Featuring the Work of Toolmaker Svartsmen

Every so often, you come across some work that just blows you away! How can the humble Marlin Spike be made any better? Well, I just wanted to show you some work by Svartsmen, who has a forge in the south of Sweden. I do love knotting, but I also have a great passion for beautiful tools to help me with that task. If I am not knotting something, I can be seen polishing my spikes or waxing my fids.

Stainless Steel Marlin Spike

This was the image that made me reach out to Svartsmen and ask him if I could show some of his forge work on this site. I would love to be able to tell you more about the process of making this spike, but I am in fear of using the wrong terminology to describe what is going on………….. but I will do my best.

Here we are staring off with a plain piece of grubby stainless steel.

Now a little bit of heat is added and then end is pounded into a pleasing mushroom type dome.

Some more heating, pounding and shaping and you can now see that Marlin Spike starting to appear. Perhaps a little too large for my needs, but still it is starting to look really good to me.

Now we are beginning to see how the intricate handle of the spike is made.

It is now at this point where you can see how the handle is cut and then twisted to generate that effect you saw in the very first photo.

Finally a little logo crowning the top of the Marlin Spike.

I am sure that this spike was made for heavy duty work, but if I owned it, it would never get anywhere near a steel cable! Also, I would never let anyone touch it.

Marlin Spike and Bottle Opener

So next time you are sat in the sun and creating some decorative knotwork, it would be nice to be able to open an ice cold bottle of beer. Well that can be done with this smaller Marlin Spike.