Sure! Generally they’re just an old coffee can with a thick layer of plaster of Paris and sand or firebox cement on the inside. They cement in some torch parts so they can attach a can from a burnzomatic torch and blow fire into the small, contained space from the side while having a hole on the front (usually with some loose firebrick for a door) to insert the work.

https://makezine.com/article/workshop/making-your-own-tin-can-forge/

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=xv9nnEhgfuY

I don’t know that the design itself is actually applicable here, just that they’re a good demonstration that even with a small forge, you can do some pretty cool blacksmithing.

In practice I think a solar forge would have to be open from the top, and couldn’t really benefit from the tight space confining the heat, so it’d probably be closer to using a portable ferrier’s anvil like you might see reenactors use at the fair, or something like this:

Though it’d look more like that artist’s smelting rig with the big lens and all.

Thanks! I’m really excited to see what you come up with

That’s great! I don’t have specific dimensions in mind (only because I haven’t sourced a lens yet). I’m not sure about the beam width. I think no matter what, it’ll be a narrower heat than you normally get with a coal fire or propane forge, so the blacksmith would probably have to adjust beam and shift the position of the piece to distribute the heat. But people make all kinds of things using little coffee can forges so if it allows for even that scale of project it’d be very useful.

It might not be a drop-in replacement for a traditional forge, but it could be a really cool way to preserve a lot of the practice without burning coal or gas. Let me know if I can help at all!

So I’m not sure this would qualify, it may be too simple. I’d been thinking about trying to build a solar forge (I got to learn forging from a really good blacksmith who worked with coal for a couple years, though I am very much an amateur). I’ve seen videos of people using old fresnel lenses from rear projection TVs to burn through skillsaw blades and if you can melt steel, you can certainly forge it. It might just be slow, or too focused on one spot, requiring some movement to distribute the heat, something I’d have to mess with. It’d also be a bit of a safety hazard overall, but at least it’d be outside on a paved driveway instead of of inside a shed like my old coal forge.

I was picturing something similar to this smelter but with a reused TV lens, and a fire pot where his crucible is. The mechanical parts would be for rotating it to keep the sun shining through the lens, and possibly for adjusting the focus. Stability and safety would be a big consideration, don’t want the wind blowing it around too much.

Again, not sure if it’s what you’re looking for, but I’d like you to get some usable answers here. Best of luck with your project, thank you for reaching out to involve the community!

Thanks so much, that’s great to hear! And thanks for all your input! Sorry the text is small, I work on a knockoff wacom-style tablet so I get used to looking at it zoomed in and from pretty close to the screen.

Feel free to post it anywhere, I’m always delighted to find out when these images travel around a bit on their own.

Thanks so much! This was a fun one, I always loved these kind of diagrams/wimmelbilder type pictures and had a lot of fun trying to make one.

Thanks, I appreciate you taking the time to answer my questions!

Thanks!! That’s really good to know about Bald Cypress! That was my first guess for selecting trees. I ended up picking them and black willows, just based on range and look but I’ll take your advice and leave the willows generic. I think these chinampas are kind of overgrown at the moment, but I figure the trees don’t cover the entire thing, just the corners. I was able to find some roots to reference (mostly from washouts or other exposed roots) and tried to get the details right for cypress and willow (but I’m not an arborist and had trouble finding info on depth). Let me know what you think!

chinampas

Hi, I’ve been reading up on chinampas to try to get the details right and I was hoping to borrow some of your tree knowledge. Most sources mention a willow (Ahuejote (Salix bonplandiana)) and a cypress (Taxodium mucronatum) as the trees they used to reinforce/replace the underwater fences for soil retention. I’m sort of doing this picture as if its in New Orleans (for some of the buildings and other details anyways) and I think that’s outside these specific trees current ranges. I was wondering: can I swap in any other cypress or willow since there are some native to Louisiana or would some cause problems?

Here’s what I’ve got so far:

I’m probably not showing enough alternating layers of plant matter and mud, but I’m hoping it gets the point across. I’ve tried to find good sources, so far these diagrams are my favorites:

Some seem to show floating islands or like, a floating top layer with water underneath, inside the reed wall, which seems weird and inaccurate from what I’ve read. At this point, I mostly just want to get all the trees added, make sure they’re realistic, and find some accurate roots to include to show how they reinforce the earthworks. From what I’ve read it sounds like willow and cypress just kind of put roots everywhere (I’m used to being able to find clearer diagrams for trees like pines and oaks, but have struggled to find good drawings for these. Also might add cypress knees in the waterways where they’re really well established, we’ll see. Then I’ll start cleaning up the image and getting everything to match aesthetically.

Hugely in favor of helping solarpunk concepts reach people across language barriers! And very interested to see solarpunk stuff from DACH. Having a community here might help ease them into the rest of the instance too

Best of luck!

Thanks, I’ll definitely include that kind of dock/railings, still figuring out how to add greenery. I might shuffle the buildings around to make some room for a park

This is really cool! I really appreciate the history and the way they changed things around them, along with changes in the way they’re perceived. I also think the distinction between the sort of black box device and the focal thing, directly used and serviced by people, is worth considering.

I’m optimistic that solarpunk as a genre might be able to help with the aesthetic appreciation of modern windmills at least. They show up frequently in solarpunk art (though almost more often in the form of altaeros temporary windmill blimps):

I even included one in a scene of a ship at sea:

Its cool to think that the aesthetics of an optimistic genre/movement could help sway the culture in a way that helps support windmills. I also really like the author’s suggestions for education possibilities, helping people engage with them, feel a sense of ownership or pride in them, if they are so hard to ignore.

So this is a question that’s been in the back of my mind for awhile while seeing celebrations of dams being removed, no worries if you don’t want to be the one to answer it.

I think I understand the extent of the damage caused by the implementation of dams, but I guess my impression had been that that damage was done, and there wasn’t much of a timeline on fixing it. Like, after eighty years or so, are there fish still trying to get past it?

At the same time, we’re struggling (failing?) globally to get away from fossil fuels quickly enough to avoid the worst of climate collapse. It seems like hydro is one of the more reliable green power sources, and is compatible with old grid infrastructure that counts on fairly consistent power so there’s less than has to be overhauled in order to just keep using hydro for awhile longer.

So at first glance, it seems like new solar and wind etc production would be better prioritized in replacing oil, coal, natural gas. Prioritizing replacing hydro feels like letting the perfect be the enemy of the good.

I haven’t seen that discussion anywhere, so I genuinely expect I’m wrong about that, but I’m wondering why.

Nice! I’ll check that out!

Thanks, that makes sense on both topics, they’re definitely going on the list!

That’s a good list, thank you! I have a couple questions you might be able to answer:

Could you elaborate on the relays? I don’t know anything about them yet (in their intended use or alternatives). Though I am reading up on them.

I know there’s a some benefit in running 12v appliances (intended for campers) with solar panel setups because you don’t have to convert from DC to AC then back to DC at the appliance. Would that work for just using a car’s AC unit to cool a room, or are they built too specific to a car or not efficient enough to justify the work?

Thank you!!

That reminds me - inside the rubber squeegee part is a long thin strip of good quality spring steel. Lockpicking folks like it for making tools, diy gun folks sometimes use them to make the extractor. I honestly don’t know what to use the rest of the wiper for.

This is a great list with a bunch of stuff I wouldn’t have thought of - the transmission reuse is a cool idea!

I think some LED headlights are goood for growing plants. I remember some local news panic piece from years ago about how criminals were stealing headlights for their grow ops. A quick search online confirmed they work fine (probably not worth stealing though) and this post I think suggested a couple other car parts alternative uses I’ll have to go back and get later: https://www.rollitup.org/t/is-it-possible-to-convert-a-headlamp-into-a-grow-light.496815/

Thanks again!

That’s a great example, thank you!

Oh, one more to consider: Reckoning Press is more climate fiction than explicitly solarpunk, but it was one of the things that got me to give solarpunk a chance.

Ecotopia is a fun one because it hits all the notes but predates the genre.

Murder in the Tool Library is a favorite of mine because the setting is awesome and aspirational while feeling real and human, and because the murder mystery plot is a change from the usual ecofiction.

The solarpunk TTRPG Fully Automated! is free (libre and gratis) and has several sections devoted to its setting and worldbuilding that helped me understand a bunch of solarpunk concepts by seeing them in practice and to start thinking much bigger with my own fiction. It also has some good advice on creating engaging plots in an aspirational solarpunk setting where a lot of the usual problems have been solved.