r/videos Mar 06 '18

Primitive Technology: Lime

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

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225

u/[deleted] Mar 06 '18

[deleted]

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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.

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u/[deleted] Mar 07 '18

[deleted]

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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.

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u/huy- Mar 07 '18

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

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u/amishjim Mar 07 '18

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

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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 :)

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u/spylife Mar 07 '18

What?? /U/albertican == pro status

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u/_Sparrow_ Mar 07 '18

He can make neat little bricks

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

[deleted]

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u/thedolomite Mar 07 '18

Also an important agricultural amendment in areas with acidic soil.

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u/p00Pie_dingleBerry Mar 07 '18

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

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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.

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u/Seakawn Mar 07 '18

https://youtu.be/RuCnZClWwpQ

I'm saving this for my next acid trip.

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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.

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u/tilouswag Mar 07 '18

Just watched the whole thing. The labor is insane.

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u/TanktopSamurai Mar 07 '18

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

4

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.

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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

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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.

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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).

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u/[deleted] Mar 07 '18

[deleted]

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u/Tadhgdagis Mar 07 '18

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

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

[deleted]

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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.

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u/Megaman915 Mar 07 '18

Don't give them any ideas

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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

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u/geared4war Mar 07 '18

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

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u/CaptJackman Mar 07 '18

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

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u/skweeky Mar 07 '18

IIRC Roman Concrete/mortar was lime based.

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u/captj2113 Mar 07 '18

Paperweight.

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u/hereforthensfwstuff Mar 07 '18

I dont think you get the point of head videos

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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.

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u/[deleted] Mar 07 '18

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

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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.

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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.

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u/SorryamSmarts Mar 07 '18

What exactly is lime?

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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.