Fids and Marlin Spikes

[Wayland]

While packing kit away after the Wilderness Gathering, including a "new" vintage Marlin Spike, second from the right, it occurred to me that I have a few of these tools now and I think they are greatly underrated by landsmen.

I have lost count of the number of times one of these tools, drawn from my Ditty Bag, has saved someone from having to cut a jammed knot out of a rope or acted as a lever to open the lay of a rope to make a splice.

They have been used as handles or toggles for hauling lines or seizing and binding. They get used as belaying pins occasionally and very often for widening holes in leather or cloth. I've even used one to punch holes through thin metal sheet.

These are the various types that tend to reside in my Ditty Bag but I have many others distributed about various pockets of my kit bags. Very versatile tools that I would recommend to anyone regularly working with cordage.

 

[crosslandkelly]

Your Swedish Fid was certainly a help to me, while trying to learn to make an end splice and an eye splice at the gathering.

 

[Wayland]

Oddly enough, the Swedish Fid is not in that picture because it lives in the Ditty Box but I tend to use one of the Selma Fids, on the left, for the same job.

 

[Toddy]

Mine gets used most in making baskets these days.
I made a lot of rope fenders at one time (up with the wall, down with the crown !) and I reckoned then that this tool was worth having, keeping and using

 

[Wayland]

There is a limit with most Crafts on the amount of things you can make isn't there?

One of the reasons I got into living history was looking at the hand made world these people were creating for themselves. It seemed like an infinite supply of projects back then but even that is starting to run out now.