Welcome to Scrimshaw.com! Scrimshaw is a fun and rewarding craft and artform that had it's beginnings in
America on the whaling ships. With a lot of idle time, sailors would wile away the hours with materials at hand. They
would use the polished whale teeth and bone, along with lamp black and sail needles to either scratch freeform pictures,
or adhere pictures of the day onto the material and press the point of the needle into the picture, leaving small
indentations on the ivory or bone. Once the indentations or initial scratches were incised or engraved, the sailor would
then wipe lamp black on, then wipe it off again quickly: the lamp black would stay in the indentations revealing a
picture.
Today, most scrimshaw is done on eco-friendly materials such as mammoth ivory, bone, tagua nut or man
made materials such as "paper" micarta, nylon or some other form of plastic.
Once you've tried it, you'll want to move on to something you can wear or carry with you. Our kits start you off
with a necklace, and you can order other items with our sources included in the kit, including tie tacks, cufflinks, knives
and more!
Scrimshaw is a great craft for children and adults, in your home, during rainy days, or if you find yourself with a
lot of idle time searching for leviathan on the deep blue sea!
Need more information? Look at the many resources available on our Books page! Ready to try your hand on
some ancient mammoth ivory? Come to our Kits page! Or you can read or listen to some of the many scrimshanders
we've interviewed!
Welcome to Scrimshaw.com! Scrimshaw is a fun and rewarding craft and artform that had it's beginnings in
America on the whaling ships. With a lot of idle time, sailors would wile away the hours with materials at hand. They
would use the polished whale teeth and bone, along with lamp black and sail needles to either scratch freeform pictures,
or adhere pictures of the day onto the material and press the point of the needle into the picture, leaving small
indentations on the ivory or bone. Once the indentations or initial scratches were incised or engraved, the sailor would
then wipe lamp black on, then wipe it off again quickly: the lamp black would stay in the indentations revealing a
picture.
Today, most scrimshaw is done on eco-friendly materials such as mammoth ivory, bone, tagua nut or man made materials such as "paper" micarta, nylon or some other form of plastic.
Once you've tried it, you'll want to move on to something you can wear or carry with you. Our kits start you off with a necklace, and you can order other items with our sources included in the kit, including tie tacks, cufflinks, knives and more!
Scrimshaw is a great craft for children and adults, in your home, during rainy days, or if you find yourself with a lot of idle time searching for leviathan on the deep blue sea!
Need more information? Look at the many resources available on our Books page! Ready to try your hand on some ancient mammoth ivory? Come to our Kits page! Or you can read or listen to some of the many scrimshanders we've interviewed!