Improvising: What can you create with your glasses

Greg Davenport

Greg Davenport

Joined
Nov 29, 1999
Messages
632
Note: Try to answer this before reading the responses of others.

You find yourself in a survival situation (reasons unknown). You have limited resources...yet you still have to meet your "five survival needs".

Following my survival step by step process you:

1. Stop and recognize the situation for what it is.

2. Recognize and prioritize your "five survival essentials" (listed below) in order of importance.

3. Improvise to meet your needs ("five essentials").

while going through the steps of improvising you inventory your manmade and natural materials. One of the things in this inventory is your "birth control glasses". these glasses have a plastic framework with supporting wire located withing the plastic.

Question:

List as many improvised items you can create for each of the "five survival essentials" and their sub-categories...

Five survival essentials"

1. Personal Protection (clothing, shelter, fire)
2. Siganling (manmade and improvised)
3. Sustenance (water and food)
4. Travel (with and without a map and compass)
5. Health (psychological stress, environmental injuries, traumatic injuries)

Don't be shy... Good luck!

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Greg Davenport
http://www.ssurvival.com
Are You Ready For The Challenge?
Are You Ready To Learn The Art Of Wilderness Survival?

 
Greg,
I think that I would only use the glasses for trying to signal by flashing and for trying to start a fire by glass. I have tried to use my glasses for fire before though and they didn't seem to be focused properly to get a small enough point of light
 
First, we have to assume that these are a spare set of glasses, one that we don't need in order to actually see with.
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Here's a couple guesses:

Sharpen or shave the plastic coating of the temple pieces down to form an awl to thread cordage through heavy materials for tent-type shelter or clothing. A sharp enough point would make an expedient weapon if the earpiece were held in the hand, with the temple area forward. Or pull the wire out entirely for use as a needle if needed to stitch a wound.

I haven't had much luck with the eyeglass-fire thing, but I guess it would depend on your prescription. The ubiquitous "Coke bottles" would probably work best.

A short piece of one of the temple pieces would be used for a splint for an injured finger.

Plastic shavings could be used as tinder, as some of the earlier plastic frames were made of somewhat- to very flammable cellulosic materials.

Glass lenses could be carefully fractured and sharpened to a decent edge if needed.

Other than that, I'm probably not thinking "out of the box" enough. It's too early on a Monday, so I'm not firing on all cylinders.
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Don LeHue

The pen is mightier than the sword...outside of arm's reach. Modify radius accordingly for rifle.
 
Let's just say I found a pair of glasses that do me no good (cause otherwise I wouldn't dream of cannabilizing my source of vision):

1)the wire within the rims could be used for fish hooks (sustenance), needles (personal protection), magnatized for improv. compass (travel), repairs to equip. (pers. protect.),sutures (health).

2) plastic rims around lenses could be cut into two hooks each, tied together with rim wire to form baited or snatching hook for fish or mammals (sustenance).

3)lenses could be used for signalling or fire starting magnafying style (pers. protect., signalling) They could be sharpened into blades (particularly if impact resistant plastic lenses) (pers. protect, sustenance, health)
4) temple pieces could be sharpened into awls pers.protec) or lashed to stout stick for two pronged fish/frog spear (sustenance).
5) miscellaneous shiney pieces used as fish or bird lures(sustenance)
6) obigatory black electrical tape (there must be some wrapped around the glasses) for repairs (personal protection)
7) two lenses wrapped in birch bark tube to form telescope or scope sight for improved crossbow (oops, lost it there for a moment. Time to stop!)
One other: if mylar space blanket, could cover glasses with piece to form sun glasses.

John

[This message has been edited by squatch (edited 01-31-2000).]
 
Jeez; you guys come up with the wildest ideas!

First of all, keep the damn glasses for a spare pair; if you are as myopic as I am, you may well need them.

Secondly, shattering a glass lens to make a sharp shard is likely to turn that lens into a lot of tiny cubes, as all glass lenses are tempered, so that the DON't break up into shards.

Thirdly, to focus sunlight for fire making requires a biconvex lens. Spectacles are concave/convex. You would spend a lot of time trying to start a fire with one of those lenses.

Fourthly, as far as signaling goes, most glasses have an antireflection coating; further, they are curved. You need a flat surface to signal with.

Fifthly, most modern metal frames are either stainless steel or Ti. While both of these are 'magnetic' in the sense that they will generate eddy currents if passed through a magnetic field, neither will form permanent magnetic domains so as to form a compass needle.

However, you guys get full marks for thinking up things I would never have thought of. Walt
 
Walt, although I have never tried it, if attempting the fire making, I would use Both lenses to form a biconvex lense (possibly with water between them). Still think it would be tough if even possible, but what the heck, its a mental exercise
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I have got to say I am sitting this one out, I dont even want to think about messing with my glasses, I may need them. I would hate to stumle about in the woods in the haze without them. The titanium frames could possibly be handy though.

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Lee

LIfe is too important to be taken seriously. Oscar Wilde
 
It is just an improvising exercise. Lets not get right brained over it.

If it helps... change the scenario... you found the glasses. Oh yeah, when you tried to use them they made your vision worse and gave you a head ache.

Don't overanalyze the process... just practice the value of thinking on a different level. how can an item be used in another fashion... to meet your needs.

------------------
Greg Davenport
http://www.ssurvival.com
Are You Ready For The Challenge?
Are You Ready To Learn The Art Of Wilderness Survival?

 
Way back when, back before modern plastics, imitation horn-rimmed glasses were made from something like celluloid. What ever it was, it would burn like crazy. As a kid I used to collect stuff out of trash cans and when I found glasses I would burn them. It was a little like very slow burning smokeless powder. I haven't tried recently, but way back when ping pong balls would burn like that.
 
I thought I could cop my way out of this one, but I guess not, lol. I sit here staring at my glasses and am at a dead loss. The only thing I can think of is the possiblity of using them to create a fire with the lenses. The frames are titamium and the lenses polycarbonate. Possibly the nose piece could be used as a fishhook. I suppose the lenses scraped on a rock could be used as a type of scraper or knife (not sure how well polycarbonate lenses would work for this).

Sorry for the attempted cop out guys.

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Lee

LIfe is too important to be taken seriously. Oscar Wilde
 
Michlee,

I too looked at my glasses and tried to think what to do with them, but I reread Greg's original post. The glasses in question have black plastic frames with wire support. Since I would never screw up my badly needed glasses I treated the topic as "found glasses" with a completely different perscription than mine.
 
Jeff; rethink your position. Focusing light on your retina is EXACTLY what your glasses do. So why won't they work starting fires? Because your cornea and/or the shape of your eyeball, with the concomitant change in the distance from the lens to the retina, is wrong. That is, light doesn't focus on your retina as it should. That is why you need glasses. Therefore, your glasses only effect a small change in the path of the light, so as to have it fall on (not behind or in front of) the retina.

A magnifying glass has to do the work of your cornea and lens (remember your lens is biconvex); thus is differently shaped than specatacles.

Walt

[This message has been edited by Walt Welch (edited 02-04-2000).]
 
This was a tough one to consider Greg! You are definitely making them harder, especially since my reading glasses are different from the ones you described! LOL

First of all, I would assume the lenses are GLASS! If not, this should 'still' work, but maybe not as well.

The lenses can be either GROUND DOWN or PRESSURE FLAKED on one edge to form cutting tools. If one is practiced enough a small arrowhead/spearpoint could be made. Hence, you have a cutting tool for all uses and a single means of defense/food getting.

One lens with a solid background, may be used to reflect SUNLIGHT for signalling.

A lens by itself in a sunny setting may be used to focus the sunlight to start a fire.

The wire and plastic frame could be cut ground into sections for FISHHOOKS. Keep the plastic on the shank to add rigidity.

IF the wire is long enough a piece could be used as a snare.

If the wire runs through the ear pieces, these would be easier to make hooks out of.

Finally, if they are COKE bottle glasses, hopefully your eyesight isn't so bad that you need them to see. IF so, ignore any attempts at improvising with them and keep them on your face at all times. A blind guy in the woods in a survival situation is as good as dead!
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This was definitely a toughy! I'll have to go see all the great ideas others came up with.
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Plainsman :)
primitiveguy@hotmail.com

You use what you have on you, then you improvise! :)
 
SQUATCH! GREAT GOING!! I bow to your improvisation on this topic!
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GREG: These topics got me thinking so much, I found myself STARING at a stapler at school today, thinking, "What can I make out of this for SURVIVAL?"
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Plainsman :)
primitiveguy@hotmail.com

You use what you have on you, then you improvise! :)
 
Well, actually, Plainsman, when I was on Parris Island, with my BCGs, I was a Scribe, and used a staple to repair my glasses, when a screw fell out...
 
The lenses and earpieces(?) could be used as is for scraping hides. The blunt part of the earpieces might be better for burnishing or softening the leather.
 
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