Sheaths for marlinspikes

[Mulesaw]

Last time on board, I helped our volunteers make marlinspikes. the basic form was the same, but each made the head of the marlinspike according to his/her own idea. some were made with wood and one made a pressed leather head, and one chose for a fancy brass/copper head.

I had brought with me a small set of leather working tools, just so that I could make the breast collar for my son's horse while I stayed at the quarantine hotel, and for some reason We ended up talking a bit about working leather. The volunteers are sort of 19-22 years old and neither of them had done any leatherwork earlier on. I explained how they could make a sheath - and one guy tried it. It was an instant success, so the rest of them also wanted to make sheaths. The first volunteer then asked me if it was possible to make a sheath for his knife as well? And I explained that it was certainly possible. So I helped him turn a Sam Browne button on the metal lathe, and he used that for the closing mechanism. A sheath for a pocket knife was made too. One other guy also made a sheath for his knife, and he did a really nice job, also since he had seen me polish the edges, so he ended up doing the same as well. 

All in all I managed to introduce leatherworking for a bunch of youngsters and they were happy with their own results and rightfully proud of what they made.

Laurids' and Simon's marlinspikes

Simon's sheath for his pocket knife.

Aske's marlinspike and knife sheaths

Fancy head of marlinspike

Secured for working in the rigging

 

[fredk]

Most excellent, all round, everything

[Bant]

You have every reason to be proud, especially in a period where so many, not just the young, have joined themselves to devices that tend to offer immediate gratification.  Bravo Zulu from a former U.S. Coast Guardsman.

[Dwight]

You did some good work there my friend . . . photos here are how we carried them 50 yrs ago in the Navy.

Carried that knife too . . . was one heck of a tool . . . did everything from stripping insulation off a rubber electric cable . . . to slicing up that rubber steak the cooks tried to pawn off on us.  

I was a Navy electrician's mate . . . my poor ol' Case knife definitely got used.

May God bless,

Dwight

Edited May 14, 2021 by Dwight

[Mulesaw]

Thanks for the nice comments. 

@Dwight

I can see that you Case knife has been used a lot :-) . There is a certain character in a tool that has done some real work, so I hope that when I see those boys again that there will be few telltales that they have actually used the tools. 

I didn't bring my travel leather tool kit with me this time which was obviously a mistake, especially since two of our new volunteers have already started making marlinspikes. They asked me the firsta day that I got back if it was possible to make those, (one of the regular crew had told them that I didn't mind helping in such a project).

Brgds

Jonas