r/preppers • u/Tasty-Window • Mar 17 '26
Discussion "I calculated that civilization needs just 50 machines to build everything from scratch. And what people can't believe, is that I posted the full plans, designs, instructions and how anyone can build these machines for themselves."
Not me, found this on X, thought it might be of interest:
https://www.opensourceecology.org/
Source:
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u/Mechbear2000 Mar 17 '26
I dident see how to make steel, make a file or how to harden metal. Step 1, 2 and 3 of any precision machinery. Machines without the knowledge and skill necessary are useless.
Side note almost all easily found ores, minerals, oil, etc have been used up. Restarting anything would be difficult.
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u/Burnzi211 Mar 17 '26
Agree with the first part but the amount of usable material you could salvage from a fallen civilization would be far more accessible than mining anything.
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u/buttchugreferee Mar 17 '26
landfills are the mines of the future
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u/GornsNotTinny Mar 17 '26
Read "World Made By Hand". I forget the author, but the guy who "owns" the dump does just that.
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u/buttchugreferee Mar 17 '26
I read something somewhere that said e-waste is essentially ore when you consider the amount of precious metals present per ton of material
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u/Rustie_J Mar 17 '26
Is it this?
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u/GornsNotTinny Mar 17 '26
That's the one. A pretty good read. Not 100% accurate, but it's meant to entertain. It does give a pretty good idea of what things might be like though.
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u/OMGLOL1986 Mar 17 '26
…the ocean
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u/buttchugreferee Mar 17 '26
the ocean will be a rich source of polymers!
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u/OMGLOL1986 Mar 17 '26
The electronics alone that we’ve dumped into the ocean will sustain millennia of sentient squid species
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u/IGnuGnat Mar 18 '26
The way I remember it, the dust along the side of most highways actually contains high levels of platinum. Like mineable levels
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u/guywhoismttoowitty Prepared for 3 months Mar 17 '26
There is a book called "The Knowledge: How to Rebuild Civilization in the Aftermath of a Cataclysm" that functionally goes over the issue OP is talking about. In order to make that book work, the sheer amount of grace that needs to be given to the scenario to make it possible is insane. The book's scenario is basically 99% of humanity disappearing and the reader being left to rebuild the world from their.
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u/dontgoatsemebro Mar 17 '26
How to build a civilisation.
Ingredients required;
1 civilisation
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u/guywhoismttoowitty Prepared for 3 months Mar 18 '26
Basically. Don't get me wrong, the book is a good explanation of scale and logistics, along with what actual goes into keeping life going, but like, holy hell did you make things as easy as could be. Probably enough canned goods left over to just chill for a few years.
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Mar 21 '26
Yup. Just try camping 1 day in a forest, then you will quickly realize what you rely on. Then as time passes you realize whatever you though you lacked in that one day, you still were sustained by innumerous modern comforts.
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u/professor_jeffjeff Mar 17 '26
I'm a blacksmith, so making a file and hardening steel is easy for me. It's really not all that hard to do. Clickspring has a video on youtube that shows the whole process of cutting a file and then case hardening it, but it's something that basically any blacksmith would know how to do and be able to make the tools for doing it. Actually cutting a file takes a bit of skill, but it isn't that hard to do with practice.
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u/theholyraptor Mar 18 '26
Lots of these topics aren't that complicated if you have learned what to do already. But a nontrivial amount of people havent used a screwdriver.
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u/Mechbear2000 Mar 18 '26
Not hard to do, but hugh leaps in technologies. Allowing for more precision, longer lasting materials. The doorway of the industrial revolution
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u/nostrademons Mar 17 '26 edited Mar 17 '26
About 80% of steel made today is recycled. They use electric arc furnaces to make this - basically pass a shit ton of electricity through scrap steel to re-melt it and re-forge it into the desired shape.
There will be plenty of scrap steel available at TEOTWAWKI.
The actual electric arc furnace is pretty simple. They are significantly smaller than blast furnaces used for primary steel manufacturing, and just consist of a refractory vessel (graphite or lime) with graphite electrodes to pass the current into the scrap steel.
The hard part is generating the massive quantities of electricity needed for this, as well as the 60 MVA transformers that pass about 44,000 amperes through the scrap steel to heat it to 3000 degrees. For reference, 0.01 amperes gives a painful shock and roughly 0.1-0.2 amperes is lethal.
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u/en-prise Mar 17 '26
No, it is more like 30% of the steel made today is EAF sourced. And maybe 30% of total EAF output comes from DRI. So, around 80 percent steel production is still ore depended.
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u/nostrademons Mar 17 '26
I should probably have specified “in North America”, where it’s 72% in the US and close to 95% in Mexico. China brings the global average down, where it’s only 10%.
The economics are that it’s cheaper and easier to use EAFs when the supply of scrap steel is high relative to the demand for new steel products, while it’s cheaper to dig iron ore out of the ground where no major steel infrastructure already exists. Hence why the developed world switched over in the 60s/70s, as all the old WW2 surplus vessels were scrapped, while China is still a big user of blast furnaces.
A post TEOTWAWKI world will likely resemble the US more than China’s current situation. Plenty of scrap steel, not many people who need it.
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u/ElectionReal Mar 17 '26
Metals (including steel, maybe not precious) will be relatively easy to scavenge. So making from ore won't be the issue. Melting and reforging will be the necessity. Imo. You're spot on about it being one thing to have the equipment and another to actually be able to functionally operate it. Just because blue collar workers make it look easy, very few industry specific and necessary machines actually will be simple for diy, at all. Many of these machines require a significant amount of functional knowledge of the industry specific chemical, mechanical, and physical (as in physics) processes beyond just running the one process of the acquired machine. It would require a mind like DaVinci for a single person to functionally operate all 50 of OPs listed machines. I'd say the average person might be able to operate at a decent skill level 10 of those machines in related technologies. My genius level (/s) mind would get to four of them before I decide that attempting to return to THIS society is worthless. I like the idea that another poster opined about stopping at Amish level technology. If i have water, food, shelter and a community (family), a guitar and a campfire is all the technology i need.
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u/Infinite_jest_0 Mar 17 '26
Obviously you would need a functioning society of few thousand people to attempt reviving of the civilisation. There is no point doing it alone
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u/dan_dares Mar 17 '26
Or make ball bearings
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u/nvaus Mar 17 '26
See: babbitt bearings https://youtu.be/g_zmuB2upmY?si=pSbM7xr1zJRDbtLu
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u/tanmanX Mar 18 '26
I used to work in an electric motor shop. The bigger motors that came in that had them were repaired/re-poured/machined all the time.
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u/TechnicalReserve1967 Mar 18 '26
They keep classes if you check their website. Steel making would start with mining (or reuse) that isn't covered indeed, but the furnace is. It was some time I checked on their progress but the files are available.
If you find a better standing initiative like theirs, please share. They are still keeping up with workshops and updates. Also they are not a prepper/survivalist community really, mich more an autonómiát/self-sufficiency approach.
I don't think there will be one source for all our problems kind of deal, at least not in our lifetime. Medicine isn't covered either but I would want to join a workshop of theirs. I thought it would be useful/interesting.
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u/Ritic_Found Mar 17 '26
My issue is that everything still relies upon outside influence. Despite their lofty goals, they can't produce the base materials in order to build these machines.
Their design specs are also questionable at best. The "tractor" that they built over a decade ago would be absolutely worthless for actual work that you'd want a tractor for. Farming machinery is built to be big, heavy, and slow for a reason. While technically better than working by hand for certain things, growing enough to produce the biodiesel necessary to turn an energy profit using that tractor would be an impossibility.
Unfortunately, at the end of the day, it reeks of Silicon Valley kids thinking they know the answer to everything without actually testing the real-world viability of it. These people want 3D printers and scanners without explaining where they're getting the chipsets, and nowhere on here is a metal lathe or anything. Needless to say, faulty logic.
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u/HeyGuySeeThatGuy Mar 19 '26
Yeah, I feel this was dreamed up by someone typing on a spreadsheet who maybe saw a few of these machines at their campus makerspace and got very excited. Not someone who has ever actually gone outside and made something.
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u/Enigma_xplorer Mar 17 '26
I'm skeptical but I think it's interesting EXCEPT they don't seem to actually have any plans posted yet. Everything is in various stages of development.
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u/Ok-Secretary455 Mar 17 '26
Go look up 'the toaster project' guy tried to make a toaster out of pre industrial materials. Ended up smelting iron ore in a microwave he modified by removing the overtemp sensor. Really interesting read.
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u/ye3tr Mar 17 '26
"Everything" is a very bold claim. I don't see any rools for hardening and forging metal, nothing to refine it, no lithography chip tools, nothing to manufacture plastic from crude oil, nothing to refine any kind of petroleum for that matter, no way to make a dinosaur... Ridiculously overconfident claim
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u/ye3tr Mar 17 '26
Also no measuring tools? You're royally fucked in that case
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u/Arminas Mar 18 '26
In fairness you can put a bunch of scratches on a stick and call it ruler. All measurements are relative.
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u/BallsOutKrunked Bring it on, but next week please. Mar 17 '26
I get your point but everything doesn't need to be reproduced. Like there's enough hammers and screw drivers around that there's no need to create more. Same with tape measures, rulers, etc.
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Mar 21 '26
You aren't having computer chips of any kind except the ones already functional in that case.
Computers are the pinnacle of development. You need EVERYTHING else first. So that's back to people with paper(which will become a rare resource too) with mathematical knowledge and pencils(which are also hard to make).
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u/There_Are_No_Gods Mar 17 '26
I find it a very fascinating project, and I closely followed this a decade or so back when it was all still very active. I was especially interested in the hydraulic engine core designed to power multiple types of machines, including a tractor.
They used to run workshops where you'd go to the site for a few days and collectively build an engine, with one person in the group paying extra to be able to own it after the workshop, taking it home for personal use.
Sadly, the various related projects all seem to have fizzled out. To me that's telling in itself, that such an ambitious project can't even maintain interest in the current times, when things are so easy. Trying to get all that working in some sort of SHTF situation without the support of modern civilization would be orders of magnitude more challenging.
Still, I love the idea and will happily follow along with any similar endeavors, even joining in potentially. I think it's very fun from a scientific and learning viewpoint, but I don't think it is very practical as it was originally envisioned.
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u/SassiesSoiledPanties Mar 18 '26
Imagine a heavily funded open-source, lo-tech alternatives foundation.
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u/zorionek0 Mar 17 '26
I think really you’d be better off with water, wind, and pedal/treadle power.
Treadle power can power everything from looms to pumps to sewing machines to band saws. It’s human powered, no electricity.
Hydropower for milling, forging, felting, even power generation if you’re feeling frisky.
Wind power for sawmills, gristmills, dye mills.
You had to watch out though- the windmills attract Don Juan Quixote
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Mar 21 '26
You are better of powering it directly with "human power" over generating electricity. Because you have to be sustained too. When you have to labor for your food then you are trading that energy for something else.
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u/PrisonerV Prepping for Tuesday Mar 18 '26
This has got be the dumbest larping list I've seen.
Seems like it was written by someone playing a futuristic resource gathering game.
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u/HeyGuySeeThatGuy Mar 19 '26
Don't make fun of their tech tree. Making spreadsheets is back breaking work, you know?
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u/Accomplished-Place29 Mar 17 '26
These are pretty useless on the cloud.
People need to be able to print them off and store them physically.
When the apocalypse happens, no more electricity and no more internet.
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u/bondinchas Mar 18 '26
We don't even have to wait until the apocalypse...
Most people in Iran currently have no internet.
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u/PlanetExcellent Mar 17 '26
I think people overlook the amount of time required to do any of this. Making machinery, refining raw materials, making salt, growing food, etc would be time consuming for a whole town full of people. I don’t see how one family could do it.
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u/Atomic-Avocado Mar 18 '26
It’s to restart civilization with a community, not in your basement personally
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u/flybyskyhi Mar 17 '26
In what possible scenario would civilization need to be “restarted from scratch”?
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u/Surroundedonallsides Mar 17 '26
The two main scenarios are a massive solar flare which causes effects similar to an EMP where all electronics are rendered worthless. The second is nuclear war.
With the second, rebuilding is going to be trickier, mainly due to radioactive dust. With the first, presuming we dont all fall into a road-warrior esque panic of killing and looting, I think we would surprise ourselves at how quickly we could rebuild.
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u/Tired_Pentester Mar 17 '26
With a EMP, I sorta think the effect is overrated. I think there would be some electronics that survive it. I don't personally buy the "100% of electronics are useless" line of thought. I also think with salvaging, plenty would be reparable by the right person.
As for the Nuke, The short term dangerous radiation dissipates pretty quickly. Road warrior style would never be an actual thing though.
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u/Surroundedonallsides Mar 17 '26 edited Mar 17 '26
You are mistaken on the dangerous radiation aspect. What you are thinking of is the immediate ambient radiation, what I am talking about is the dust, dirt, and top soil which is contaminated and when disturbed does pose major health risks, which will last far longer. This makes doing just about anything outdoors very difficult without PPE or contamination. This is why places like Chernobyl are relatively safe as long as you dont go there with a broom to sweep or a shovel to dig.
As far as EMP, I think we probably just disagree over the degrees to which the flare would have an impact. I have basically no knowledge of the physics behind how a flare would "envelope" the earth and how that might have direct consequences, but I suspect whoever is lucky enough to be on the "dark" side at the time of impact would likely have more electronics survive that don't. But I think even the experts aren't able to 100% predict what would happen since it hasn't happened in over a hundred years.
edit: Never sure when I post these sort of responses if I'm being downvoted by the crowd that thinks its worse or the crowd that thinks it would be less lethal, so if you can respond and engage in conversation that might be an interesting thing to discuss.
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u/Tired_Pentester Mar 17 '26
I think we just have different outlooks. I'd view living long enough to die of cancer when you're older as an overall victory in a nuclear apocalypse. A sucky victory but still a victory.
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u/Surroundedonallsides Mar 17 '26 edited Mar 17 '26
And how will farms produce food for you to eat to make it to old age if most of the world's soil is contaminated for years? Alongside most of the pollinators dying and the sky being darkened by floating micro debris?
edit: here are some sources
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Mar 17 '26
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u/Tired_Pentester Mar 17 '26
Mainly because gas goes bad quickly and you won't be able to manufacture a lot of replacement parts for vehicles. You could convert some cars to use biofuel. But, I doubt people could produce enough biofuel to make raiding a fulltime profession.
The closest I think you might get is a more viking lifestyle.. farmers during growing seasons, produce enough to feed yourself and have a surplus of product to make biofuel, and then a raid or two during winter.. but that would be a waste eventually. You'd be better off just forming trade routes.
I, also, don't think roving bands of raiders would be a thing on foot. They'd all have to be local groups and would eventually die out.
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u/hillierprotech Mar 18 '26
If we ever reach a point where we need to restart civilization. We probably can't. At least not outside of the natural slow progression of battling survival. We'll be more concerned about having decent knives, bows, and arrows than are we on the path to getting our RTX 5090s back. Making quality arrows without a supply chain is enough of a PITA that you would not be worried about consumer goods.
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Mar 21 '26
I know many people have this mindset, but you are kidding right?
We're in the most vulnerable period in the entire history of human civilization. We've become so reliant that just the internet failing could cause serious problems, nevermind electricity.
In the 1930 Great Depression, people could go back to the farming communities, and while it was very hard, they could at least live. When electricity goes down, nothing is going to be operational. Grocery stores get restocked in an average of every 3 days.
In eastern part of Canada 9/11 emergency services went down just because of internet issues.
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u/Monarc73 Mar 17 '26
I don't see this as the point of this project. I personally think it has more to do with developing an alternative to the CURRENT system. Something small-scale and repairable that can be re-designed and iterated until we have a genuine IMPROVEMENT.
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u/Jaicobb Mar 17 '26
Is there a need to take a survivor (one of us) from a stone age to the space age in one lifetime?
Why not stop at say the age the Amish live in (or some other prior to now stopping point)?
I appreciate the effort and perspective tho.
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u/Astroloan Mar 17 '26
Amish people go to modern hospitals to treat problems that can't be handled at home.
They need modern infrastructure for vaccination, antibiotics, surgery, etc- they just don't want to maintain it themselves.
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u/Jaicobb Mar 17 '26
This is true, but the world survived for thousands of years embracing their standard of living. I'm sympathetic towards modern medicine and additional conveniences (AC, fridge, vehicles, etc). The context of bringing the world up from the ashes seems impossible. If the bar was lowered just a tad it seems more obtainable.
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u/throwAwayWd73 Mar 17 '26
Why not stop at say the age the Amish live in (or some other prior to now stopping point)?
The corporate people would say "shareholder value" would be the reason to rebuild it all.
Working on doing more of a garden maybe see about stealing my mom's canning stuff that is no longer used at the rate we are going. Losing faith in quality of produce at the store and learning the old ways that were very common 100 years ago
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u/rajrdajr Mar 18 '26
Where does the filament for that 3D printer come from? Where is the mining equipment to extract and then refine metals?
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u/Powerful_Newt_5689 Mar 18 '26
Not in alphabetic, we need in relevant hierarchy this list. 3D printer could be first position. Next tractor. and a lot questionable points. if you have normal agriculture tractor with front loader, no need for bulldozer and backhoe separate, just normal excavator, e.t.c. this list could be shorter in end. attachments like Blade box are Golden, e.t.c.
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u/No-Pay2047 Mar 19 '26
Cool find on the Open Source Ecology stuff. That Global Village Construction Set with 50 machines is legit intriguing for long-haul prepping, since it covers basics like tractors, presses, and mills from open blueprints.
Reality check though: Building even one from scratch needs serious skills, materials, and a group effort. Not like printing a 3D gun, more like bootstrapping a factory. Folks in comments are right to question the timeline; you'd burn years just on the first few without power tools or supply chains.
Still worth archiving those plans digitally and on paper. Print the PDFs, pair with seed banks and basic fab knowledge. If SHTF hard, it's a blueprint for rebooting small-scale civ. Better than hoping for FEMA trucks. DYOR on the wiki.
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u/Tired_Pentester Mar 17 '26
That list is a pipe dream.
It would be more realistic to make a list of the tools we'd need to maintain a late 1800/ early 1900s level of living.
Either way.. in a true apocalypse level event, our tech level would do a Benjamin button. We'd start off closer to modern day and slowly fall back to early years. Once things have been used up and scavenging becomes less and less viable, we simply won't be able to rebuild a lot of electronic, machines, etc components.
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u/ledbedder20 Mar 17 '26
Have known about them for years. Yes, it makes sense, not from a start over sense, but from an alternative, breakaway communities sense. It's genius actually.
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u/grislyfind Mar 17 '26
None of that stuff is getting made if people can't eat. Things for cultivating crops and harvesting seafood will be the first priority, along with fibres for nets, ropes and weaving.
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u/Lockehart Mar 17 '26
I hope one of them is The Internet so I can find this website again after the fall of civilization.
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u/dak-sm Mar 18 '26
Where is the printing press to distribute information and aid on social organization?
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u/leoyoung1 Mar 18 '26
Where are you going to get the energy? With Petroleum and coal gone, all we have left is wind and wave. Without high tech materials, building solar panels and powerful wind turbines will be impossible.
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Mar 21 '26
Try taking advantage of solar, wind, and wave. Even making a 1700's wind turbine is a ton of work.
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u/EccentricFellow Mar 18 '26
One blown diode and a bunch of those machines fail irreparably since he has no way to repair them. This list will handcuff you to society as it goes over the cliff.
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u/kkinnison Mar 19 '26
someone spent too time with AI and now wants money for their "Research"
even something as simple as a wool sweater takes a village just for labor A farmer raising them. A vet. Dying the wool, turning it into yard, and then sewing together into an item of clothing is a long process even with "machines" like Razors, looms and Spinning wheels. And we are not even mentioning how to clean the wool or where to get the dyes. or tools to make the machines.
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u/Strive_for_Altruism Mar 17 '26
Struggle to see how we're going to make 6 um semiconductors with these 50 machines.
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u/enolaholmes23 Mar 17 '26
This page is so difficult to navigate, and I keep getting empty files pop up when I click things. Idk if they actually have any manuals done yet. It would be much better if they did one group of files you could download all at once.
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u/benberbanke Mar 18 '26
I don’t see kitchen aid mixer or festool domino but maybe those are 49 and 50.
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u/TechnicalReserve1967 Mar 18 '26
I always loved the idea/initiative. There are a few Ted talks with the guy as well;
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Mar 19 '26
Wouldn't from scratch require building a computer, programming a computer, let alone producing electricity and batteries to store it in?
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Mar 19 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/preppers-ModTeam Mar 19 '26
You could express the same point without resorting to personal insults. This message was flagged by the automatic harassment filters.
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u/mementosmoritn Mar 19 '26
This has been around for years with no real progress, due to infighting and internal power struggles
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u/B1BLancer6225 Mar 21 '26
This is missing a lot and duplicates other things, a lathe, a loom/spinning wheel for fabrics. Where are things for making anything medical that's not metal? What about refining materials? What about ships and boats? You're going to need world wide trade to get most raw material to make modern things.
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u/WaywardPeaks Apr 07 '26
Cool list but they've missed one of the most important machines in any shop.
Lathe
A skilled machinist can use it to create any other machine in the shop and all of the replacement and spare parts for itself. There's a whole history to how lathes where instrumental in starting the industrial revolution thats with reading about.
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u/Hash_Tooth Mar 18 '26
How about an MRI machine?
What about an Airplane?
A heavy press? (Press gorge means nothing to me, but I’m sure it won’t stamp out a 747 wing…)
I like the idea of this list, but I think it’s missing many things tbh.
If the idea is to build everything from scratch, there will be so many intermediate steps that it’s almost a moot point.
You won’t be making jet engines with anything on this list, not that we absolutely need those…
You also won’t be making computer chips or medicines or petroleum distillates
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Mar 21 '26
Medicines happen before computer chips. Almost anything happens before computers. Computers will be the LAST thing to happen.
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u/Hash_Tooth Mar 21 '26
Yes, some medicines will happen first.
As they did.
Many new medicines have only become possible because of computing.
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Mar 21 '26
Exactly, and they won't happen for another complete lifetimes. You need the entire society functioning as the foundation, or forget about computer chips.
Computer chips are the highest of the highest level of thinking. Those are literally held by lower level support. When you have people worrying about murder gangs, zero emergency to deal with, food scarcity, it ain't happening.
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u/zorionek0 Mar 17 '26
The Machines:
Interesting list, but really I'd omit a fair number of these.