Have you ever made a compass?

Have you ever made a compass?

Making a simple compass is not hard. Making an accurate one is way beyond me. All you need to make a simple one is a magnet, a needle and something very light that floats. I made one for the kids next door to mystify them. I am sure they think that I am just an “older guy” that likes to work on boats…my boat, their boat, anybody’s boat. I guess that would be a fair assessment.

I started with the bottom of a foam cup I pulled out of the water, it was just floating by. I then got an old rusty fish hook from my fishing box and straighten it with two pliers so it was more or less straight. Next I brushed the rust off with a wire brush. With a screw driver that had a magnet end, I stroked the magnet part of the screw driver along the hook. You have to stroke what you want to magnify in only one direction.

As I worked the kids got interested in what I was doing with the junk. I did not tell them…I said old buccaneers don’t tell there secrets.  *-) That just made them watch me more. 8-) 8-)

After the hook was magnetized I stuck it to the cup bottom with the sap from a rubber tree plant. That sap is sticky and white and glue like. If you snap a rubber tree twig the sap drips out. That was it. I floated the cup bottom with the hook side up in a bucket of water. It slowly turned so that the hook lined up north and south. I turned the hook so it was east and west and again it slowly turned to the north south line. I marked the end that was pointed north with a N.

The Captain Hook Compass made for the kids

One of the kids said “it is a compass”! They could not believe you could make one, and out of junk no less. I told them that it was a trick that Captain Hook had showed me how to do back when a I was a cabin boy on his pirate ship. I told them that Captain Hook used his hook as a compass by putting it on a large wooden plate that had a compass rose on it. I do not think they believed that part of the story…

I also told them that the Vikings made sun compasses, but it would take a full year to make a set of them. Of course they did not believe me, so I went on board my boat and brought out my box of sun compasses. When I found the one marked January I showed them how it worked. One asks why there were so many in the box. I told them that you needed one for each month so they would stay accurate. I picked the July one and showed it did not point north.

I let them have the Captain Hook Compass. I told them you would need a much better compass to navigate a boat with, this Captain Hook Compass could give you rough directions in an emergency. I enjoy showing kids’ stuff like that. I like to show them you do not have to buy everything, that you can make things. I may yet convince them I was a buccaneer, but that was a long time and long distance ago. 8-)