Blood & Plunder: How I Sew Sails

I started painting and modeling for Blood & Plunder in mid-2022. I recently finished rigging a Brigantine as well as a few boats, and took pictures to share my process for sewing sails. This method requires a simple sewing machine and minimal sewing experience.

The Brigantine was able to land, but all men who went ashore died or routed. Firelock Games miniatures and Brigantine ship model. Everything created and/or painted by Alan Ferrency.

Tools and Materials

I use thin cotton fabric for my sails. I look for a thin, natural colored cotton muslin at the fabric store. When sewing the sails, I use ordinary white or natural colored sewing thread. When rigging I use a thicker upholstery thread and tan colored elastic cord.

Tools:

  • A sewing machine. It only needs to perform a straight stitch, but you’ll have a much easier time if the machine can sew slowly and/or has a hand wheel to advance the needle manually as needed.
  • Scissors. Don’t underestimate the importance of sharp scissors for use when sewing. Cutting fabric should feel like cutting paper, not like chewing jerky. Most folks who sew regularly dedicate a pair of scissors for use only to cut fabric, to reduce the need for sharpening.
  • An iron. Although it is possible to do without an iron and to use sewing pins instead, you will have a much better time using a clothes iron to prepare your hems. In some locations, both irons and sewing machines are commonly available inexpensively at thrift stores and/or estate sales.
  • Water spray bottle. In a pinch you can use a bowl and your hands; you just need to be able to get the fabric damp in a predictable way.
  • Pencil and paper.

Making Sails

In order to make sails, you first need a paper pattern for each sail shape you will be making. You can download sail templates from the Firelock Games DLC site, but beware that these templates often do not perfectly match the assembled rigging. I recommend using paper to fiddle with the exact shape of the sail required, based on your (partially) assembled rigging. Once you have the sail shape correct, you can trace the paper’s shape onto cloth to make a cloth sail.

Trace each pattern onto the cotton cloth, leaving at least 3/8″ (1cm) extra cloth on each side.

I iron the fabric before tracing patterns, to make sure it’s flat and wrinkle-free. When tracing the paper patterns onto the cloth, the direction of the pattern in relation to the cloth is important. Cloth has long straight fibers going the length of the cloth (the warp) and looser, slightly more stretchy fibers going across the warp (the weft); but it’s stretchiest along the diagonal. In order to make your sails look “billowed” correctly, especially if you’ll be using sizing (glue) to curve them, you will want to make sure that the seam lines shown on the sail pattern are parallel to the warp (length) of the fabric. When designing your own sails, typically the seam lines go vertically on square sails, or parallel to the longest side on non-square sails.

Trace around each pattern using a pencil, leaving at least 3/8″ extra cloth on each side, or more between two pieces. This is a folding line, not a cutting line! You need extra cloth outside the line to hem each edge, so cut at least 3/8″ from the line.

When you cut the sails, don’t cut on the line! Leave at least 3/8″ (10mm) of extra cloth on each side.

The next step is to prepare the edges of the sails for sewing. For this, we first fold over the corners and iron them, and then fold over each side and iron it. The objective is to get the pencil line on the outside of the fold once you’re finished ironing. It may not be perfect the first time, but the closer you are, the closer you’ll be to the right size.

Spray the sail to make it damp. Fold a corner over, leaving the pencil line on the outside, so the fold stops just at the corner where pencil lines meet. Use the iron to press the corner until it is dry and stays in place.
Next, do the same on each side: spray, fold, iron to press into place. When you’re finished, iron the entire sail flat. Everything should stay in place without unfolding or causing trouble.

When working with sails with sharp corners such as Lateen or Gaff sails, you may end up with the side fabric overlapping where the next side needs to fold on the corner. I recommend trimming away any overlapping cloth, as long as you don’t cut into the bottom layer or the corner itself. You may also need to trim the second fold before cutting to avoid sewing down too many layers. I usually start on the pointy corner so I pay attention to it.

Trim sharp corners as needed to allow the next corner to fold correctly.

Next is the fun part: sewing!

Here, the overall objective is to sew a line around the edge of each sail to secure the edge, and then to sew decorative “seam” lines along the length of the sail. These lines represent the seams between pieces of sailcloth on an actual sail. Sails are wider than a single bold of cloth, so many pieces of cloth must be sewn together to form a sail. Those seams are typically less stretchy than the rest of the sail, which affects the way the sail looks when it is billowed. Luckily for us, a decorative straight stitch at the proper tension is also less stretchy than the cloth, which helps the sail billow more realistically.

Start sewing exactly at the corner of the sail, only 1/16″ (1-2mm) from the edge.

Start sewing on one corner, using a straight stitch, very close to the edge. I use a tight stitch, maybe 2-3 mm long. I usually lock the threads on the end by making 2 stitches, reversing for 2 stitches, and then stitching forward until the next corner. To sew a perfect tight corner: go slowly or manually until you reach the corner with the needle in the fabric exactly where you want the corner. Then stop sewing, lift the presser foot, turn the fabric to align it with the new sewing direction, and start sewing the new edge.

When you get to the end, lock the thread with 2 more stitches and trim the excess thread.

When complete, you should have a clean line of stitching close to each edge, with a lot of extra fabric on the inside.

After sewing the edges of each sail, we need to trim the excess fabric before sewing the decorative seam lines. For this, I carefully align the part I’m cutting off on my lower scissor blade as I carefully cut as close as possible to the stitching without cutting the stitching or the lower fabric layer. The corners require extra work because they have several layers of excess fabric that must all be trimmed.

Trimmed sails, ready to sew seam lines as needed.

After the edges are trimmed, the sails may need a bit of ironing to make them flat again. Sewing the decorative seam lines is straightforward. I lock the threads on each end here as well. I mark the location of each line, to make sure they’re spaced correctly, and I use the decorative trim on the front of my sewing machine to keep the fabric aligned. A sticky ruler or marker lines on your machine would work at least as well.

Everything Else

This article is about the sewing… sorry no pics of anything else.

I don’t typically dye or stain my sail cloth, but I do often end up with mineral stains due to ironing that help give it a weathered look… I tell myself, looking on the bright side.

For fore-aft sails, I typically leave the cloth loose, without any glue or starch to keep it in a specific shape. I tend to use tension-based rigging instead of gluing all my yards in place, so the cloth ends up as a bit of a structural component of the rigging when I’m finished.

For square sails, my current technique is to curve the sail on a rubber playground ball, using a mixture of extremely watered down white glue. I use a brush to saturate the sail with watered down glue, and to press it into a curved shape on the ball. Since cloth is stretchier in the diagonal, you’ll naturally end up with the corners ending up a it pointier and the edges curved inward. To keep the top edge of large square sails straight for mounting on the beam, I use a skewer to keep the top edge of the sail straight while the rest is curved onto the ball.

Completed Brigantine using the sails sewn in this article.

My Democratic Side Chair

In late 2020, Elia Bizzarri and Curtis Buchanan produced an online class teaching Curtis’s Democratic side chair. This chair was designed to be built using a relatively small selection of simple tools, and doesn’t use some of the more complicated tools chairmakers typically use. I didn’t always stick to this intent, but used tools I had on hand.

Democratic Side Chair

I ordered wood from Elia, and kept up with the online classes until all the green wood was processed, bent, and allowed to dry. Preparing the leg stock using a hand axe was a new experience for me, and I enjoyed it immensely. When I was finished, I had 2 thoughts: I wanted to remake all the parts now that I had a bit of practice; and I wanted to do more work with the axe. That led to setting aside the project for almost a year and a half while I carved spoons and bowls.

This spring, I finally carved the seat and finished the chair using the original sticks I carved. Curtis typically doesn’t use glue when assembling this chair, except for gluing the wedges into wedged joints. I intended to glue all the joints “just in case”, but in several places I forgot to apply the glue, so most of the back only has glue in the wedges. I didn’t take any pictures until I started assembly.

Unlike a typical Windsor chair, all of the sticks on this chair are shaved instead of turned. They are left octagonal rather than circular. The angular shape of the seat complements the facets on the legs, stretchers, and spindles.

The chair is painted with General Finishes acrylic (“milk”) paint and finished with wipe on poly varnish.

Build Gallery: Holly’s Urn

Marla’s mother died recently, and Marla and her siblings asked me to construct a burial urn in the shape of a book. Here’s how I did it.

They requested I use wood salvaged from Leatherwood, Marla’s great-great-great-grandfather’s house. The pine boards I used were originally stair treads, so they were thick, painted, and encrusted with 150 years of dust and grime. After finalizing the design, the first step was to find the good wood inside the ugly.

After removing the rusty cut nails and cutting the stair treads roughly to length, I used a scrub plane to remove the outer layer of grunge with a blade that’s easy to resharpen, followed by a planer to flatten the boards and remove the bulk of the unneeded thickness. This resulted in the boards I needed and a birdseed bag full of shavings that still smelled like pine.

A piece of the original stair tread with finished boards beneath

My design required the front and back cover boards to overhang the sides, the way the covers of a hardcover book extend past the pages. The cover boards were 1/2″ thick to provide enough thickness to carve. To make the edges a more appropriate thickness I planed a rabbet along the edges of the covers, and a groove to hold the sliding lid. The page edge boards fit between the cover boards, and the spine board caps the covers on the other side.

Cover and spine boards showing rabbets and grooves
Starting to look like a book

Since this is a book, it needed a title. The family settled on “The Book of Holly”, with carvings of holly leaves and berries in the corners. My supply of Leatherwood wood is limited, so I practiced on scraps. I tried paint to see how that looked, but the final decision was raw wood with an oil finish.

To avoid having to rebuild the entire box if I made a mistake, I did the carving before assembly. This was the most lettering I had ever done, so I was glad to have the practice. The curves aren’t easy with the grain pulling your blade in various directions. Since this is a book and an urn, I opted for a formal typesetting design rather than trying to draw the letters in a more creative way. I designed it on the computer, printed it out, and temporarily glued it in place while carving. This worked quite well, and my unsteady hand removed any sign that this had originally been digital art.

I carved the letters with a knife, the technique used by David Fisher. I was imagining the hand drawn lettering used on Eric Sloane book covers, although I didn’t actually look at reference images before choosing Adobe Caslon as the font to use here.

The leaf carving uses techniques from Peter Follansbee’s toolset, although the pattern was original. I defined the outlines with vertical cuts with gouges, and then I carved away the surrounding surface so the leaves would be raised. Since this is pine, it required very sharp tools to cut instead of mashing the wood, and I didn’t need to use a mallet for any of it. I stropped my knife every few letters to keep everything cutting well.

The cover after carving. Nail holes add character; I blocked the hole with paper on the inside.

Next was carving the spine board, which I didn’t take any pictures of. I marked the shape of the cover on the ends of the spine, and planed away material to curve the back of the spine. On the edges of the spine board I carved a groove where the cover of a hardcover book bends open. I then used a chisel to carve the ends of the spine board to line up with the cover properly. (You can see this in the picture of the lid, below.)

To assemble the urn, I glued each page board onto the back cover separately, and when it was dry, glued on the front cover using a temporary spacer inside the unsupported corner to keep everything aligned. Once that was dry I added the spine onto the end of the box. Doing it in steps like this was slower, but ensured I got everything lined up without having to juggle 6 pieces at once with clamps going every which way.

Gluing on the front cover

The last piece to construct was the lid. I left this until after the book was assembled so I could get a tight fit (but not too tight). For this, I just planed rabbets on the two corners of the lid board, carefully approaching the proper thickness so it wouldn’t be too loose. Marla requested I carve paper page edges on the page boards, so I used a very coarse rasp to carefully scribe a series of (almost) parallel lines. I also added a notch to make it easier to open (and to tell which side is the lid). The lip of wood retaining the lid is very thin, and all weak short grain, so I wicked thin CA glue into the end grain from the inside to provide substantially more strength.

The top of the book with sliding lid

At this point construction was complete. I rounded off the corners slightly with a block plane, and gave everything a very light sanding with 220 grit paper: enough to remove rough spots and signs of the electric planer without removing hand tool marks. After that, I applied raw linseed oil, and that’s that. This doesn’t need to be a durable finish, but the oil emphasizes color variation in the wood and increases the contrast of the carvings where end grain is exposed.

The finished urn
Dimensions are 13.5″ x 9.5″ x 3″

I’m very happy with how this turned out. It’s not often that I make a plan, and then implementation goes entirely according to plan without needing to make adjustments on the fly, but this one worked.

Turned Bowl Gallery 2021

Although I’ve been wood turning for many years, I never really ventured into turning plain old bowls until recently. Here are several bowls I turned last year. All are finished with linseed or walnut oil; some also have beeswax. Most were rough turned green and returned after they dried; some were completed green and allowed to warp as they dried.

Spoon Gallery 2020-2021

In 2020, I started learning to carve spoons. I planned to carve enough to give as Christmas gifts for all the relatives, but I cut myself pretty badly and had to put that off until 2021. Most of these spoons were gifted away in 2020 or 2021.

Wood species is noted when I know it, but basically all of my spoons are carved from scavenged wood and I’m not always sure what kind it is. Most of the Cherry spoons have darkened significantly since pictures were taken.

Tools and Benches

When I came back to woodworking in 2020, I once again discovered that learning new skills and techniques provides me with motivation even when I don’t need the end product. I only get motivation to use the skills I already have when I want or need the product I’m creating.

With new skills come new tools. Here are some of the tools, benches, and fixtures I’ve built to support my exploration of new techniques.

My first experience using an axe (hatchet or 1-handed axe, really) for any real work was when I started working on one of Curtis Buchanan’s Democratic Chairs, using the online classes put together by Curtis and Elia Bizzarri. I still haven’t finished that chair yet, but my use of the axe pushed me towards spoon and bowl carving as well as more woodturning.

Here is my chopping block, before it had seen any significant use. The legs are splayed like a baby deer, and it has 4 legs because I didn’t position the first 3 correctly. The block is a chunk of oak previously destined to be firewood, and the legs are (also scavenged) maple.

Chopping block for axe work; 2020

I had a broad hatchet for hewing, and purchased a Robin Wood carving axe. Eventually I wanted to try a carving axe with the asymmetrical bevel preferred by Wille and Jögge Sundqvist, so I rehabilitated an old roofing hatchet for the purpose. I cut off the hammer head from the rear, reground the bevels with a curve to the blade, and carved a new handle from some scavenged Tree of Heaven firewood. I really like this axe, but ironically I’ve shifted back to using the entirely inappropriate single bevel hewing hatchet for most of my carving work.

The blade guard is carved from tulip poplar scraps. I have since added a second screw and slots to allow it to close securely.

Modified roofing hatchet, now an excellent carving axe; 2020

I was on the fence for a while regarding shaving horses. I got by just fine with a bench and vise for shaving sticks, and didn’t really think I wanted to spend the space required for a dedicated shaving horse. I think what changed my mind was wanting to build the shaving horse more than wanting to have and use it; but it has seen plenty of use since I built it.

This was built using Tom Donahey’s Shaving Mule plans, freely available online. The seat is from my perch, which had a great seat but was never very comfortable as a stool. Rather than carve a new seat, I repurposed the old one. Most of the lumber for the horse was sourced from a single 2×12″. Pro tip: if you want cheap, straight wood, look in the 2×12’s rather than the 2×4’s. You can make 2×4’s out of small, crooked trees, but 2×12’s are big enough that they need to come from good, straight trees. They’re always flatsawn, but if you find a cut that was close to the pith, you can end up with some nice quartersawn pieces once you rip it to width.

Shaving Mule; 2020

I realized the shaving horse is useful for doing work outside, when the weather is nice. For the same reason, I decided to build a low bench with holes for pegs and holdfasts. Again, I was imprecise when drilling tenons for the legs, so this looks like a baby deer. This bench sees regular use in the shop as a saw bench, and when the weather is good I can bring it outside and attach a chopping block for carving.

The top is glued up from two pine boards, and the legs are from my old stash of scavenged maple. On the bench is a turned wooden mallet I made to whack the holdfasts and wedges. The head is black cherry, and the handle is probably Tree of Heaven. Overall, the bench and mallet remind me of the Playskool Cobbler’s Bench I remember from when I was a kid.

Low bench with holdfast, pegs, and mallet; 2021

Although I certainly don’t have anything against beautiful tools, I am also very utilitarian. When I need a thing to get the job done, I concentrate on function instead of form, especially when I’m not sure if I’m going to use the thing long-term, or when it’s likely to be consumable or worn out with use. Some of these items are more beautiful than others, but they all perform their intended function quite well.

Moravian Stool

I built this Moravian style stool for Marla’s mom for Christmas in 2020. I used plans that I believe originally appeared in Popular Woodworking magazine. I found the plans online at the time, but can’t find a link for them anymore.

This simple stool uses a board top with sliding dovetail battens running across the grain on the bottom to provide extra support for the leg tenons. This results in a very light but strong piece of furniture. Yes, it’s a cardinal sin to use cross-grain construction like this, but it works. Worst case scenario, the top will crack but the stool will stay in one piece.

Moravian Stool

The seat board is salvaged pine from the stairs at Leatherwood, the now demolished home of Marla’s great-great-great-grandfather. Despite the tree being cut down over 150 years ago, when I cut through the grunge and dust it still smelled strongly of pine. Three of the tapered octagonal legs are hard maple; the fourth I replaced with hackberry because the maple was flawed and cracked. Finished with acrylic craft paint and wipe-on polyurethane.

Finishing Projects

When my mom was moving into her new house in 2016, I gathered several half-finished projects my dad started, and brought them home with the intent of finishing them. They sat in a box in the basement for several years. In 2020, after we had a French drain put in, I rebuilt my shop in the basement and finally found time to finish these projects.

First is another Windsor style stool based on plans from Fine Woodworking. Dad turned the seat and a multitude of legs and stretchers, but never assembled the stool. I was able to use the seat and some stretchers, but the legs were all too slim, so I turned replacements. The seat is pine and the rest of the parts are most likely maple.

Workshop stool

I painted with black acrylic craft paint and applied a wipe-on varnish finish. The stool is in regular use in my shop now.

The other project I found was an unfinished turned spoon, or scoop really. Dad turned the shape on the lathe, cut it in half, and hollowed it. I cleaned up the surface and applied an oil finish, before realizing this is not a very useful shape for a spoon: it has no crook, and the bowl’s sides are too steep to make it easy to cook or eat with. So it continues to sit around and not be used, but at least it’s complete. I had no idea dad had tried to make any spoons, but I expect this object contributed to me becoming interested in spoon carving later in 2020. It’s made of Black Cherry wood.

Turned Dice Bowl

Maybe it’s time for me to restart blogging about the projects I’m working on. I guess we’ll see if this sticks.

This is a dice bowl with locking lid I turned and carved. The first to pictures show it in unfinished state. I installed a felt bottom for rolling dice in the large compartment, and the lid holds the dice you aren’t using, as seen in the other pictures. It’s turned from American Black Walnut, a part of the collection of 6×4″ walnut pith sections I bought 20 years ago or so.

The lid is a bit looser than I’d prefer. I’ll need to work on that if I make another one.

The inspiration for the locking mechanism came from a turned wooden bowl with locking lid I saw pictures of, in the Länsmuseet Gävleborg online digital collection. Judging by that one, I can make the lock parts much smaller and still have it work just fine.

I’m not very happy with the overall profile of the bowl. The opening is too small for the interior space, and the lid looks small in proportion to the bowl.

OpenForge: 3d Printed Dungeon Terrain

The availability of a large selection of models for wargaming and RPG terrain was a huge factor in deciding to purchase a 3d printer. Here are some examples of OpenForge dungeon tiles I’ve printed and painted.

OpenForge dungeon tiles and Carrion Crawler models printed in PLA.

Because OpenForge 2.0 “low wall” pieces weren’t available when I settled on what I was going to print, I decided to drop the wall height by 15mm everywhere. This makes things more visible in tight spaces while keeping it visually interesting, but unfortunately the doorways don’t line up perfectly.

I settled on using magnetized bases: each base has a spherical magnet at the edge of each 1″ square, which allows the pieces to align and stay aligned during use. It’s not a strong connection, but it works fine for single floor dungeons.

The first image is an encounter I set up for a D&D game I’m running with Ezra and some of his friends. This is the tower in Thundertree (from the Mines of Phandelver introductory adventure) some time after another group of adventurers came through and killed the dragon.  Carrion crawlers and insects now inhabit the area, preventing local loggers from using and restoring the tower.

A selection of painted and unpainted OpenForge dungeon tiles