Survival Tools for AFTER SHTF

How are you going to tool up for after SHTF? In the end, it depends on the nature of your fears, your personality, your skills and your motivations. For example, if you asked my wife — a glamor girl and public relations spinmeister — to put together a survival tool kit, it’d surely include a hairbrush, a nail file, a printout of her Outlook contacts, and at least four pairs of shoes.

But me, I’m basically a carpenter with a Comparative Literature degree — a city dweller all my life and a family man. I think the more likely challenges lie in survival in the aftermath of natural disasters like earthquakes and tornado’s. I want to be ready to hunker down at home or somewhere nearby, equipped with tools for salvage and repair in order to restore comfortable quarters for my family and neighbors.

(Read More: Fully Charge Your iPhone With The Sun in 2 Hours or Less)

A Hunker-Down Carpenter’s Toolkit

In the aftermath of an earthquake or catastrophic storm, you have to anticipate torn buildings, twisted wreckage and prolonged power outages. I put together a kit of versatile hand tools for demolition and construction, heavy on hand tools and a source of backup power for operating cordless tools.

Shingler’s hatchet: With a chopping blade and a nailing head all in one, this tool can do double-duty for demolition and construction.

Folding drywall saw with plane: Useful for cutting holes in gypsum board, this tool can do also cut tree branches. (Drywall saws are also my tool of choice for carving Halloween pumpkins.)

Double-sided pull saw: A traditional Japanese woodworker’s tool called ryoba, this saw has one set of teeth for cross-cutting (across the wood grain) and another for ripping (cutting parallel to the wood grain). It can be used for cutting 2-bys and other dimension lumber but is especially good for cutting precise joints.

Hacksaw: For cutting Metals.

Aviation snips: Essential for cutting sheet metal.

Utility knife and plenty of blades: Nothing fancy but razor sharp and great for cutting wood, plastic, insulation and many other materials.

Heavy-duty pry bar: A steel bar about 5 feet long with one pointed end and a flattened end for prying; provides lots of leverage for digging and clearing away wreckage.

Nail puller: Compact, with a nail extractor and digging/prying head — a must for delicate disassemble and salvage.

Channel Lock pliers: A must for working on all things mechanical, including pipes, nuts and bolts; it’s a good idea to have at least two sizes — large and medium.

Needle nose pliers with side cutter: This tool is designed primarily for electrical wiring tasks, but it can also be useful for bending sheet metal, working with small metal parts and cutting wire of all types.

Wood chisel: It’d be nice to have a whole set with different blade widths, but for survival purposes a 1-inch would do nicely.

Cold chisel: Essential for breaking up and/or cutting concrete, stone and tile.

With the set of hand tools named above, I think I could do just about anything necessary to repair or build anew in the aftermath of a disaster — with the efficiency of a Medieval craftsman. I have to face it — I’m pretty addicted to power tools but, of course, you can’t count on power availability in the aftermath of a disaster — unless. . . .

Solar Charger for Cordless Power Tools:

Could you build a solar charger for cordless power tools? I went online and found that of course you can — more than one ingenious soul has done it. I particularly like the solution offered by Jeffery Yago on backwoodshome.com.

All you need is a small solar-collector module, a 12-volt battery, a bit of copper wire and an in-line DC fuse. Of course you need a charger that’s compatible with the batteries for your cordless tools, and Jeff suggests putting together a set of tools that all use the same battery shape and voltage.

Bug-out Tool Kit:
I shared all of these thoughts with my friend Walter, who worries a bit more than I do about real catastrophe coming our way. He revealed that he’s more likely to bug out than hunker down.

“I’d want to travel light,” Walter told me. “Combination tools like a version of a Leatherman would be all I’d want to carry. Maybe a bow saw, a tarp and some mason’s twine. I’m figuring I’d need to lash things together rather than nailing.”

Not long into this discussion, Walter became wistful and shared this memory: “I had a hard crush on this beautiful girl in high school. When I went to her house for our first date — I was going to take her out to steal signs from the local roads and some buildings downtown — her father took me aside. At first, I was scared of what he’d say, but he really wanted to help. ‘Don’t tell her mother, but I know what you’re up to, and I want to lend you this tool.’

“He handed me this big old combination tool with an ax head, a hammer, a built-in wrench, a pry bar and all kinds of other neat things. The kind of tool a fireman would carry. I’m gonna find one and put it in my bug-out kit,” Walter confided.

I could only imagine the tool that Walter was describing, so I went online to try to find a picture. I found this attributed to Google’s patent image file.

Looks like a great survival tool to me!

What’s in your survival tool kit when a natural or man-made disaster strikes?