Primitive Technology: Wood Ash Cement & Fired Brick Hut

[Robert Burns]

I found this guy a while back on YouTube, and when I first found him he hadn't posted anything new in many months, but it seems that he is back to making videos again. The name of the channel comes from the fact that he does not use any man-made tools for these projects, at least none that aren't made by him using raw plant material, clay, and rocks.

Something to note: you are supposed to enable subtitles on his videos. He does not speak, but he does include a lot more details about what he's doing and why in the subtitles, so you definitely want to turn those on.

If you really like this kind of thing I'd recommend just starting from the first video on his channel, because a lot of these things build upon each other. In earlier videos he shows how he makes the molds for the bricks, the kiln, the pots, and many other things.

There's even one where he smelts some iron extracted from a clump of bacteria found in a stream. It's a long process and he only gets a tiny amount out of it, but still, it's pretty damn incredible, and in principle it means that, given enough time, he could start making metal tools all with nothing but his hands and the raw materials provided by Nature. In his latest video he states "preparations for metallurgy are being made".

[Richard_G_603]

You just made my day by telling me he is back! I loved watching his videos for the longest time!

[Robert Burns]

You just made my day by telling me he is back! I loved watching his videos for the longest time!

He finally did it: he made an iron knife!

[White Man 1]

Thats an accomplishment! I imagine he spent a lot of time researching before getting down to the smelting.

[Robert Burns]

Thats an accomplishment! I imagine he spent a lot of time researching before getting down to the smelting.

Yeah, he definitely knows his stuff. There's also apparently a lot of trial and error that goes on behind the scenes. I'm sure he's tried different ways of doing this a number of times in the past, but now he's finally satisfied enough with his process to actually publish it.