Fuego

I had a week between trips to fix my little boat wreck from Waltenburg Rapid. I hit the very tip of the bowpost cap. By a stroke of good luck following bad, it exploded without affecting the hull at all. It's really just a bumper anyhow. However, the boat flexed a bit, cracking a few ribs. River repairs consisted of a bit of duct tape.

Back in the shop I cut a new bow post from some locust Jim Mackenzie gave me. The old busted piece is at bottom of picture.

Then I got to dig out all my deep-throat clamps to repair the cracked ribs.

One of my favorite clamps:

Dab on a bit of George Kirby's finest paint.

And for a final touch we had an impromptu firing of the foundry last night. We melted down a pile of old oarlocks, which for some reason make a lot of slag, green flames,  and billow noxious smoke.

Here is Marieke making the mold.

And me pouring. Wow this is some weird bronze.

A bit of grinding an polishing.

And it works. Look. A new bow eye. Roy calls it a nose ring.

BJ made a nice breasthook for the Thunder Liver.

Roy needed some big oarlocks for his big fat oars.

Foundry work is so fun. I took a lot of the same cool picture.

Marieke cast some oarlocks last year but the bronze was too malleable and they bent. So we are using melted oarlocks just to see if they are stronger.

The casting winds down.

And the polishing begins. In addition to the bronze, we polished of some Bushmills. This morning the bronze was a lot shinier than we were.