I'm not a sailor...but I made a marlin spike

[wecsoger]

Especially after looking at the prices online...


A piece of rod out of the junk pile. Mild steel I guess.


Cut a piece to length to experiment. Mapp gas torch works better than propane, runs much hotter. My 'anvil' is a piece of cut-off I-beam from somewhere.


Final result after flattening out the end, a belt sander then a file for the 'spike' end.

Not pretty, but functional, and that's all I want.

[Grizz]

that's a good tool to have, I like the strap hole.

[wecsoger]

Thank you, and you're right, it's a useful tool I wanted to play around with.

On larger ones, there's a slot there to be used on shackles, something there's not a lot of in my life. So I'll call it for a lanyard now.

[piller]

I don't often need to untie knots, but that might come in handy when camping or fishing. No picture of it, but I took and threaded a lag bolt into a leftover piece of wood, shaped it on a belt sander, used a grinder to make the end come to a spike, and it has worked for me the couple of times I needed it. Again, I don't often need to untie knots.

[Buck Elliott]

I have an old wooden one (hard, close-grained maple, I believe), 16" long X 1 3/4" diameter at the large end, and gracefully rounded off.. The pointy end is pretty sharp, making it perfect for untying or untangling rope, cord, twine, &c..

[wecsoger]

Technically, if it's wood or ivory, it's a "fid". (grin)

Once you start researching, there's tons of lore associated with all things nautical. A marlin spike is not named after a marlin, the fish but it's actually the other way around. And it's marlin not marlen, due probably to bad accents or bad diction.

[Grizz]

technically a fid is used for splicing line and a marlinspike is used for splicing wire, which needs a bigger hammer and a vice.

[wecsoger]

Tons of lore......

[walks with gun]

Please stop spiking Marlins.

[Grizz]

Please stop spiking Marlins.

well, except for is-is marlins . . .

[Rusty]

I wonder if a wood like dogwood or black locust would make a good fid?

[BAGTIC]

I recall reading that black locust was a preferred wood for belaying pins. In those days they did not believe in one wood for every purpose whether on ships, wagon or anything else.

If anyone is interested in reading a good book about sailing in the days of the whaling ships I recommend Cruise of the Cachalot, by Frank Thomas Bullen. (1899). It is quite readable and at one time, when people still read books, it was on many of the lists of outstanding reading. A good way to purge oneself of that dreary Moby Dick we all had to read in school. It is available as a free download on several sites.

[wecsoger]

Thanks for the mention of the whaling book. I just downloaded from the Gutenberg site and read first couple of pages.

Boy, they were some tough old birds!

[BAGTIC]

In those days everyone was tough. They had to be to survive.

[piller]

Is black locust any relation to honey locust? We used to have a lot of honey locust where I am from, and one version of that tree had some big thorns. It was a fairly flexible wood.