In 1962 the Australian Government issued me a lot of cold weather
clothing, a free trip to the Antarctic and a Sharp ANARE knife.  ANARE
stands Australian National Antarctic Research Expedition.  The knife
was a large folding pocket knife, consisting of one blade (not very
sharp in fact), a screwdriver bit at one end, and a marlin spike.  Why
anyone would want to spike marlins I never found out.   I think it was
supposed to be useful for undoing frozen knots in ropes, of which I
produced quite a few, but that's another story.

The spike was just that, a rod of circular cross-section whose diameter
steadily decreased to a sharp point at the tip.  We were supposed never
to leave the base without our ANARE knife.  I don't remember using the
spike on field trips except for opening cans of beer; no ring pulls in
1962.

Anyway I brought my Sharp ANARE home with me and it has resided in a
cupboard ever since.  Until tonight.  While I was cleaning up the 101
nipples on my Steck tracker bar (you see there is some point to this
rigmarole), I noticed that one of the nipples had suffered a trauma at
some time.  It was somewhat squashed out of round.  I contemplated
pushing a series of drill bits into the tube, gradually increasing the
drill size, but I was wary of putting too much strain on the solder
joint at the bottom, even though Spencer Chase has assured me that old
tracker bars are pretty tough.  I was wondering what I could find to
poke into the nipple that increased smoothly in diameter when
inspiration struck -- a marlin spike!  So I ratted around in our
camping gear and found it.  I pushed that spike cautiously into the
nipple, trying to keep the applied force straight down the tube, and
within a few seconds had a much rounder nipple that was still attached
to the tracker bar.  It's not quite perfect, but I'll settle for that.

John Phillips
Hobart, Tasmania