Navigating your tool room

[Cats Paw]

No problem with finding or way around our work shops now. Harbor Freight is offering sextants for sale. This is by no way an endorsement only meant to be informational.

https://www.harborfreight.com/search?q=sextant

[brackish]

LOL, if it works as good as their $9.99 professional HVLP conversion paint guns, we'll be lost forever.

[kahpho]

On the other hand you might see areas you might not otherwise see.

[Andre]

If you don't blind yourself taking a sun sight

[bruce]

Yeah, HF is tempting at times. I have used their more mechanical tools, when I wasn't concerned with durability, with success. Tools/instruments with closer tolerances such as spray guns, or a sextant as now offered, I would avoid.

I took sightings routinely as a navigator in the Navy in the 70's. Weather conditions were always an issue, no need to add errors due to inaccurate time, or suspect readings from marginal equipment. If they offered binoculars, I would pass on those as well.

[Cpy23ecl]

Surprisingly I have a HF digital caliper that is within .001 to .002 over the entire range of my expensive mitutoya dial caliper.  Only downside is that I have to take the battery out if it sits for several months or it goes dead.

[5monkeys]

I find it kind of surprising that they carry this.. is there a large market for Sextants these days?  I bet most people that buy this.. put it on their mantel piece to look nautical.

That being said.. I tend to think of Harbor Freight as a source of gateway tools. If I find it useful.. but doesn't last.. then maybe I buy the more expensive version. If I buy it and never use it.. I saved money on a tool I won't really use. Sometimes I get a tool.. and it lasts long enough and is handy enough.. I just buy another cheap one..

In this case.. I don't know how to use a sextant and I don't know how often I would use it if I did.. but $20 might be good enough to get the basic learning down and find out if I wanted a better one, or It might be so bad that it frustrates the learning to where I'd never bother to try more.

I guess in the end.. I could put it by the fireplace in case the boat in the driveway doesn't look nautical enough...

[bruce]

I find it kind of surprising that they carry this.. is there a large market for Sextants these days?

Good question, I wouldn't think so. Plenty of decent used sextants around.

By coincidence, one of the YouTube channels I follow released this yesterday on shooting sun lines. It's vaguely familiar, but I'd have a lot to relearn!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4GlbdPhy5Kw

GPS is wonderful, and there were electronic systems before that of course. Celestial was primarily a back up for us, that we practiced to keep our skills up. But, there were times offshore when it was the best info available due to equipment failures or lack of coverage. NAVSAT, the precursor to GPS, was just being introduced and not widely available.

As long as the HF sextant worked, and with some consistency, you could learn on it. There is a good bit of technique, as well as the sight reductions to master, before the sextant could be shown to be the limiting factor. My best shots were at sunset or sunrise, when I could get up to 6 lines of position from planets and stars that could give us a fix within a 1 nm accuracy. Most of the time 5 nm was about it. Good enough on a transit. I'm sure the accuracy of the sextants we used could be checked and calibrated, and any residual error applied to the calculations. I don't recall exactly how it was done, we probably sent them out.

[Cats Paw]

H F Tarps are great for winter covers here in the north. I usually get three seasons of year round use from them before they start shedding and breaking down.

Don't forget your digital coupons when shopping H F and pick up on the free offer of the blue LED flashlight.

[Gerry]

Harbor Freight has a purpose.  Yesterday I bought a new wheelbarrow tire, rim and tube for less than a replacement inner tube AND no labor or installation.  Sexton...not so sure, but I want a free flashlight every day.