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Solar Distilling
The Ft2 cooker will let you distill ethanol for fuel legally if you request a federal permit. Here is a post about solar alcohol, a possible bridge-fuel, which can be produced locally. It is rumored chain saws and other small motors can fairly easily run on alcohol, and very cleanly, too. A good after collapse or in emergency energy source. Solar distilling improves the EROEI of alcohol for fuel significantly, and makes it a practical fuel when used conservatively -- that is not to drive your SUV to the 7/11 a dozen times a day.
The Ft2 cooker works well to disinfect water, you must filter it yourself, of course, with either a sand mixture, coffee or paper filter or even charcoal that you can make yourself with the sun. The time it takes to disinfect is about 2 or 3 hours setting in the sun. Link to spec sheet below
Melting lead to cast bullets and other 'castables' in a large parabolic
Repurposing Parabolics
On Dec. 21, 2013, Ana and i at Bridgewire melted and cast several 50 caliber lead bullets using a 55 inch repurposed satellite dish covered with mylar. This was the shortest day of the year, and we reached melting point of lead. The goal next is to melt zinc, tin, and hopefully aluminum. We did this at our local makerspace, Reno Bridgewire