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...
Sunday, February 18, 2018
Boat tools...
Posted by RLW at Sunday, February 18, 2018
Labels: Things that work, Tools