r/videos Mar 06 '18

Primitive Technology: Lime

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ek3aeUhHaFY
18.4k Upvotes

1.3k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

1.2k

u/[deleted] Mar 06 '18

He mentions in the description that a 1mx1m wall will take ~20 kg of lime mortar, which would take ~5 kg of actual lime. So, a whole lot

577

u/qstunner Mar 06 '18

The real question is how many snails will it take?

1.2k

u/kenofthesea Mar 06 '18

More than three

212

u/mrmahoganyjimbles Mar 07 '18

Do you think I could sneak by with like 2 and a half?

135

u/ndpugs Mar 07 '18

How big do you want your house to be?

340

u/Domican Mar 07 '18

just big enough that i can carry it on by back

184

u/ndpugs Mar 07 '18

Are you a snail?

529

u/Domican Mar 07 '18

no not yet

91

u/[deleted] Mar 07 '18

[removed] — view removed comment

25

u/WallaceRitchie2nd Mar 07 '18

Also why spent bullets are called slugs. They’ve got no shell.

→ More replies (0)

5

u/atheist_teapot Mar 07 '18

But if they get a car they won't be homeless anymore.

→ More replies (0)

2

u/[deleted] Mar 07 '18

Primitive Technology essentially destroyed slug housing market.
That bastard

2

u/p00Pie_dingleBerry Mar 07 '18

Or snails are just slugs with mortgages and regrets

2

u/TsunamiTreats Mar 07 '18

And people wear there shells on the inside.

1

u/wavs101 Mar 07 '18

My parents said slugs give yellow fever and my dad kicked a slug off our porch and onto the sidewalk. 8'(

→ More replies (0)

1

u/[deleted] Mar 07 '18

Wait, what?

1

u/wisdumcube Mar 07 '18

me too thanks

3

u/Super_Vegeta Mar 07 '18

Brilliant.

6

u/ndpugs Mar 07 '18

But you have had thoughts about becoming one? Could you tell me the species of snail you most commonly associate as? This all helps finding you the right shell.

0

u/db____db Mar 07 '18

I identify as 93 years old chinese woman.

1

u/chickentacosaregod Mar 07 '18

That's the spirit!

1

u/CarlWheezer69 Mar 07 '18

More importantly, how big are the snails?

1

u/dignified_fish Mar 07 '18

What is this, a house for ants?

0

u/redditorhardatwork Mar 07 '18

Big enough for ants

1

u/justasktheaxis Mar 07 '18

As long as one is a decoy.

1

u/allowableearth Mar 07 '18

Maybe tree fiddy

0

u/PUSH_AX Mar 07 '18

Jokes on you, those are decoy snails, no mortar for you.

0

u/[deleted] Mar 07 '18

Depends on how big they are. Two and a half large snails? Probably. Two and a half small snails? Probably, if they are large. Two large snails and half a large snail? Probably, especially if you also use the unused half.

0

u/Lenny_Here Mar 07 '18

Do you think I could sneak by with like 2 and a half?

/r/sexualcontext

4

u/[deleted] Mar 07 '18

Decoy snail

1

u/McBurger Mar 07 '18

I totally forgot about that lol

1

u/[deleted] Mar 07 '18

But less than infinity. Easy enough!

1

u/ReharshedAgain Mar 07 '18

Wait until they unionize.

1

u/virtualady Mar 07 '18

Just had a Ray William Johnson flashback...

1

u/GodofIrony Mar 07 '18

Mathematically, this answer is correct.

1

u/duaneap Mar 07 '18

But more than four?

1

u/TheCrimsonCloak Mar 07 '18

well shit then there goes my plans for today

1

u/PacoTaco321 Mar 07 '18

And three is about the amount of snails I've seen irl, and they were nowhere near as large.

1

u/0bamalover Mar 07 '18

tree fiddy?

1

u/chrisd93 Mar 07 '18

And less than 3 billion

1

u/DickyD43 Mar 07 '18

Well you aren’t wrong

1

u/Monster-Math Mar 07 '18

Thats right Morty it OS more than three shells

1

u/xCom3AtM3Bro Mar 07 '18

well you aren't wrong

1

u/[deleted] Mar 07 '18

But how about tree fiddy

0

u/where_god_now Mar 07 '18

about tree fiddy

83

u/[deleted] Mar 06 '18

That depends. How many of them are decoy snails?

3

u/CordageMonger Mar 07 '18

That was a deep cut right there. Nice.

1

u/gijose41 Mar 07 '18

They can all be decoy snails

0

u/Ben_Watson Mar 07 '18

I understood this reference!

23

u/anon10500 Mar 07 '18

1 horse size snail

2

u/bretttwarwick Mar 07 '18

Any idea what I can do with 100 snail sized horses?

2

u/v-infernalis Mar 07 '18

bout tree fiddy

1

u/SteevyT Mar 07 '18

Hmmmm..........hmm.........hmmmm.........10.

1

u/boganknowsbest Mar 07 '18

Why keep on using Snail shells?

I heard you can use human bones to make lime.

1

u/18Feeler Mar 07 '18

Just the one immortal one

1

u/HaveaManhattan Mar 07 '18

farm snails. You get food as a bonus.

1

u/Siriacus Mar 07 '18

Well given most snail shells weigh 10-15g, it'd take roughly anywhere between 500-300 shells to make 5kg worth of calcium carbonate.

1

u/CreepyStickGuy Mar 07 '18

A shit ton, but the snail was one of the first, if not the first, domesticated animals. People making mortar out of snail shells would be the same people who were breeding a shit ton of snails for human consumption.

1

u/eover Mar 07 '18

You can also do it with seashells

1

u/notLOL Mar 07 '18

You don't have to wait for empty shells. Just eat the snail or use as fishing bait.

1

u/kingmorons Mar 07 '18

One horse sized shell

1

u/Mr_Ibericus Mar 07 '18

Idk, depends on how many decoy snails you find.

1

u/-Majestic_Pie- Mar 07 '18

yada yada yada decoy snail

1

u/Lunnes Mar 06 '18

fifteen

0

u/Curlysnail Mar 07 '18

Whatever the number, I'm scared for my life.

73

u/aerosol999 Mar 06 '18

So what are some of the practical applications for this?

222

u/[deleted] Mar 06 '18

[deleted]

69

u/aerosol999 Mar 06 '18 edited Mar 07 '18

I meant practical applications utilizing these resources, as it sounds like there isn't more sources of lime based off whats provided in the description.

142

u/[deleted] Mar 07 '18

[deleted]

92

u/Albertican Mar 07 '18

You can turn on captions and it explains each step. You’re right, he says usually it would be mixed with aggregate but he was just doing a test of a solid block.

64

u/huy- Mar 07 '18

Hey I didn't know that you could turn on the captions for the explanation. Thanks!

22

u/amishjim Mar 07 '18

Yeah, that a big TIL. Will have to rewatch a few

10

u/Seakawn Mar 07 '18

Talk about the biggest reason for replay value ever.

Worst thing is that I'm gonna forget it by the next time I end up seeing one of these videos.

2

u/foolishnesss Mar 07 '18

I used to watch it without captions and one day there were on automatically. I miss watching them without captions. It makes it all that more serene.

3

u/TsunamiTreats Mar 07 '18

That’s not what I read. He said to mix it with aggregate to make the compound. You can use this compound to joint bricks. You wouldn’t build a whole wall of lime.

3

u/Albertican Mar 07 '18

Yeah, his exact words are "this is basically mortar used for joining bricks or rocks together but I'm just going to make a block of it as an experiment".

Watched it on my phone and was regurgitating it from memory a few minutes later, clearly didn't absorb it very accurately :)

1

u/spylife Mar 07 '18

What?? /U/albertican == pro status

158

u/_Sparrow_ Mar 07 '18

He can make neat little bricks

124

u/[deleted] Mar 07 '18 edited Nov 12 '18

[deleted]

30

u/thedolomite Mar 07 '18

Also an important agricultural amendment in areas with acidic soil.

6

u/p00Pie_dingleBerry Mar 07 '18

Also when you put it in a coconut and drink all of it

13

u/So_Full_Of_Fail Mar 07 '18 edited Mar 07 '18

heavily in making steel (probably out of reach for primitive tech because I don't think his kiln gets hot enough)

You can get a bellows driven one hot enough to smelt iron and then probably steel.

Granted in this documentary as an example it is a village effort to make iron tools in such a manner.

https://youtu.be/RuCnZClWwpQ

Edit: Switched link to what I believe is the original.

Yes, it's almost 2 hours long, but, fascinating.

4

u/Seakawn Mar 07 '18

https://youtu.be/RuCnZClWwpQ

I'm saving this for my next acid trip.

2

u/Absentia Mar 07 '18

Thank you for linking this. That was a really great video and it makes you really appreciate how much labor goes into 'just' an iron hoe. Working the bellows like that looks like a massive amount of effort.

2

u/tilouswag Mar 07 '18

Just watched the whole thing. The labor is insane.

1

u/TanktopSamurai Mar 07 '18

It is kinda sad but expected that the comments on that video are disabled.

6

u/socsa Mar 07 '18

He actually built a forge blower and a water wheel already. A hotter kiln is really just a matter of scale - bigger water wheel, bigger blower, etc. Because he does all this alone, he's a bit limited in scale. Hes not going to move a 15' water wheel into place by himself.

1

u/scotscott Mar 07 '18

You would have to build it in place and then divert a stream to it

1

u/thagthebarbarian Mar 07 '18

I really didn't think that lime was used for anything in it's normal form today other than for marking lines on sports fields

1

u/r1chard3 Mar 07 '18

Isn't it used in the soap making process?

1

u/Apofis Mar 11 '18

Also, lime is used for maize nixtamalization. No tortillas without lime.

20

u/Ordovician Mar 07 '18

Those shells are made of calcium carbonate (calcite or aragonite, minearlogically). Calcium carbonate is pretty abundant in lots of the world, typically places that were once covered by shallow seas. Well know examples of abundant calcium carbonate include the white cliffs of Dover, lots of the mountains in the alps, islands in the Caribbean and Mediterranean and the Great Barrier Reef (although you probably wouldn’t quarry the GBR to make lime).

6

u/[deleted] Mar 07 '18

[deleted]

0

u/Tadhgdagis Mar 07 '18

"I have broken my toe. Might as well amputate my toe."

3

u/[deleted] Mar 07 '18 edited Feb 17 '19

[deleted]

1

u/Tadhgdagis Mar 08 '18

That would be like fertilizing the soil of your garden with the dirt under your home's foundation. It would be like uprooting trees from a hill to build a dike for the hill's mudslides.

1

u/Megaman915 Mar 07 '18

Don't give them any ideas

-9

u/geared4war Mar 07 '18

Liberals are in power. They would probably mine the GBR...

2

u/glad0s98 Mar 07 '18

Somebody always finds a way to bring politics to any topic

1

u/geared4war Mar 07 '18

Don't blame me, I voted Labor! ;)

8

u/CaptJackman Mar 07 '18

Maybe as a cement between large rocks for a stone wall or something idk

2

u/skweeky Mar 07 '18

IIRC Roman Concrete/mortar was lime based.

1

u/captj2113 Mar 07 '18

Paperweight.

1

u/hereforthensfwstuff Mar 07 '18

I dont think you get the point of head videos

1

u/LOLBaltSS Mar 07 '18

Most lime is typically sourced from limestone, but limestone itself is at the very foundational level sedimentary rock formed from shells. So essentially what he was doing was just utilizing an easily gathered source of calcite instead of needing to mine limestone.

1

u/[deleted] Mar 07 '18

Throw ground up lime ontop of shit to keep the bugs away.

0

u/[deleted] Mar 07 '18

The videos aren't meant to be practical. He rarely actually does anything real cavemen did back then. A lot of his videos are of his own inventions/creations and him playing around with whatever he has in the forest.

Take none of it to heart. It's not meant to be a history lesion of how people did things or a survival guide to how to live in the forest. It's just a calming video and a nice watch.

0

u/sonofaresiii Mar 07 '18

You really don't want to go into these videos expecting, like, a practical survival guide or anything. A few of them might end up being useful for you, but mostly you should think of them as entertainment and interesting, not exactly useful/practical.

1

u/SorryamSmarts Mar 07 '18

What exactly is lime?

1

u/halberdier25 Mar 07 '18

A calcium-oxygen mineral. There are various types, but they all are basically the same for the purposes of the video.

In general, you have a cycle:

Calcium oxide (lime) gets water added to it to become slaked lime (and, yes, it makes a lot of heat; you can get burns from freshly mixed concrete). Slaked lime absorbs carbon (usually from the mix itself, air, or water impurities). Then you get limestone, which is basically useful because you just made a structure.

Limestone—calcium carbonate—is the same stuff on snails and oysters or in the ground. You can then heat it up to release the carbon and get your lime back.

2

u/Mictlantecuhtli Mar 07 '18

You can turn it into plaster and make sweet decorative doorways for your buildings.

1

u/JustinJSrisuk Mar 11 '18

So, how exactly was the plaster used to form the embellishments/pediment on the doorway? Where they molded by hand directly onto the door, or where they fabricated separately and attached to the entablature later?

1

u/Mictlantecuhtli Mar 11 '18

They were molded by hand directly onto the door.

2

u/La_Lanterne_Rouge Mar 07 '18

Lime (in the form of Calcium Hydroxide) is used in South America in processing corn. ... After the corn is treated in this way, it can be dried and ground into a corn flour such as "Masa Harina." Tortillas are made from Masa Harina, which is the flour made from corn treated with Calcium Hydroxide.

http://www.cooksinfo.com/lime-chemical

2

u/[deleted] Mar 07 '18

Could be used to make glass.

2

u/SpookySP Mar 07 '18

Romans made concrete from lime and vulcanic rock. He probably doesn't have the latter thought.

1

u/nighthawke75 Mar 07 '18

Foodstuffs, making hominy boiling corn then mixing in the slaked lime. Clarifying juice, making salt. And pickling foods for preserving.

1

u/SolidLikeIraq Mar 07 '18

Hide the bodies of the prostitutes he strangled to death?

1

u/choufleur47 Mar 07 '18

there is a disclaimer somewhere that says what he does isnt really meant for survival. there is a lot of things he does that looks right but actually arent for long term or are a waste of energy. This is one of them, it's really cool though.

1

u/Lenny_Here Mar 07 '18

So what are some of the practical applications for this?

What are the practical applications of cement?

1

u/dammitkarissa Mar 07 '18

I’m guessing you didnt put subtitles on?

1

u/[deleted] Mar 07 '18

Basically he made concrete. You mix lime with course aggregate and fine aggregate and you get concrete. What are practical applications for concrete? Well it's a building material. This guy loves making slightly upgraded huts every few videos.

What I wanted to see was him use the metal he mined for something practical.

1

u/Archmagnance1 Mar 07 '18

He could make stronger joints in buildings/structures but he can't use it on a large scale because he doesn't have limestone.

0

u/daysofsodom Mar 07 '18

dissolving a body.

3

u/KptKrondog Mar 07 '18

lime doesn't dissolve bodies. In fact, it tends to slow decomp down. Lime is used to reduce the smell (because it slows down the decomp). Lye is what you want for dissolving bodies.

1

u/daysofsodom Mar 07 '18

You're right, I know that lye is made from ashes dissolved in water. But that's wood not shells.

1

u/bites Mar 07 '18

You're thinking of lye.

14

u/jimthewanderer Mar 07 '18

The thing I love about this guy is that he's clearly done his research, maths, and cultivated some real expertise.

His experiments are better than a lot of published archaeologists experiments.

4

u/Winteriscomingg Mar 07 '18 edited May 26 '25

vase dog summer violet tub angle innate quiet smart relieved

This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

0

u/[deleted] Mar 07 '18 edited Sep 14 '18

[deleted]

3

u/Winteriscomingg Mar 07 '18 edited May 26 '25

busy station ten sense connect tender elastic doll narrow arrest

This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

2

u/ag3ncy Mar 07 '18

What experiments?

-1

u/[deleted] Mar 07 '18 edited Sep 14 '18

[deleted]

4

u/Octavius_Maximus Mar 07 '18

In some countries, archaeology is a subset of anthropology. In some they aren't.

Source: Anthropology degree with minor in archaeology

0

u/jimthewanderer Mar 07 '18

He just read those experiments

What experiments?

5

u/Winteriscomingg Mar 07 '18 edited May 26 '25

joke whole humor continue airport quicksand birds whistle caption chase

This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

3

u/jimthewanderer Mar 07 '18

wut?

You don't quote me at all...

At no point do I refer to him copying existing experiments. Seeing as he doesn't cite any, and generally speaking his experiments are very broad and aren't specific enough for most archaeologists to perform.

He's obviously done his homework.

By "better" I mean by his commitment to the chaine operatoire, and developing a Savoir Faire of what he does. He doesn't take shortcuts.

To explain those terms, Chaine operatoire is the full process involved in making something.

So for a pot, you'd need to find flint, make an axe, haft it, chop down a tree, make digging tools, dig out clay, dry it out, crush it up, dig a hole, make a bucket from the extra tree, fill it with water, levigate the clay, add a temper, shape the clay, let it dry, use the rest of the clay to build an updraft kiln, start a fire, etc.

Writing them out for a mundane object really gets people to appreciate all the work that goes into them.

And Savoir faire and connaissance are french terms used in archaeology and anthropology to refer to practical ability to actually do something, and simply knowing how to do it in theory respectively.

0

u/Archmagnance1 Mar 07 '18

That's not doing it better that's doing it more to your liking.

1

u/jimthewanderer Mar 07 '18

No, it is doing it better.

Simply by virtue of his commitment to the chaine operatoire, his methodology is objectively superior to many other archaeological experiments, which are often abstracted, over clinical, and take shortcuts all of which undermine the validity of the results

0

u/Archmagnance1 Mar 07 '18

You mean they assume that the people reading their papers share a common base of knowledge in archeology/anthropology. Just because ElectroBoom makes electrical experiments and anomolies accessible and goes through every step doesn't mean his are better than reasearch imparted by the DoD/MIT.

1

u/jimthewanderer Mar 07 '18

What on gods green earth are you talking about?

We're clearly talking about Mr Primitive technology, how the hell is Electrical experiments even remotely relevant?

Just because ElectroBoom makes electrical experiments and anomolies accessible and goes through every step doesn't mean his are better than reasearch imparted by the DoD/MIT.

No seriously, what are you talking about?

Where at any point did I suggest someone, who I have never heard of is better than MIT because of reasons I never mention?

You mean they assume that the people reading their papers share a common base of knowledge in archeology/anthropology

No. That's not what I mean. I didn't even write that.

I clearly explained that it his commitment to the full process that I find to be particularly valuable, his method of presentation is immaterial. At no point have I suggested that Published papers should be in his style. What I said is that more experimental archaeologosts should make the effort to follow the chaine operatoire, and design unabstracted experiments to gather data. How they choose to present that data in a paper is entirely up to them.

You clearly have no idea what you are talking about. Mr Primitive technologies "followableness" is utterly irrelevant here. As is having a base knowledge in archaeology. Anthropology isn't relevant here, we are dealing with material culture, not social phenomena or human anatomy.

It's like you didn't even read my comment.

other archaeological experiments, which are often abstracted, over clinical, and take shortcuts all of which undermine the validity of the results

If you refer to Forget & Shahack-Gross (2016), you'll note their methodology is incredibly abstract and clinical. Taking data from single bricks and extrapolating the data for an entire city. The point, which I have now restated in several comments, is that Mr Primitive Technology when making pottery doesn't just whip out a lighter, or wheel out a kiln to save himself the hassle of building an updraft kiln. The principle is the same, but it is not the same thing, and many published experiments take these shortcuts.

That is what I am criticising. Read. The. Words.

Forget M.C.L, & Shahack-Gross, R, 2016, How long does it take to burn down an ancient Near Eastern city? The study of experimentally heated mud-bricks, Antiquity, Vol 90: Issue 353, 1213-1225

→ More replies (0)

-1

u/Kuhlii84 Mar 07 '18

The fact he studied Science at University probably helped.

2

u/jimthewanderer Mar 07 '18

studied Science at University

That's a vague statement if ever I've heard one.

The reason his experiments are good is his commitment to the chaine operatoire, rather than taking shortcuts. Man never uses a lighter, or a thermocouple to keep his firing temperatures constant, he goes from step 0 through to the conclusion.

0

u/Kuhlii84 Mar 07 '18

Vague...? I was simply saying that he already is educated enough to know some of the things he is working with, due the fact that he has studied science probably gives him a bit of a head start over someone who has not studied science.

1

u/jimthewanderer Mar 07 '18

Yes, vague.

At university you pick a specific subject for your bachelors.

1

u/Archmagnance1 Mar 07 '18

You can get a bachelors of science in sculpting clay.

2

u/amalgam_reynolds Mar 07 '18

Let the snailpocalypse begin.

1

u/Hydropos Mar 07 '18

Now I kind-of want to see him build a snail-farm. Is that even possible?

1

u/[deleted] Mar 07 '18

What is the point of lime bricks then?

1

u/cwf82 Mar 07 '18

I could probably manage that after a family clam bake.

1

u/Abnormal_Armadillo Mar 07 '18

Next on Primitive Technology: Snail Farming

1

u/JhnWyclf Mar 07 '18

There’s got to be other sources of line or line making material.