Grey Pine Workshop

08/31/2025

Only one week until the Wooden Boat Festival in beautiful Port Townsend, WA! We will have a booth for the shop, located next to the Port Townsend Woodworking School tent. Stop by and say hello, and take a look at some of our new items. Some of them are pictured here.

07/28/2025

For those in the San Francisco Bay Area, come visit Sausalito on Saturday for the Galilee Harbor Maritime Day. Lots of fun, food, and music. We will have a table set up for Grey Pine Workshop offering out hard-to-find tools. Stop by and say hello!

07/24/2025

What are you doing the weekend of September 5-7? Why not join us at the Port Townsend Wooden Boat Festival? We have been invited as a vendor and will have our full range of hard to find sailmaker's and rigger's tools on display and for sale, along with some antique maritime items and books.

If you live in the great Pacific Northwest or are visiting from afar, stop by and say hello.

September 5–7, 2025 | Port Townsend, WA Northwest Maritime hosts the second-largest Wooden Boat Festival in the world every September.

07/23/2025

A new batch of small fancywork fids in a variety of hardwoods are up for sale on our Etsy shop. These small 4 and 5-inch fids with fine tips have become one of the most popular items in the shop. They work very well for fine knot work and for forming small grommets on sails and ditty bags. They also work well for splicing small 3- or 4-strand rope. We also have some new seam rubbers and of course our ditty bag book and ditty bag kits. Check them out at: https://greypineworkshop.etsy.com

05/27/2025

A new batch of seam rubbers. The seam rubber is used by the sailmaker to rub creases into canvas and flatten seams after sewing.

Some of these have a tapered square handle and a faceted cube finial, they are based on an original whalebone seam rubber in the collection of the London Museum (https://www.londonmuseum.org.uk/collections/v/object-71690/sailmakers-seam-rubber/) dated 1775-1825.

These and many more hard to find sailmaker's and rigger's tools can be found at https://greypineworkshop.etsy.com.

05/14/2025

An exciting new item in our shop. We had requests for the instructions for our ditty bag kit as a separate item. Rather than simply selling those instructions we have expanded them into a new book.

"A Treatise on the Construction of Traditional Sailor’s Ditty Bags & Seabags" is a comprehensive manual for those who want to sew their own ditty bag or seabag. It contains a primer on hand-sewing canvas, a discussion of the tools of the sailmaker, and patterns and sewing instructions for three styles of ditty bag and a seabag. It also includes instructions on how to tie a knot work lanyard and ideas and examples for how to customize and decorate your ditty bag.

We are offering at the introductory price of $40.00 (a 20% discount). It is available at: https://greypineworkshop.etsy.com

04/21/2025

Some new items on the Etsy shop.

Cakes of beeswax mixed with pine tar for waxing thread. The tar helps prevent rot and sun damage, and it smells good too.

We also have some new seam rubbers, turned from hickory and wedge.

https://greypineworkshop.etsy.com

04/05/2025

Latest batch of traditional 18th century style sailmaker’s bench hooks. Some with traditional straight point, some with a “stinger” style point. Available with loop inline or at a right angle to the hook. More information at https://greypineworkshop.etsy.com.

04/03/2025

A very nice Scottish sgian dubh available for sale, antler handle and brass bolster.

This Knives item is sold by GreyPineWorkshop. Ships from Loomis, CA. Listed on Apr 1, 2025

04/03/2025

Some new tools on my Etsy site, working on more all the time. The small fancywork fids have been quite popular, they work very well for knot work and sewing small projects like ditty bags.

Available at https://greypineworkshop.etsy.com