Drilling Steel

While steel is softer than stainless steel, the principles hold the same; but the job will be easier! Steel is a very strong and hard metal, so drilling it needs to be done slowly as to not cause excess heat to build up.  

If you are using a drill press, which is preferred as control over speed and pressure are greatly enhanced, then you will want to look at where the belt is positioned.  

The belt should be placed on the pulleys to give you the lowest drill speed (and resultingly the highest torque). Then you want to use light pressure as you cut your way through the steel. If you are drilling a small and shallow hole, you may be able to drill dry without generating too much heat.  If you are drilling something longer or deeper, consider using a cutting lubricant as it will help reduce friction and heat buildup.

Machining a Grease Nipple

Zerk fittings are wonderful, all you do is pop a grease gun onto them and pump the lubricant right into where it's needed most! But what if you have a component that has no provision for a grease nipple? What if you wanted to make your own?! 

Our windlass was in need of grease, but to add grease, I was supposed to remove it from the deck, turn it upside down, and pour grease into the casing. This is straight forward enough until you realize that the bolts that hold it down are 20 years old and hidden behind gorgeous joinery! I would spend a lot longer putting things back together once the job was completed. 

Instead, I decided to simply pump some grease into it using a Zerk fitting. The only issue is, it has none! While it lacks the provisions for this attachment, it does have various bolts that thread into the housing and offer access to the inside when the bolt is removed. This gave me the idea to create my own "bolt-on Zerk fitting" by simply boring a bolt and threading in a Zerk fitting.

Using a drill press, I bored a hole down the center of the bolt (or mostly centered). The drill I used was a #7, as specified by the tap that I was using.  

Once bored, I then began tapping the threads into the reamed out bolt. Taps are wonderful cutting tools that are very sharp and need care when working with them. While you might feel inclined to simply screw the tap in, it is important to avoid doing this. You are not "screwing in the tap" but instead you are cutting the threads. The proper motion is to rock back and forth in your turns. Cut an 1/8 of a turn, reverse an 1/8 of a turn, then cut a 1/4 turn, reverse an 1/8 of a turn, cut an 1/8 of a turn, reverse an 1/8 of a turn, cut a 1/4 of a turn, etc.  

This slow back and forth motion will cut the threads while also reducing stress on the tap. Little by little, you will cut your way down the hole and create wonderful threads that you can then use. 

Once the threads are cut, you can then thread in the Zerk fitting. With the fitting connected and secured, all I need to do to grease the windlass will be to thread this into the casing and attach a grease gun! 

This was a redo of a previous attempt where I made a similar product while at a stop in a marina. All I had for tools was a hand drill, a clamp on vice, and a tiny tapper. The end product was functional, but didn't hold up too long. I decided to redo this project with proper tools to create a much better grease administering device. 

Oiling Wood

Varnish is often touted as the desired finish for brightwork and wood. It will let you appreciate the grain of the wood while also allowing you to inspect the condition of the wood with a simple glance!

While varnish might be the outer most coat, it should not be the first coat applied. When wood is harvested, it is wet from the tree that was once living. As it dries, it will warp and check. If you make something out of wet wood, it will soon develop cracks as it checks and dries. To avoid this, wood is "seasoned" where by it is dried slowly and in a controlled manner. This makes sure that the wood dries out evenly and doesn't develop any of those nasty checks or warps.

So, the wood you work with for your project will be nice and dry, ready for you to shape into the desired form. Since the wood is dry, if you varnish it, the wood will soak up all the varnish and need more coats.

Putting on many coats of varnish is not a problem, and it will be desired to create a very durable finish, but you don't want to start off with varnish.

At the heart of your wooden creation is dry wood. Any liquid you put on it will soak into the wood as the wood is desperate to re-hydrate itself. If water ever gets into the wood, it will begin to rot the wood from the inside and lead to an early death of your creation.

Varnish, while a wonderful top coat, is rather viscous and won't penetrate deep into the wood, meaning that deep in your creation will remain dryness. Water will, as always, find its way into this area and begin to degrade your creation.

Instead of starting out with varnish, you should consider using oil first. Linseed oil to be precise, is a wonderful oil to treat wood with as it will flow deep into the wood and satisfy the woods craving for moisture. As you begin oiling the wood, you will see the end grain literally suctioning the oil into the wood like a series of straws. It is very important to soak the end grain with as much oil as it wants until it stops drinking it up.

If you want to really saturate your wooden creation, consider submerging the wood in oil and letting the oil flow into it over several days.

You can see how the wood is actually drawing the oil up above the level of the liquid in the bucket. This is happening through the entire piece and over a few days will eventually pass through the entire creation.

After the wood has been well oiled, it should be allowed to dry for several days to a week in a dry area. Once the wood feels dry to the touch, it can then be varnished. The varnish won't soak into the wood quite as much as it would if the wood were dry because the oil has already been taken up. With several coats of varnish, a strong and durable layer will form on the outside that will glow with beauty!

The best part is, if the wood gets wet, the oil will repel water from getting inside, so the wood will not rot as easily. This isn't an excuse to use rot prone woods on the exterior of a boat, but it is a way of prolonging the lifespan of a wooden creation on the exterior of a boat.

Little Nipper

An old phrase used to discribe a small child, but what exactly is a "nipper" and why do we call children this?

Well, back before child labor laws, small children were employed on large ships because they were small enough to fit down the hawse pipe that leads the chain out to the anchor. There was no way the crew on the ship could lift the anchor by hand, so they needed to use a capstand to provide the force needed. The issue is that the chain the ship used didn't fit on the capstand, so they used a rope for this purpose called a "nipper". Yes, a rope needed to be tied to the chain so that it could be hauled in with the capstand and that would take the weight off the chain so that the crew could haul the chain rode up onto the deck.  This was called "nipping" and you needed someone small enough to crawl down the hawse pipe to tie the nipping line to the chain.

Naturally, a small child would fit through the pipe the best, and since they were tying the nipping line, they were naturally called "little nippers".  

Next time you see a little one running around and call them a "little nipper", just imagine them climbing down the chain as close to the sea as possible to tie a nipping line to it! 

Marking Mooring Chain

As previously discussed, we prefer to use paint to mark our chain at designated lengths. For the anchor rode, this is a simple color band system that gets painted onto the chain to mark its length. 

The problem is, a mooring chain for a Bahamian Moor uses an anchor at either end and the boats rode hooked into the middle of it. So, we don't really need to know how many feet we are, but instead where the ends and middle lay. 

To identify this, I used red paint for the ends and middle. 

Now, we know that the red ends receive an anchor, while the red middle is where the shackle attaches the main rode to the system. These areas are well demarcated, but the mooring chain is also 200 feet long, so there seems to be a red section every 100 feet. When pulling this behemoth of a chain up, we won't be able to use a windlass, so we will find ourselves nipping the chain and hauling it up with a cockpit winch, one nip at a time. This is a rather slow process, as we can only pull up around 1 boat length each nip, so I added some green markers in the middle area. Sort of a morale booster for me when I'm working!

These big green marks are located about half way between the shackle and the anchor, so when we see them, we know we are getting close to the hook! That should help boost my morale as we continue to nip the chain onto the deck!