Free Boat Navy

I haven't been posting because I haven't been been bladesmithing since the weather got nice, good intensions notwithstanding. During the good weather, I'm pretty much overwhelmed with yard work, chores and the honeydew list, along with my regular duties as chief cook and bottlewasher (that's right, I am PW, but my little wifie is not so good at those things, so it's OK by me.) I would be back in the shop, and I will be after I get my new bandsaw (check this little baby) and a few supplies, but I've somehow been drawn into the nautical world by my friend Doug, packrat and junk aficianado like myself, who has somehow managed to score TWO broken sport boats.

The first prize is a 1977 Sea Ray SRV 185 with a (seized) mercruiser 165 and a rotted deck and transom, plus a fairly beat but still servicable single axle trailer. We spent a couple of days tearing out rotted seats, trim and plywood, and I've started cutting new wood to repair the deck and transom. It looked pretty good when we got it, but neither of us knows sh'ite  about boats, although Doug is a professional (auto) mechanic and instructor. If we had known how clapped-out it was, I'm sure we wouldn't have taken it, (the economics term "sunk costs" probably originated with boat builders) but after all the time we spent tearing it down, we're determined to get it ship-shape by spring. There are lots of these things on Craig's List for cheap or free; I imagine that a many people buy a new boat and let it sit or get rid of it when they lose interest . It's obvious that these are rather cheaply made except for the hulls; a lot of un-glassed and even un-primered plywood trim and components, plus various degrees of neglect while the thing sits in the driveway for years (I call it "seasoning") until the better half finally screams "Get that thing out of here!"

I've got it (barely) in my garage, drying out while I build a pole barn, something I've been meaning to do to have a place to store my lawn equipment. It's a joke working in there now, picking my way around mowers and motorcycles and suchlike, but after we finish the hull repairs, we can leave it in the weather until we get the motor back together, which is now taking up my entire workbench - an old door laying across my nearly abandoned project Bronco frame. The motor need s to go to the machine shop, but we're proceeding very slowly because we want to be sure we can finish it before we start sinking a lot of money into it. Time I got, but if I wanted to spend a lot of money, I could just buy one in good condition for a couple grand; a lot of these are on Craigslist right now, being Winter and all.

After we got pretty far into the first boat, scroungemeister Doug found another freebee with a fragged outdrive, but in overall good condition, much newer, although I haven't done the research yet to determine exactly what it is or when it was manufactured. The deck is pretty badly rotted, though. To our mutual horror we  found the deck was not even glassed; just carpet over plywood over foam. That is too cheaply made, but I guess it had a relatively good price-point. Somebody bought it, after all, but then they just didn't take care of it. There doesn't seem to be any serious rot beyond the deck; fingers crossed that the motor turns over and the deck can be repaired easily, because it's much nicer than the searay, extended transom and a cuddy cabin and a really nice trailer. The cuddy cabin is kind of a must-have if women are aboard unless you've got the kind of gal that can just hang it over the side, a rare find in this day and age. [It just occurred to me what the swim ladder is for; I was wondering why anyone would want to get out of a perfectly good boat unless it was docked or sinking]. Tomorrow we'll finish stripping it and see if the motor cranks (Inshallah!), and get some pictures of both tubs. I hope we catch a break, because I need to finish something.

Stainless Boot

I had to re-handle this using pins. Epoxy does not really stick to stainless, but the pins keep the scales on. I'm not sure if this is going into the working knives collection. It's difficult to sharpen, but it won't rust and can open letters and clean fingernails. Which is to say, I really like damascus. Trouble is, I can buy a finished knife from Charlton for not much more than the blank, which is not only a valuable collectable, but is much better made than I can possibly do. Maybe one or two of each...

Classic Modified

I finally finished the "classic" bowie. Charlton sells these blanks, but I'd gotten this a while back, probably from SMKW, and never really figured out how to mount a handle to the short and narrow tang. Now I'm a little more familiar and comfortable with soldering onto damascus, although I got a little too much on the guard, and I'm pretty good at making rectangular holes. For the guard I used a C&O Canal commemorative bronze coin, and the handle was the same crate wood



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I finally routed a shallow notch in two flats of wood, each cut half of the thickness of the tang. Worked good, although I ended up with a pretty wide gap between the handle and the guard.

I'd take off about five points for the gap, and 2-3 more for lack of finish. (It could use some sanding with 600 and my arm's tired). I'll give it a 95, cause I am the judge!

Stainless - No Cigar

I thought it turned out pretty well, considering.  The epoxy doesn't really hold, even though I roughed up the tang. I had to re-glue one side and the other is loose at the butt. Oh, well.  It also looks sort of ugly. I guess I could have done better.  If I have to, I bought two cobalt 1/8th bits, and I could try to pin it, but I would really just start over.  Something ain't right with the front of the handle. (It does look better in person.)

The wood is a slightly different type of South American hardwood from shipping crates. It's a little softer than the other I was using and doesn't shine up as nice. I'm deducting 4 points for minor blemishes, 4 points for weak glue and 4 more for general ugliness: make it an 88/100.

The End of Act 1

I need to get new belts and my friend said he would give me a small belt sander, so I'm not grinding any metal right now, but worn belts work pretty well on wood, especially the #80/100 grit is much more forgiving. I managed to do most of this with the coarse belt. It's the same unknown wood I'm using for scales; this was a roughly wedge shaped piece of waste wood. Cut the kerf with the edge of the sander and used a lot of my new-found inner radius "talent".

Good practice, plus I'll be set if I get any letters on the other side of the metal detectors.

My friend gave me two sheathe knives that had gotten rusty on one side from being in the sheathes for at least twenty years. One is a big fat Pakistani bowie that's thick enough to grind the rust off, which I'm in the process of.  I'll post photos when I'm done.  This one is kind of cool: tight stag handle, hard, thin and very flexible blade and only light rust, which I'm taking off by hand because the blade is so thin. Too bad it looks like a bread knife, but it would be quel formidable in a between the ribs application.  Think I'll stick with bread.

My next project, which I didn't put handles on before because it's too hard to drill stainless. But now that the epoxy only knives are holding up well, I'm just going to glue it and grind it. Then I have the last damascus blank, that I still haven't figured out how to handle.

The first four Damascus USA knives, done for now.  Time to order more steel.

First Four Finished

Improving...

Bowie Day 3

It actually turned out better than I expected. The good points; didn't mar the blade, the components all seem strongly attached, wood fit is very close and the tang as close to perfect as the oversize guard will let me. I tried to make up for the flaws by polishing the daylights out of it with #220 and #320.  There's a few smudges and scratches on the metal that I could get out starting over with #100 grit, but I unfortunately cracked one of the scales when I tried to pin it, because I hadn't fine-tuned the holes.  Next time I'll only use three pins for the glue-up and drill and fit the rest before sanding.

The guard was made from a scrap of a door hanger. It's kind of thin, but solid brass and feels good against my hand and extends past my fingers enough to function as a guard, plus the pointy tip of the heart on the bottom has good potential for pokin' and gougin'. If I couldn't get to my .357, this is what I would want.

I'm deducting 3 points for wayward solder, 3 points for the cracked handle, 2 for misfit wood, 1 for a somewhat wavy line on the tang. and 1 for small scratches. I could spend a couple of hours to sand out the last two flaws, which would bring it up to a 92, but my arm is tired so it's a 90. I think it's fair to give it a B+.