A grifters bonanza, another question of interest, in the "insane, willfully inaccurate, and morally bankrupt views" department, and a right on powerful speech every one should listen to and share...
Over at Cool Tools there is some sense being made regarding tools. Feel free to check it out now. I can wait.
Dum de dum de dum de dum...
Yeppers, a brace is a very cool tool but I don't expect a whole lot of boats have one in their tool box as electric drill/drivers seem to be the thing these days. Pity that.
The thing is, a brace is one of the first tools I was handed when I went to work for a boatyard in ancient times. My first task was to remove thousands of screws holding down an ancient teak deck that had come to our yard for a new pristine deck that would not leak and, of course, that meant I'd spend a few weeks on my knees taking off the old deck...
Thousands of screws later, I had calluses on my knees, an over-developed right arm, and a new appreciation for what a powerful tool your basic brace was. Once we laid down the new plywood deck (screwed down using the brace) and fiberglassed it I found myself driving thousands of screws in the new teak decking which doubled down on the knee calluses and added what seemed like (at the time) a permanent black goo spread over my body that marked me as a deck guy.
On the upside of the learning curve I'd found that by swapping my drive arm every other day I could avoid the irregular bicep look and while I may have been the creature from the black goo poster boy I was at least symmetrical. One takes comfort in the little things...
Anyway, that's the reason I tend to associate braces with boatbuilding and boat repair. It's still a tool I use and suggest to folks for their onboard tool kits. They're cheap, a garage sale one might set you back $10, and being simple with nothing to wear out or break there's not a lot of worry about buying a dud, same goes for auger bits and old used ones are cheap.
My current brace which is probably older than I am and 25 bits were bought as a package on ebay for all of $15. Sure they were sorta/kinda rusty but nothing an hour of work with some WD40 and a scotchbrite pad would not fix. Followed by a little oil to keep them that way I have a tool that could be handed down to grandchildren and that in itself, in the disposable world we call home, is a wonderful thing.
On the other hand, I have electric drills and drivers. They're handy, they work, but I can't tell you how many of them I've owned over the years that failed and usually at the worst moment. Do I really need to go in the whole dead battery issue?
Listening to Jade Bird
So it goes...
Why Bikes?
1 week ago
