My Grandfather was absolutely never without his pocket knife or wallet. He kept both in his pants with the belt on, ready to go in the morning. When he passed his wallet contained several nice things, like a stashed emergency 50, a couple of bandaids (he was on blood thinner and a small nick, which he got often as a truck driver, would bleed forever), and a few other tidbits. He very often had other tools stashed about himself, such as pliers and screwdrivers.

My Grandmother was never without a mini-flashlight in her purse, usually the handheld size you sqeezed to activate the circuit, but sometimes a bigger model with a switch. She always had candy (diabetic) and nail clippers, and extra cash.

Both, having grown up in the depression, always had lots of food, canned some of their own food from their very large garden, and had many other ETS style backups. When we cleaned up after my Grandma passed we found no less than 12 paper grocery sacks full of canned goods.

Whenever I hear it about spending a little extra for some backups, I just mention my Grandparents and how they would never leave themselves without at least a years worth of supplies.


The square can be made using several methods, but water and a plumb bob will get you a right angle pretty fast. I'm not sure on the flat surface, but since they use molten tin to shape glass, I assume water or some other still liquid surface is involved. But it can't be that simple... I know blown glass was hammered to a semi-flat surface for ages before we came up with flat glass. So I'm curious. Only Idea on thread is to setup a block with a cutter set at an angle with the block set level so the barstock spins flat into the angled cutter. Would be easy enough to do in wood, but metal could be done if you used the right materials.

I'm really curious about the answers now! <img src="/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />