Primitive Life Hack:
In the old days, a used-up shirt’s story didn’t end when it got tossed out; it was just getting started.
Modern manufacturing is a marvel. It allows people of modest means to acquire luxuries that were previously reserved for the wealthy few. Today, an old shirt is thrown away since a replacement is so cheap. While we often say “they don’t make them like the used to…”, that quality came at an extra cost. However, while we may have more today, we have lost our practical ability to use a product until the last part of it has been completely consumed.
Here is where we can learn a lot from our ancestors. An old file can be repurposed into a butcher knife. Eventually, that butcher knife will be sharpened down to the size of a peeling knife. An old tin can may be repurposed as a lantern, replacement shingle or a receptacle for loose odds and ends around the shop. In this case, a shirt was not thrown out but consigned to the “cleaning rag bin” where it would serve a variety of purposes before calling it a day.
Making of a Household Cleaning Rag:Cut along the seams to make a series of rectangular rags of varying dimensions. Remove and save the buttons. Do this and you will always have too many buttons; do it naught and there will never be an available button when you need one. The discarded collar and hard seams make good scouring cloths and will serve well with soda or fine grade minerals to scour pots & pans. Your cleaning rags can be used around the house for a variety of tough jobs to be washed and reused until they literally fall apart. Their final use can be to wash it in strong bar soap and give it a one-way trip to the outhouse paper bin.
A Woodsman’s Use for a Cleaning Rag:I always have a need for a good cleaning rag. I pack them with my victuals and use them for the dirty grunt work of my camp kitchen. A piece of rag that I used to season a pan will next find itself in my hunting bag. It’s been a never-ending source of amazement to me how today’s muzzle-loading shooters waste their cleaning patches. One wipe and they are in that trash! Such a greenhorn move with a scarce commodity! I will use one patch that I rinse out after each swab to clean the barrel; another patch is used to dry and one lightly oiled patch treats the bore. I will then wash each patch in bar soap and save them for the next time.
Another use for them is as bullet wadding (or vise-versa). Either way, eventually these patches get too beat up to seat a ball or scrub a bore.
At that point, stick the old patches into an unsoldered, pressed tin box and put it into your camp fire. Flames will spurt out of the seams as the cloth chars but there is no oxygen within so the cloth won’t be consumed during the few minutes it takes to roast. The finished “charcloth” takes a spark from flint and steel, creating a fire-starting ember.
Economy of use is key. Never look at an item and see it for its singular purpose. From a practical standpoint, see it with pre-20th century eyes. There’s probably a use for it until there isn’t…from a shirt, to a cleaning & seasoning rag, to muzzleloader wadding, cleaning patch, to charcloth and inevitably, the heart of a nice warm fire.
-DR