one of the worst things you can drop in a swimming pool!!!!

[tenax]

i actually did think of duct tape david..first thing after trying the net and brush..but didn't think it would stick underwater..could have tried it i guess, anyhew

[sailork]

Forgive me Tenax but I can't imagine a pool being "cool" in August. I'm still trying to wrap my mind around that. Please forgive my ignorance but how does one shoo polar bears off the ice in the winter?

Dave, I doubt a sailor would have used duct tape to tape the magnet onto the pole. Clearly the thing to do is spend all afternoon drinking rum and whipping the ends of some light gauge line. Then he would have needed to consider the best knot to tie the magnet to the end of the pole. Perhaps a bowline? Maybe a half hitch? After the preperations had been made he would have jumped into the pool and fished out the razor blade just as tenax did. However, he would have had the advantage of a pint or more of antifreeze in his blood. Unluckily, next morning he would have the new problem of how to get the pole, line and magnet off the bottom of the pool. I'm thinking a trip to the local chandlery for a boat hook would be necessary. Hopefully there's a liquor store nearby.

[tenax]

hey sailor..that doesn't sound very good, does it? anyhew...that's one thing i should have done..had a stiff drink first before i jumped in..knew i was missing a critical element as i contemplated how best to remove the foreign object of concern....

in regards to the temp...you're right..it does sound weird..august in alberta is desert like..by august, it still can get hot during the day (28C) but overnight can get as low as 5 or 10C. july is really the only month where it stays hot overnight..in july, without the pool heater running with the same temp as we had today, my pool would stay between 26 and 27C without running my heater, a comfortable temp. not so now! if you're wondering how it would get so cool in august, i'm saying that's the outside low overnight temp. at the start of august, in calgary, it went down to 3C on a cloudy overnight..and that's just freaking sad. checked my dig thermometer outside..it's 18C right now..pretty warm night but nothing like back in july where it was 27, 28 all night!

[Poconos]

Tenax, I gather you dropped the whole utility knife in the pool and not just the blade. In either case I'd take the vacuum head off the pole, tape the hose to the pole, then approach the knife from the handle end and the suction should suck it right up the hose into the skimmer. It should fit inside a typical 1.25" diameter hose. Assumes your vacuum hooks to a skimmer. Also, a good source of strong magnets are old hard drives.
Al

[sailork]

Thanks for the info Tenax, it hand't occured to me how dry it would be up north. Down here it's almost always better than 80% relative humidity in the morning all year round.

I keep forgetting about the motor magnets in hard drives. I've got a few that are ready for scrap. Maybe I'll string a few magnets together and sell them on eBay as some kind of techno-voodoo bracelet.

[tenax]

actually, poco, i dropped just the blade..don't know how well it would have vacuumed up. i'll keep your tip in mind if i ever am stupid enough to have a knife near pool again!

sailor- yeah, we have pretty low humidity in alberta..furniture can crack..you always have to keep antiques well oiled and such or splitsville can happen. it's 10am mst right now, 15C outside (average for this time of day year) and the RH is currently 55%

[CanuckPool]

The worst thing to drop into a pool would be clear broken glass.