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