DOING FREEDOM! -- The Improv, by Tom Spooner

The Improv
by
Tom Spooner

This month's oddball tip:
Caching- You can put together a cheap cache tube with PVC pipe from your local hardware store. For the deluxe model, pick up:

4" PVC pipe (approximately $11/8' at Home Depot)
4" end cap ($2)
4" clean-out adapter ($6)
clean-out screwplug ($3)
PVC solvent ($2)
plumber's Teflon tape
silica gel dessicant

Cut the pipe to your desired length. Follow the instructions on the solvent to attach the end cap to one of the tube, and the clean-out adapter to the other. When you seal the cache tube, wrap a layer of Teflon tape around the screwplug threads to ensure a watr/air-tight seal.

If you're on a budget (aren't we all these days?), and don't require a resealable tube, replace the clean-out parts with another end cap.

Toss some dessicant in the tube before you seal it. You could save up the packets that come in store-bought jerky and consumer electronics, or buy some; Midway carries it.

It doesn't hurt to eliminate any humid air, too. If you know a serious homebrewer, see if you can borrow his CO₂ tank (he uses it to carbonate his kegged brew) to top off your cache tube. Or you could buy some dry ice from your local welding/gas supplier and toss a few chips in. Let the dry ice evaporate (okay, subliminate; I know) and displace all the air before you seal the tube, or you risk an over-pressure explosion. The ATF actually busted a guy for bomb-making because he stuck dry ice in two-liter soda bottles and let them pop. (HINT!) If you have a CO₂ fire extinguisher, use that.

Never hide your cache on your own property. So long as the cops still fake it, you can at least make them get two search warrants to find your stuff.

Bury the tube along fence lines or other locations where one might expect a metal detector to alert anyway. Bury deep, and leave some old rusty metal a couple of feet above your real stash; the careless might find that and decide it was a false positive.

Don't use this to hide your primary weapons. You'll need them. This is for tactical pre-placement of spares and supplies.

Be careful of choosing landmarks to find your stash again. Trees get cut down, and smaller boulders get rolled.

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Fractionation

Someone pointed out a possible issue regarding my booze-making suggestion. I'd already deleted the original feedback from my mail account before Carl asked me to re-send it, so I can't quote exactly.

He advocated distillation over freezing/fractionation because fractionation doesn't eliminate fusel oils that can contribute to nasty hangovers. He has a good point, but to tell the truth, I've never had any trouble with this in the years I've used the freezing technique.

But if you still <grin> aren't up to building a still and are concerned about getting rid of any nasty stuff, you can combine the techniques somewhat. After you've seaparated your alcohol/potential nastiness from the ice, heat it up on your stove, holding the temperature over 130°F (to boil off the fusel oils) and below 170° (to make sure you don't boil off your alcohol). As an extra stage of quality assurance, run the results through one of those cheap water pitcher charcoal filters.

Methanol is another contributor to hangovers and sundry ailments. You can dodge that problem by fermenting stuff with little or no pectin, as methanol is a decompostion product of the stuff.

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