@Schuylkill said:
This piece of extruded aluminum gunwale I cut off to straighten is proving to be ONE-TOUGH-CUSTOMER with the tools that I have! Note the pencil line. That is the approximate arc that I have to match. Time for Plan B … which is not yet formulated.
Go easy on any heating ideas. Only to normalize. Work hardening on “heavy” sections will cause splits.
The only heat I’ll be using will be when I braze the gunwale back together.
It’s looking a little bit better. Here it is the night I cut it off.
I have a couple ideas now to coax this thing back into shape. We’ll see tomorrow morning how Plan B goes.
I clamped it to a piece of oak pallet and beat it into submission with a dead blow hammer (a type of hammer that doesn’t bounce back when you strike something).
Now to finish massaging out the wrinkles and I should be able to braze the gunwale back together, reinstall the rivets and foam block and get to un-hogging the hull, which should be a piece of cake compared to repairing the tree damage.
Almost there …
So the question will become, do you paint, buff it out, or seal it like a rat rod patina.
Buff it out to a reasonable shine. I don’t think paint will help 
… and I notice that quite a few of you name your boats. Being a sailor, I just think that’s kool. I’ll likely name it, if I can come up with something fitting.
##Salvage##
Has that dead blow hammer spent it’s entire life as a child’s toy? That doesn’t look like it’s had any use! I go through one every few years because it gets so beat up the shot inside starts coming out…
I bought it about 8 years ago for one job (I don’t even remember what for) and it hasn’t been used since, until this weekend.
@Schuylkill said:
Buff it out to a reasonable shine. I don’t think paint will help
It looks like a bad Jackson Pollock painting.
@Rookie said:
@Schuylkill said:
Buff it out to a reasonable shine. I don’t think paint will helpIt looks like a bad Jackson Pollock painting.
Respectfully questioning; is there a good Jackson Pollcok painting?
If you polish annodized aluminum it is a never ending story unless you polish and seal with a clear coat.
That’s OK, it’ll never be a show piece anyway.
##Phoenix##
?
But I still like my first suggestion of “Salvage” better. It’s a little tongue-in-cheek being “slightly dented” but brought back into good repair, combined with a play on words being similar to “savage” (hinting at the first nations roots of canoes). It would make many people do a double take when they read it.
Salvage is definitely a good name for it. How about “Scraping Bottom”?
“Aluminum Fo Y’all”
“Oops”
“A Little Dinghy”
(Though “ding” might not have the same connotation everywhere. Here it’s synonymous with “dent”.)
