Tools of the trade

These are a few of the tools that get a lot of use on a tugboat when the weather turns nice. On the left is a needle gun, used to remove loose paint and rust in preparation for fresh paint. the middle tool is a grinder with a wire wheel attachment for cleaning up the surface after the heavy stuff is knocked off. The next one is a grinder with a plain old grinding wheel on it, for those pesky things like old welds, remnants of brackets that have been cut off over the years, fasteners protruding through from the other side of the bulkhead ( that's what we call walls on boats), and other such imperfection that need removing.

Not long after stepping aboard a tug, one becomes intimately familiar with these tools and their use - and the mind numbing rattle of that needle gun doing its thing.