I showed up Saturday and saw that they were trying to auger through the whole diameter and the augers I was looking at weren't gonna cut it. Went to my shack and brought back my model 30 and cut away. After just having replaced the head gasket it would be a good test. Now I can cut overlapping holes all day or at least til my ageing body allows but hitting old holes that were purposely drilled a day or 2 before was occasionally giving me 2 "interrupted cuts", which is more difficult, harder on the body and the drill. I got stuck once then went to find a clean area to drill. People were pulling augers out that looked like the had been run over, the kid said the blade looked new when they showed up. They were 2 on it getting it stuck and ripping it out. I let no one "help" me drill or remove my auger from the hole, nor did I let anyone borrow my auger. 2 guys asked to use it and when I said "use your own" they said "it's broken". I swear one guy sunk his auger a little too much and got the spring froze on the throttle then just threw it in a sled then asks to borrow mine. I went back on Sunday with an old, smaller 9" bit that still cuts well.
Now I'm there as a volunteer of sorts and having some, but limited engineering skills I can tell you that when you put a solid object in back of a prop it doesn't propel well at all. The thought was that the propeller constantly turning would eventually erode a channel through the ice, not my thought but whatever, like I said my engineering skills are limited and I've never seen a boat with a prop that was not deeper than its' draft. I'm not even sure that the outboards they had could have moved it even if the shafts were long enough to get under the ice. But yea there is still 30" of ice. The cold weather didn't help, the saws would freeze up. Suppose to try it again in 3 weeks???
