Buffalo Hunters casting bullets? Fact or fiction.

[floodgate]

Sundog:

From what I've read, they cut ice in winter in the northern states and provinces or up in the higher mountains and shipped it, packed in sawdust, by wagon or by water - and later by rail - to the points of use, where it was stored in insulated cribs until needed.

floodgate

[carpetman]

Can you imagine the rig BruceB would have had he been a buffalo hunter? Now Der Schutzenwagen is pretty sophisticated indeed,but would pale to his buffalo rig. This self contained buffalo shooting rig would have it all. To start off it would be drawn by a buffalo. The buffalo would be able to locate the other buffalo---the forerunner to the GPS.(It is not known how they locate other buffalo--Some Canadian Scientists think it is a pee splatter method) For sure if they couldn't locate other buffalo they would be extinct,so we know they can do it. The buffalo would have a poop shute attachment so that the poop goes directly into a metobolic activity increaser---a super charger if you will. This would increase the poop output. The buffalo would run on ex-lax enhanced cellulose which would be mixed in a lingin remover chamber---like a refinery. This lingin removal would make it possible to use wood chips. Some of you might not be familar with this process,but apparently you could take a course at Texas Tech and know all about it(Don't know if Texas A&M offers such or not---they arent generally known to know their $hit). But if you don't want to take a course--don't worry about it---it's a moot point as there weren't any wood chips available anyways---read the post that started this thread. Now with all this poop enhancement fuel and a super charged buffalo we are knee deep in poop. So it goes to the plains simulator. The plains simulator is really a dryer where it simulates laying on the plains. From the simulator it has to be fed---make that scooped (don't say fed when talking about poop except when discussing mushrooms)into the melting pot burner. Here's where Maven comes in. With extensive training and a couple of night classes,he has learned how to scoop coal on a locomotive. With more training and more classes,he would probably learn to scoop poop. The smelting step is omitted---wheelweights back in buffalo days didnt have clips as there were no automobiles. So BruceB would be doing the BruceB and casting a big pile of bullets as they were enroute to the buffalo. Now this all sounds rosey. But it wasn't--but it would be if it were elephant drawn.

[ron brooks]

Junior, interesting. Anyone know how ice was made in 1810? sundog

I'm pretty sure in 1810 they made ice the same way we do today, by getting water to a temperature below 32 degrees F.

Ron

[KCSO]

The first Sheriff i worked for had a job cutting ice on the Missouri River in the 1930's . They stored the ice in blocks in sawdust and that is what all the saloons in the country used to cool the beer throuout the summer. I got the ice saw he used and the first gas motor they used on their boat, a Johnson with a knob on the flywheel for a starter. He got into the work as his father and grandfasther had done that and his grandfather was a wood hawk for the steamboats.

[wills]

Refrigeration came into being later.

http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/handbook/...s/RR/dqr1.html

[BruceB]

In the summer of 1963 I worked a summer job with Canadian National Railways in Edmonton, Alberta.

The passenger trains in those days were airconditioned via the simplest method imaginable....a fan pulling air across ice blocks in a bin under the floor. Part of my crew's job was servicing the trains during the short period they stopped in Edmonton. There was a BIG icehouse right at the depot, several hundred feet deep and four stories high, and blocks were piled twenty tiers or more high, along with their sawdust insulation.

We had a set of portable steel rails mostly in six- foot sections, which we'd string together as needed from the upper reaches of the ice stacks....maybe a couple hundred feet sometimes. A block would be placed on the rails, and abandoned to gravity....WHOOSH! It would tear down the tracks, around bends and whatever, and smash into a little gravity-operated "elevator" which would promptly descend under its weight.

A man with an icecart would pull the block out into the cart with his tongs (elevator slammed to a halt at just the right level) and the counterweight would immediately pull the elevator back up for another loading. NO motor, NO operator, just gravity doing its job. The carts would hold six or eight blocks, and a train of eight or ten icecarts would travel the length of the passenger train and refill the icebins on each car. The meltwater would just drip out of the icebins onto the roadbed as the train travelled.

Not only did this task provide some entertainment in watching the blocks go screaming down to the elevator, but on a hot summer day it was very pleasant work. Complete trainloads of iceblocks were cut in Northern Alberta in the winter time and unloaded in Edmonton while it was still cold. I didn't do that part of the job. For all I know, they may still be doing this! Eco-friendly, no disposal problems, and it worked quite well.

I have cut ice from frozen lakes to fill local icehouses. It can be quite a job, but not too bad if the right tools and techniques are used. It's adviseable not to fall in the hole....the water temp is on the "brisk" side.

Memories....

[sundog]

Ron, yorn logic is overwhelming! Thank you. And I got a good chuckle, too!

I lived in Maine in the early 60s and, maybe even now, it was big 'sport' to get out and cut ice and fill the ice houses. The ice lasted well into the summer. So, I don't see why it would be unreasonable to ship it as any other commodity. sundog

[Junior1942]

Back in sailboat days a guy even came up with a scheme to tow an iceberg down the Atlantic coast to the south.

[felix]

Shouldn't be a problem anymore, selecting one or more being the correct size to pull down because of the "global" warming busting the larger ones up. ... felix

[waksupi]

Finally a topic I can add something to the discussion about in this forum: DUNG!

I enjoyed reading all the replies to this point, but thought that I might be able to help our distinguished friend from across the pond understand just how the buffalo chips might be able to perform in a manner similar to wood as a fuel source.

Buffalo are essentially ruminants, fairly similar to cattle in their digestive mechanisms. Something to remember about ruminants and pseudo-ruminants, such as deer, elk, and moose, is that the feed they consume isn’t to feed themselves; instead it is to feed the microbial population in their fermentation chamber (usually the rumen). The bacteria and fungi in that live symbiotically inside these animals are primarily fiber digesters that produce energy rich compounds which the animals can utilize directly in their own metabolic activities. In return, the host animal provides warmth, food, and moisture for the microbes. It is a very elegant system that is still not fully understood even after several hundred years of study.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, the primary sugar polymer that is contained in grasses, such as those found on the tall grass prairies, is cellulose. Unfortunately, there isn’t an animal that I’m aware of that can directly digest cellulose. Even termites utilize a symbiotic relationship with bacteria like that outlined above to derive energy from wood. Speaking of wood, guess what the primary structural carbohydrate in wood is: cellulose. What is the difference between wood and grass, on a cellulose basis? Another compound called lignin that ties the bundles of cellulose together, making them less flexible and also less digestible to animals. That is why we can’t feed wood chips to cattle, for more than a few days anyway! By the way, the real way that ethanol might actually be a viable fuel source for us here in the U.S. on any kind of large scale is through the fermentation of highly lignified material, such as wood waste or biomass. In my opinion the only real economic difference we’ll see from corn-based ethanol schemes is higher corn prices, which leads to higher feed prices. It is pretty easy to see where higher corn prices lead in the food chain from there.

Another quick Clint Claven-style factoid: the main difference between the starches we can directly digest (potatoes, corn, etc) and cellulose (wood, paper, grass) is the conformation of the bonds between the glucose molecules. (Who knew that biochemistry would actually come in handy in the shooting sports?)

Now dung is, by definition, the material that was not digested by either the microbes or the animal that have passed through the digestive tract. Mostly, dung is whatever it was before it was consumed. In the case of the buffalo (and don’t give me any of that “bison” crap) that means grass and water. If the lignified cellulose is difficult to digest and the chip is allowed to dry in the semi-arid environment of the plains, what is left in the chip? Basically a less dense version of wood that is aromatic in a whole different way than cedar! The energy given off per pound of material burned is not going to approach that of an oak or charcoal fire, but with enough chips that energy can be harnessed to produce enough heat to melt lead.

As I look out my office window this morning at the 30 mph North wind and the snow it is blowing around, I wouldn’t want to be out there trying to do anything in that weather. Our ancestors were cut from a much tougher cloth!

Sorry about the dissertation there, gentlemen, but I can get a little carried away with feces sometimes! Seriously, I’m glad to be able to finally add something to a discussion here and hope it shows some of my appreciation for this forum and its members.

Tx

Tex, I must say, you really know your...

dung!

[Harry Eales]

Harry Eales---You mentioned wanting more oxygen for the color case hardening. I have no clue,but wondered if using peroxide for quenching might work? Peroxide is H2O2---basically water with an extra oygen jobber do. Do a google search on peroxide and read about it.

Hello Carpetman,

H2O2 is only available in a very mild solution in the UK, it's main use is an antiseptic and for turning brunettes into blondes.

To fill a 35 gallon quench tank would cost me about two months pension. lol.

I'll stick to the Oxygen bubbler I think. Thanks for the tip anyway.

Harry

[carpetman]

My dad had some ice skates up in the garage attic long before I came along. He and his father in law would ice skate on Lake Wichita,there in Wichita Falls. Apparently it froze most if not all winters back then. To my knowledge,the lake never froze where you could walk on it during my time. There was a drainage ditch behind our field that had some ponds on it. One time it froze and my older brother skated on it. It never froze to where I had a chance to use those skates. I think this is all due to global warming. It could be that with all the impurities in water nowdays it is harder to freeze it solid???? This has nothing to do with making ice in 1810. It is my understanding that many places had ice cellars for storing ice.

[Txredraider]

That's a first for me. I've never been accused of knowing anything before. In fact I've been told quite specifically that I don't know.....dung.

[Leftoverdj]

Junior, interesting. Anyone know how ice was made in 1810? sundog

At least as far south as Virginia, ice was made by diverting a stream onto shallow shaded ponds. By adding an inch or two of water on the existing ice each day or two, a thick layer could be built up most years.

[flhroy]

Sundog ice was cut from the frozen lakes and ponds up nort in winter with horse drawn implements.It was then stored in ice houses untill needed.

[Leftoverdj]

Laura Ingalls Wilder tells us that in the absence of other fuel, tightly braided grass works as a wood substitute.

[carpetman]

Txredraider---What town would that be South of scenic Lubbock? Perhaps Tahoka? BTW which part of Lubbock is the scenic part---I missed it?

[floodgate]

UH-OH --- Cat-PET-man's off his meds again!

[TCLouis]

Cut from frozen northern lakes in the winter and shipped south packed in sawdust.

This is likely why ice used to come in 150 pound blocks from the ice company (heck that was in my time) with afreas where one could pull the ice pick out of the scabbard usuall in the wall and break pieces off in 25 or 50 pound blocks for sale. The local gas station had an ice house and one bought ice in 25 or 50 pound blocks. It very likely copied the size of the ice cut from lakes during the winter and stored underground in ice houses packed in sawdust or rice hulls for later use. Look for ice saw and see what one finds on the net. Picture should look like a cross-cut saw with handle on only one end and funny looking teeth.
I guess the term, "ice box turned" into frididaire and then rerefrigerator in common use during my lifetime.
Dadgum, does this all mean I'm gettin old?

[felix]

Just call the gadgets as ice boxes and be done with it. If somebody raises a flag, just say it's an electric ice box in return. ... felix