A Five Dollar Screw and a Three Dollar Hacksaw

I have an insurmountable to-do list today, as I’m sure most sailors have on most days, and knowing that I cannot possibly accomplish nearly enough to feel satisfied 12 hours from now, I have decided to stop along the way and smell the coffee. 

I have accomplished two projects before going to the 2^nd cup, half of which was reheated first cup, however only one was nautical in nature and it was not even on my most current revised to-do list.  The unrelated project involved re-installing the Sweet Sixteen’s bedroom window lock which she, or possibly her shirtless boyfriend, had removed despite my previous attempts to make it unremoveable, which led to the recent driving my car around at 1 AM on a school night without so much as a learners permit and being stopped by the police incident for which we must now appear in court on October 27^th. 

The re-installation involved hacksawing off the head of the screw that holds the window lock in place and it was during this step that I remembered the $5 screw I bought 2 weeks ago that was still on a project list somewhere.  So, since I was in a “hacksawing mood” anyway, once the modern day chastity belt project was completed, I moved on to the boat project.

This was a project that never should have existed in the first place, and I am beginning to realize, in my infancy of boat-ownership, that there will probably be a fair number of these projects – created either by neglect or carelessness, and not necessarily of my own doing.

In this case, the previous owner had installed marine air conditioning aboard Chapter Two, an upgrade for which we will be eternally grateful, and one of the baffles that controls the amount of cold air flowing into a particular location was not installed because the double-ended screw had been lost.  So, this one little lost part had an impact upon the entire system because wherever the baffle was not screwed in was going to receive an over-abundance of cool air to the detriment of other locations.  I brought back a retaining nut a few weeks back, incorrectly assuming that a quick trip to Home Depot would yield the proper sized screw.  Actually, it’s not even a screw, although it looks just like a 3 inch screw with threads the entire length and no head.  It’s probably more correctly referred to as a hanger, but I was perfectly willing to go with a screw and break out the little $3 hacksaw I bought years ago for some project long since gone from memory. 

The trip to Home Depot revealed that the part needed was metric and nothing even closely resembling it was in their suddenly not-so-vast inventory.  Apparently, parts that fit onto boats are not created in the same universe with which we are all intimately familiar, but on some parallel universe where only exotic materials, specifications and costs are employed.  Another trip to a “specialty” bolt and screw supplier would be required. 

I did make this trip a few days later, as this was a “hot” item on my to-do list a few weeks ago, and obtained the only metric threaded hanger that could possibly work.  I had to pay $5 and change for the part, pretty expensive for small little part, and probably due to the fact that the only thing they carried in that size with threads from head to toe was 3 feet long.  Yes, I bought a 3 foot long screw to get a 3 inch screw.  Hey, I was down to the specialty shop already, and wasn’t about to try and order a part from the alternate universe, and besides, if one could be lost, than so could another, and for just five bucks I now have a lifetime supply.

The better part of 30 minutes was spent hacking my way through this $5 screw with my $3 hacksaw.  The thought came to me, as I struggled to even make a scratch on this hardened steel piece, that I should really have a bigger and better hacksaw, but I banished that thought (repeatedly) and soldiered on.  After much gnashing of teeth, and several near-misses of the knuckles with the hacksaw blade, this critical project was accomplished.

A well-earned cup of Joe is in order, as I review the actual to-do list I have for the day.  Thankfully, I don’t see anything on it requiring the use of my $3 hacksaw, so I am tossing it back into the bowels of my toolbox where it can stay, hopefully, for a long, long time.