Thanks again for joining us on our Sojourn through the Caribbean Islands! In this video Dan makes a conch shell horn from a large conch shell he was given by...

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about really ringing out

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last time when sailing Bella Chandra we

finished up at Cambridge ki swam with

sharks at compass key and then sailed on

for Staniel key

hey guys in this video I'm going to show

you how to make a traditional and very

beautiful conch horn like this one out

of a conch shell that you may have found

on the beach or wherever this is like a

traditional Bahamian thing but I believe

it goes back maybe millennia I don't

know but it's not that complicated but

there's quite a bit you can do to a

conch shell to make it beautiful so

here's a conch shell that I'm going to

prepare and make a horn and I'll show

you guys how to go about doing it this

one has a hole here where they'd remove

the conch itself and it also has a hole

here where the Bahamian people have put

a string through here to hold these

together as a group so they could easily

carry them it's a very beautiful shell

it has lots of pink inside so it's gonna

make a great horn once you've selected

the conch you're gonna make your horn

from the first thing you want to do is

bleach it so you want to fill a bucket

with water and bleach about 70/30 mix

and put your conscience it in the bleach

for about a day some people probably

leave it in for less some people for

more I found about a day seems to work

pretty good for me and when you're done

anything that's in there any like

organic material or coral or anything

that's stuck on the outside should all

fall away and be gone and you want to

rinse it off really good make sure all

the bleach is gone then you'll be ready

to start working on your kanji dry it

out really well I just leave it in the

Sun for a few hours alright so the first

thing you're going to do with your conch

is to cut off the end here to make the

spout where you're going to blow into

the con you want to cut it with the

spiral just take the tip off there the

goal is to have a hole that's about the

size of a dime cut the tip off and the

hole is not quite a dime you might want

to make the hole a little bit bigger by

cutting down a little farther you can

use a hacksaw to do this but from what I

was told and what I've seen the very

best tool to use for this is actually

your angle grinder if you've got one and

a naval grinder with a ceramics blade I

mean any blade it will work I have a

ceramic blade I know it's going to work

better than a metal cutting blade on

shell

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after you've removed the tip here to

create the blow hole you want to then

take the angle grinder and grind along

the edge here and clean up all the sharp

edges here that might hurt your fingers

you just want to have a nice feeling

shell when you're done that's not sharp

I'm gonna hurt somebody so just trim

that off

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okay now you want to bang out this

little piece here on the inside so that

when you blow the air goes where it

needs to go make sure you are wearing

some kind of protective eyewear in case

little pieces go flying and the best way

to do this is with the screwdriver and a

hammer some people use a nail I'm gonna

go with the screwdriver

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so you can see that I've removed the

spiral that's on the inside and now I'm

just gonna clean up this edge a little

bit so there we have it that's about

ready to go but that's gonna be really

hard on your lips so there's something

else we're gonna do there so now you're

blowholes finished you're gonna want to

take something to sand the inside and

clean it up I use a dremel tool with a

sanding bit on the end you can use this

to just get around the inside rim of the

blow hole on the outside rim just make

it nice and where your lips touch it's

smooth and you might even want to use

this to clean up other parts of the show

as well

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so if you're like me you're gonna want

your conch to be a beautiful object that

you can keep onboard decorative smooth

nice to touch and cold and when you blow

it's comfortable and to do that I use

hand files and I'm going to use some

sandpaper that will make it really

smooth and get rid of all the rough

edges and kind of give those finishing

touches after that I'll show you how to

fill those tools in the shell on the

outside

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alright so in the last step is to fill

these holes here with epoxy again these

are the holes that the Bahamian

fishermen had banged through the conch

shell this one was made to release the

conch from inside of its shell so that

it could be you know cooked and eaten or

whatnot

and this hole here was made in order to

string several shells together on a rope

what I'm going to do is fill these in

with epoxy I've seen people use bondo

and filler and lots of things but I

think epoxy is probably the best

permanent way to do it and I have some

on board so that's what I'm gonna do

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all right that's all there is to it and

when you're done you might want to clean

up the epoxy just by sanding it down a

little bit and if you've got any art

skills at all you can mask it with a

little bit of paint like I did and you

should have a beautiful car horn ready

to blow at sunset hopefully you'll have

a sunset like this one

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awesome every little bit helps thanks

guys see you later

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