Make your own effective fishing tackle while you save money and recycle scrap
By Rev. J.D. Hooker
Issue #44 • March/April, 1997
My long time friend Hearold Ruby passed away. Death came as sort of a reprieve. He'd been terribly sick and utterly miserable for years and he was...
Build Your Own Car Wash
By Jeffrey Yago, P.E., CEM
Issue #133 • January/February, 2012
Completed car wash in operation
If someone told me a year ago that I would have a commercial car wash behind my garage, I would have laughed....
Tools and hardware for the backwoods home
By James Ballou
Issue #74 • March/April, 2002
A certain degree of self reliance is obtainable by those who have the knowledge and skills, resourcefulness, courage, common sense, and tools to perform most of the tasks...
Determined woman builds distinctive vertical log studio
By Dorothy Ainsworth
Issue #27 • May/June, 1994
When I graduated from high school in 1960, my father wrote in my autograph book, "When you get married and have twins, don't come to me for safety...
Build this sturdy large-capacity food dehydrator
By Charles Sanders
Issue #63 • May/June, 2000
Drying of food as a means of preservation has been around for a long time. Populations in suitably dry climates all around the globe have dried meat, fish,...
Livestock fencing for the small homesteader, part 2
By Don Lewis
In the last issue of Backwoods Home Magazine, we covered Part 1 of livestock fencing for the small homesteader. The article included some of the history, requirements, and methods for siting and...
Build a deluxe barrel stove
By David Lee
Issue #108 • November/December, 2007
Winter is coming again, pretty much on schedule in spite of global warming, and it will be cold, just like always. Having a reliable heating system makes winter...
Solar Building Design
By Steven Heckeroth
Issue #63 • May/June, 2000
Solar building design has been used since ancient times. In the more recent past, it has been more or less ignored as impractical, complicated, or too expensive. Incorporating...
Making Apple Cider with a Homemade Press
By Robert Van Putten
Issue #170 • March/April, 2018
Apples are an important food resource for us. Every year we store hundreds of pounds in our root cellar where they will keep for up to six...
PVC pipe in the home, garden, farm, and workshop
By Charles Sanders
Issue #94 • July/August, 2005
Perhaps one of the most important innovations in modern plumbing has been the development of polyvinyl chloride (PVC), chlorinated polyvinyl chloride (CPVC), and related plastic pipe. These materials...
Rural Building
By Martin Harris
Issue #63 • May/June, 2000
From the architect's chair
Before beginning any building project, it is usually beneficial, from a time and cost perspective, to think through all the possible alternatives, weighing the pros...
Renovating old walls
By David Lee
Issue #106 • July/August, 2007
Some years ago my wife and I were out searching for a new building lot when we fell into The Trap. We had recently built and sold a...
Building a Ferro-Cement Shed
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By Robert Van Putten
Issue #162 • November/December, 2016
For a year and a half, we lived in an 18-foot travel trailer while building a straw bale cottage. There isn't much space in a travel trailer,...
How safe is your electric fence?
By Eloise Twining
I’ve used solar powered electric fencing on my California ranch for at least 35 years. Over that time electric fencing has proved to be a very effective way of controlling stock safely....
Turning a $10,000 House into a Home — Part 1: Salvaging the Wreck
By Claire Wolfe
Issue #155 • September/October, 2015
December 2012. Welcome to my house as I first saw it.
The door opens onto a dirt-floored room. It's not a garage, not a storeroom, not a laundry room,...
New invention— The Fencerunner
By Dietmar Berg
Issue #68 • March/April, 2001
Here's a gadget I developed to run barb or barbless wire. You mount it on the back of a pickup truck using the ball hitch (see drawing) so...































