My kayak fishing partner Frank is a retired shipyard welder who has made all kinds of stuff for us. Here’s a short list of what he made for my fishing needs:
- pvc kayak washing rack
- aluminum fish finder transducer arm
- aluminum adapter plate to attach a Tite-Lok rod holder to a Scotty rod holder base on my new kayak
- kage that I’ve been holding off using until I fish the larger kayak
- clips made out of zip ties to secure the rods to the kayak
I call him Frank the Fabricator! Frank saw a bottle cap scaler Kelly had fashioned, and added his twist to the design. I asked him to share the info since others may want to make an inexpensive scaler that works really well on fish with small scales.
Frank:
I started with an old scaler that was replaced by a better brass scaler which has more teeth. The old scaler has holes just at the right places to bolt down 4 caps on the opposite side of the teeth. I drilled a hole for the 5th cap. The aluminum flat bars were added to keep the caps on a flat surface. Stainless hardware was used.
I was blessed to catch 3 omilu so late in the season. The edges of the bottle caps scraped the little scales thoroughly. I then used the shears Thad ordered from Japan, to cut out the fins and used a knife to remove the scutes and tails. Cleaning and prepping fish is a far more simple task after a good fun fishing day in Hawaii Nei.
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