to melt the iron down and then roll it while it’s hot until i have thin enough chunks that I can cut them into nail lengths, then hammer the nail lengths into the wood.<\/p>\n
(I did try to weld a set onto metal, but let me tell you, I don’t have the energy or patience to do that kind of delicate work after digging all day. It’s hot and smelly and hammering is more fun. )<\/p>\n
Tonight’s attempt made nails that were too thick, so tomorrow I’ll try again.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Day 600: During the day, I dig toward the big mountain. At night, I’m learning how to make a carder for wool. I’m kind of glad my parents used to drag me to all those historical reenactment sites as a kid. I mean, I don’t have any idea how to make all the fancy complex … <\/p>\n