Marlinspike with a leather sheath

 I have helped a lot of my colleagues turning marlinspikes out here, and I have made some myself as well, but those have either been for the ship's bosun shop, or as gifts to other colleagues. I have however never made one for myself. 

Probably since I don't need a marlinspike, but this time I decided to make one for myself anyway.

I found an old steel bolt for the cylinder heads of the main engine, and I deemed that it would be perfect for the purpose.
The shape is the one I usually help the trainees to achieve, a long sleek body with a mushroom shaped head. The conical body gradually turns from round to oval the nearer to the tip of the tool it gets. the tip itself is ground or filed flat and gets and edge of approximately 60 degrees.

The dimensions for my marlinspike is a length just shy of  12", the head is 1.25" in diameter, the upper part of the body is 19/32" which tapers to a width of 1/4" at the very tip. Just above the ground part, the width is 3/8" and the thickness is 9/32" (due to the oval shape).

A hole was drilled in the upper part and I made a small D-ring of bronze that I silver soldered in place, this is so that the marlinspike can be secured with a lanyard when working aloft. I made an extra D-ring that I could mount on the sheath, so that the securing line has a place to be secured to.

For the sheath I decided to test myself a bit, and make it as small as possible.
A wedge shaped piece of leather was sewn to the backpiece. this would form a rabbet that the rounded part of the sheath could register to. 
During the sewing of the wedge, I mounted the D-ring on the sheath. The wedge also moves the marlinspike a bit forward of the back piece, so that it will in theory stay a bit more clear of the hip when worn in the belt.

The rounded part was first made wedge shaped, so that the sheath would also taper in its length, both in width and height. I sewed it on using angled stitches that would enter the side of the rounded piece and pierce through to the back of the leather. 

Finally the edges were trimmed and polished a bit.

A bit of pounded brass

 A couple of days ago we had a regular storm out here. We had gusts of hurricane strength and waves that corresponded to the rest of the weather.

We ended up blowing out 3 of our stay sails, and we still did 12 knots on just two square sails. So apart from it being a bit difficult to sleep, it was great fun, and awe inspiring as always to see the full force of the sea.

When one of the stay sails had to be taken down, it hit the brass top of one of the old magnetic compasses. The sergeant quickly saved it and brought it inside. But the small top lid was missing.

We all take great pride in that the ship is looking its best when we go into port, and polished brass looks best if all the part are present. So I found our last piece of brass sheet metal, and set to work.

The first step was to determine more or less the size I wanted to lid to be, and then it was just a matter of cutting a disc out of the sheet and finding a hammer.

In a perfect world I would have had a nice little rounded anvil and a polished face hammer for working sheet metal, but a small ball peen hammer and a bit of pipe had to do the trick. 
The perimeter of the disc was going to be furled back, so I'd gently knock on it with the hammer and the after two rounds, I would heat it all up to anneal it so the brass once again became reasonably pliable. 

Before giving the outer edge the final hammering, I domed the disc a bit, and when it looked fair, I folded over the edge the rest of the way.

I tested the lid on the compass top, but I had made it a bit too small. I decided that I could fix it by machining the inner edge on the lathe. Which was not my original plan, but never the less it worked.

The lower rim was made up of a couple of strips of the brass sheet. I would have preferred a long continuous piece, but I didn't have enough brass to do that, so I had to improvise a bit.

Finally the lower rim was soft soldered to the domed disc. The completed lid was then cleaned up in the lathe and mounted on the compass top. 
Truth be told, my lid is just a smidge too tight for my liking, but it will stay put even in rough weather and it looks OK.

The completed top with its new lid