Letters To The Editor

Dear Editor,

I found an article about brain tanning in your newsletter this morning, and wanted to pass on three titles of books on the subject that those interested can check out. The first is Brain Tan Buckskin by John McPherson. This was produced by the author at P.O. Box 96, Randolph, KS 66554, third printing 1986 and was originally available at Tandy Leather. The second is Blue Mountain Buckskin – A working Manual by Jim Riggs. This, too, was published by the author at Blue Mountain Buckskin, Route 1, Box 44 E, Wallowa, OR 97885. Second Printing was 1982 and purchased at a mountain man rendezvous. The third is The Indian Art of Tanning Buckskin by Arlington C. “Buckskin Slim” Schaefer. This was published by Schaefer-Knudtson Publications, P.O. Box 250 – Roseburg, OR 97470. Library of Congress Card Catalog # 73-83020. The second edition was July 1977. This, too, was picked up at a mountain man rendezvous. These books may, or may not, be still in print, but may be available through inter-library lending or from traders at regional rendezvous. While the process is extremely physically demanding, the reward for a well made piece of buckskin is something to be cherished. By the way, I found salvaged sections of 12 inch PVC pipe that made a terrific fleshing beam that was smooth and held up to the elements. I hope this is helpful.

Dear RW,

Thank you for that wonderful information. I’m sure it’s going to be of use to a lot of our readers. Thanks for writing.

The Editor

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Dear Editor,

I enjoy reading your newsletter and getting the useful information. I have a question about a Faraday Cage. Would our aluminum horse trailer qualify as a Faraday cage to protect electronics from a EMP or Solar Storm. It is all aluminum including the doors, roof, and floor. The reason I ask is because it would be an ideal place to store those items and still be able to have easy excess to them when needed. More than likely we would know ahead of time of a solar storm and my theory is that I could load other items quickly and easily such as 4 wheelers, solar panels, computers etc. If so, how tight would it have to be sealed and how would it be sealed? The living quarters has 4 small windows, 2 doors, 1 large vent and 2 small vents, and an AC unit. Where the horses ride there are 8 windows, 3 vents.

I have a feeling you are going to say aluminum will not protect the items. It would have to be a steel trailer which I don’t have.

Thank You for your help

C—

Dear C—

First of all, you have to understand that Faraday cage and EMP science is very inexact because it operates off of theory. We’ve never had a chance to really test all the theories floating out there because an EMP attack or wave has not happened. We’ve had smaller outages from solar storms and flares, but these were localized and overcome fairly easily.

There are actually several types of electromagnetic waves or pulses. We have an article that gives details and links on Off the Grid News here: //www.offthegridnews.com/2011/11/28/the-electromagnetic-pulse-what-you-need-to-know/ The article and the links are very informative as to what an EMP actually is.

While I am far from an expert on Faraday cages and EMP theory, the thing with your horse trailer is not the metal it’s made out of (aluminum is fine, from what I’ve read), it’s the gaps in continuity of the metal that would be a concern. A Faraday cage of the size you’re talking about needs to be a sealed enclosure that is ideally grounded. There can be no gaps in the metal plating. You have vents and windows and doors with gaps, and there are probably more areas than you’re aware of where the metal stops and some small piece of fiberglass or plastic molding begins. Without a lot of modifications, you’ll be hard pressed to use a horse trailer for a Faraday cage.

Besides the above article link (and that article has several links itself), some more resources for learning about Faraday cages and EMPs are:

https://www.endtimesreport.com/faraday_cages.html
https://www.unitedstatesaction.com/emp_and_faraday_cages.htm
https://community.fema.gov/connect.ti/readynpm/messageshowthread?threadId=3374 (this is a message board but has a good discussion and some links in it)
This link will take you to a pdf on EMPs

The military seems to have more information on EMPs as well (which makes sense). You can put in “MIL-SPEC EMP” into a Google search and come up with tons of information, if you can slog through the technical jargon. 🙂

Hope this helps!

The Editor

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