Mid-Summer update

Well, things have been happening.

I've kinda had my hands too full to pound on a keyboard for a while, but after shipping the belt that appears in the post below, I've found a little slack.

New projects? Boy howdy! and how!

Let's see, I did manage to get the Maritime Legacies brand started with the Alma tee shirt, which is available online at my site, but also on Fisherman's Wharf at the Maritime Museum book store on the Hyde St. pier.
Other ideas involve more graphics derived from the engineering drawings of Alma and the other vessels plastered on things like post cards and coffee mugs.

Aside from the souvenir merc, I have been working in the shop as well.

I've had some luck soaking knife sheaths in molten bees wax, and hope to offer that as an option on my website soon.

I've also gotten a hold of some of those British 'hacking knives' which are a bit smaller than the Osborne 337 and Jack's Hatchet, I just haven't had the chance to upgrade the handle on one or put them up on the site.

I'm also playing around with casting marlin spikes, eventually out of a tough bronze alloy. This a longer term project that will go through many variations and lots of feedback from any and all of the old salts I know.

Let's see anything else? Oh yeah, I plan on offering complete knife rigs made with uniquely modified knives. Apparently, there is a desire for a less modern appearing rig that will fit in with the 'funnies' tall ship sailors are sometimes called upon to wear, so I have some skinners waiting to have their points ground down into a sheep's-foot and be paired off with a spike in a fully hand built sheath with seine twine lanyards. Slap it on your belt, and you're ready to go aloft.

I think that's it for now, I'll post pics when I can get to it.

Holy utility belt!

I recently had a chance to play around with some belt pouches for a costume piece I was asked to construct. The request was for a 2" belt with up to 5 pouches on it of various sizes. They did not need to be practical (useable), but I decided that since the thing was likely to last a number of years, I should simply do it right the first time. Here is a picture of the finished project on my work bench:

The fancy conchos are hiding miniature magnetic catches which I figured would reduce any fussing with the flaps if they were actually used on camera. The small size of the catches makes it difficult for the flap to close and catch the magnet perfectly, making me wish I could have used larger catches, which of course wouldn't be hidden by the conchos. Why is it always something?
In this next picture you can see the backs of the pouches:

You can see I didn't attempt to make the pouches out of one piece, which was my first inclination, but instead settled on a separate loop for the belt. After experimenting on scraps with various dyes, polishes and oils, I finally settled on coloring the plain veg-tan leather with Kiwi brown shoe polish, which brought out the imperfections adding to the aged look of the piece. Also note the lack of dye on the inside, don't want anything coming off on the rest of the costume. I learned that one the hard way back in school.
The pouches were laser cut, which gave them a uniform starting point and the cooked edge that I'm really starting to like. After experimenting with the first one by shaping it for the stitching on the outside, I decided to stitch them inside-out and flip them to hide the stitching inside:

Even though they were shaped on wooden block forms I cut to the proper dimensions with rabbits for the stitching, the pouches weren't entirely uniform. Perhaps I would need more practice wrestling the seams into submission combined with experimentation with variations on the forms to produce a consistent result. For a one-off costume piece that shows some character indicating that it was hand built, however, I couldn't be happier.
Naturally I couldn't resist filling the pouches with goodies to delight the actor, including candy. I hope the crew doesn't eat too much of it before he puts it on. When the video this was constructed for is released, I'll imbed it here, but for now, I'll have to leave you guessing.

Moiling towards perfection

Well, I finally got around to posting the pics of the rigging knife that inspired this whole thing. You see, it started when the guy at Coast Marine on Jefferson St. showed me the chipping knife from CS Osborne and said he sold a few of them to the guys at fisherman's wharf because they were indestructable. The CS Osborne chipping knife is described as a "Plumber's Chipping Knife" and his best guess was that it was used to hack pieces off of a lead brick. To put it mildly, the thing is muy macho and I could easily put a proper grip on it.



In a quest to buy them wholesale, I contacted CS Osborne, got their catalog and saw the sail-plams, marline spikes etc., and Jack came to life.

With a box of a dozen of these things, a slab of Mircata, some brass tubing and a few knife rivets, this is the result:



It ain't perfect, in part because this is a utilitarian tool, not an heirloom piece, and in part because I needed to see how fast I could crank one out. It took 5 hours.

The full description is on the store sight.

I guess that's all for now, oh, I have been talking with people about carrying professional lineman's buckets, stay tuned!!

--Jack

I just stumbled across these, enjoy!

Getting things underway

Well hey there, and welcome to the Foremast Jack Creations Blog.

This is where I'll attempt to keep anyone who is interested up to date on my endeavors and plans to bring new and different things to my online store ForemastJack.biz.

I may at the same time ramble on about the issues and challenges to running an online business.

To start with, one of the purposes on this sight is to increase search hits for the .biz sight. therefore I need to mention stuff like: sailors knives, rigging knives, marlin spikes, sailpalms, custom leather work, iphone holsters and various things like that.

I guess I should work out some type of signature text, and/or clickable banner that can sit at the end of each post to serve that purpose.

My first thoughts about the online store have to do with the costs that one incurs if one wants to do it properly.  ForemastJack.biz was created through GoDaddy, and for 2 years with the Quick Shopping Cart and Merchant Services that allow me to accept Credit Card orders, it came in over $200 to set it all up (I'll come across more accurate costs when I do my business taxes for California this week).  In addition, there are the recurring costs, the Credit Card services alone come to $30 a month, with an additional $75 fee per year (at least I assume it's per year, I'll let you know if it's per quarter, lol).

Generally ForemastJack.biz is a sight where I sell knives and rigging tools at prices well below retail, in hopes that it brings people in to find my leather work.  I have developed a rather consistent technique using a laser cutter to cut the leather, which I finnish with hand stitching and forming to the knives.  This allows me the chance to do custom laser etching, wait I think I have a picture here somewhere...

I'm still figuring out the whole imbedding image thing.  Anyhow, I think that's enough to start with, stop on by soon!!

--Jack