ON THE SUBJECT OF SCRIMSHAW

Scrimshaw remains a cherished form of ancient maritime folk art. Though most museum pieces are dated in the early eighteen hundreds, the art goes as far back as whaling history itself--to 100-200 AD. Whole cultures grew up, finding use for the meat, blubber, baleen and bones of the animal. Not wanting to discard such parts as the teeth and the jawbones, a new art form was born. A whaler often spent years in pursuit of this magnificent mammal and idle hours were filled perfecting the art of carving. These miniature masterpieces were often given as gifts upon his return.

Therapy for the bored and lonely:

Scrimshaw is an art form whalemen developed by carving designs on whalebone, whale teeth, and baleen (strips of keratin - a substance in nails, hair, horns, and hoofs - found in the mouths of baleen whales instead of teeth), to fill the long hours of enforced idleness between whale hunts. Crewmen also used whale products to make a variety of objects. Although, most scrimshaw pieces were intended as homecoming presents for loved ones, a whaleman might occasionally sell his work in a foreign port, if he needed cash.

However, the word itself likely comes from British slang, "scrimshanker," meaning a time waster. To the contrary, scrimshanding was a productive use of time as whalers spent endless months or years at sea, waiting for a whale sighting.

In the many hours of leisure which their long cruises afford them, they cut and carve a variety of boxes and pretty toys, adapted to different uses which they bring home as testimonies to rememberance to their wives or sweethearts. They have showed me a variety of implements, executed with the greatest neatness and elegance. Almost every man in this island has always two knives in his pocket . . . and they are as difficult to please and as extravagant in the choice and price of their knives as any young buck in Boston would be about his hat, buckles or coat." -- Michel Guillaume St. John de Crevecoeur in "Letters from an American Farmer."

The scrimshanders often presented their creations to their wives at home, as a way to be remembered during the long months away. They carved such useful objects as knife handles, hair ornaments, pie crimpers, letter openers, hat pins, toys, games and boat tools. One box bore the pretty verse:

Remember me when far away

From thee on the stormy sea.

For whatever course I'm steering

My heart still points to thee.

Nantucket was the whaling capital of the world, and Nantucketers were famed for their industriousness and their horror of wasted time. A Frenchman observed about them, "I must confess, that I have never seen more ingenuity in the use of the knife; thus the many idle moments of their lives become usefully employed.

To get a feel for scrimshaw, one must understand something of the whaling industry that fostered it. American whaling goes back to the first settlers of the New World. Pilgrims on the Mayflower, anchored at Cape Cod, noted that "large whales of the best kind for oil and bone came daily alongside and played about the ship." It is even said that the Mayflower herself was used as a whaler. In the mid-1600's, New Englanders on Long Island, Cape Cod and Nantucket likely learned off-shore whaling from the Algonquian Indians, whose skill at harpooning was legendary. After capturing and killing a whale, it was towed to land where its parts were cut up and processed. The smell of the boiling oil was so noxious that one town set a fine of 5 pounds for anyone who processed "any oyle in this towne nearer than 25 poles from Main Street." While on one of these long voyages, one could go months at a time without spotting a whale or having anything to do other than argue with other bored sailors. Thus, sailors began scrimshawing to occupy themselves.

Today, scrimshaw is still practiced by master scrimshanders. Techniques have changed over the years to include colored scrimshaw as well as the traditional black. Environmentally conscious scrimshanders have replaced ivory and whale's teeth with man-made renewable materials that simulate the original.

Materials Used:

The materials we use are both ecologically and environmentally safe. All hand engraved designs are done on either shed antler bone, ancient fossil ivories found buried and preserved in the frozen tundra of Alaska from the extinct ice age mammoth elephants or walrus ivory thousands of years old. 

Exotic materials: Most scrimshaw was carved on whale teeth and baleen, but the term also includes designs on coconuts, elephant tusks, hippopotamus teeth, sea shells, tortoise shells, and other materials the whalemen encountered at sea or in ports of call. 

Scrimshaw materials were generally the sea mammal products which the men readily encountered. Various ivories from teeth and tusks (especially walrus), baleen (whalebone) and skeletal bone were used, perhaps with wood, horn, metal and even shells, to make a huge variety of useful and decorative things. However, most common were the teeth of sperm whales (whale ivory), decorated with pictorial scribework resembling engraving.

What is Scrimshaw?

Scrimshanders (as scrimshaw artists were called) made a variety of objects. In his book The Yankee Whaler, Clifford Ashley describes 60 items he considered scrimshaw, ranging from bird cages and butter spreaders to picture frames and pipe tampers. Some of the more common scrimshaw objects included:

* Belaying pins (rods used to fasten ropes on shipboard)
* Canes
* Corset busks and stays (used during the nineteenth century in women's gowns and undergarments)
* Decorative etched teeth
* Dominoes
* Doorknobs
* Pastry crimpers (also known as jagging wheels)
* Rolling pins
* Tools and boxes
* Yarn swifts (adjustable devices used for winding skeins or balls of yarn)
* Rings and bracelets

What scenes did they represent in their carvings?

* Ships and whaling scenes
* Sentimental reminders of homes
* Representations of women

What tools did they use?

* Jackknives, most commonly
* Sail needles
* Home- made files
* Saws made from barrel hoops
* Hand-turned lathes (a device that rotates objects against a tool that shapes them)
* Any tool a sailor's ingenuity could develop from scrap metal
* Engraving tools (occasionally brought along by a ship's officer)

How did the whaleman work at this art? With simple tools, he spent hours:

* Filing, sanding (sometimes with sharkskin), and polishing the rough texture of tooth or bone
* Etching the piece with an original design or one borrowed from a magazine illustration
* Rubbing soot or other pigments mixed with whale oil over the engraving, then wiping it away, leaving the pigment only in the fine lines

Fakeshaw is molded plastic designed to replicate teeth, tusks, and other natural materials on which whalemen once practiced the art of scrimshaw. One can determine whether an object is plastic or scrimshaw by examining it under a blacklight. The appearance of genuine scrimshaw will be flourescent bright white under the light.

A question of honesty: For decades, there has been debate over how to define the art of scrimshaw. Most scholars describe it as carvings on whale teeth and baleen, done by whalemen at sea. However, scrimshaw is still legitimately practiced today by artists who create beautiful objects from fossilized ivory and other materials. These twentieth- century scrimshanders do not attempt to sell their objects as the work of whalemen, nor do they imitate older styles. They create new art inspired by ancient roots.

A note on fakes and reproductions.

Old style whaling using the hand harpoon declined during the 19th century and with it the art of scrimshaw. However, the past few decades have seen a revival of interest especially in the USA and high prices are paid for what was previously of little commercial value. The art form has also been adopted by other artists and craftsmen, the best of whom sign their work. Unfortunately, with the high price of scrimshaw now, many old teeth and tusks (usually walrus), previously undecorated have been engraved and it can be very difficult to tell modern work from old, especially if the materials used were already old.

A more recent development has been the appearance of large numbers of decorated fake teeth, tusks, whale jaw bones, even ostrich eggs and turtle shells, and of small objects such as little boxes, walking stick handles etc. mass produced from plastic. They are very decorative and some are quite convincing. Many of these are legitimately on sale in gift shops and nautical catalogues for reasonable sums, but others are sold with intent to deceive. At present the plastic and fake-old far outnumbers any genuine old scrimshaw for sale. 

The best known plastic scrimshaw pieces are made by the British firms Juratone and Grooveport (previously known as Historycraft of Cirencester) and many are listed by S.M. Frank, see below.

There are chemical tests to identify the plastics used but a few simple observations with a x8 hand-lens can help avoid disappointment.

1. Enamel is absent from mature Sperm whale teeth which consist of a core of dentine surrounded by a persistent cementum. As the tooth grows, successive cones of dentine and layers of cementum develop. When the tip of the tooth is worn down the ivory layers are exposed and may become differentially stained with age. This may show as wavy lines or bands across the tooth which follow the characteristic "grain" of whale ivory. It is visible on many of the specimens on display. It is almost impossible to reproduce accurately in plastic the enhanced grain of old ivories, nor the spaces always present in the structure of skeletal bone.

2. Beware of important-looking or highly decorated teeth and tusks. Dates, localities and the names of people and ships are rare on old scrimshaw but common on modern scrimshaw and plastic.

3. Examine the surface. Even the finest plastic casting will have some fault. Look for irregularities in what should be a smooth surface, especially any raised areas. Pits may be surface damage, but could be from bubbles which, below the surface, show as tiny opalescent rings.

4. A freshly exposed surface may have a characteristic smell. Bone, ivory and horn smell quite different from plastic if the volatile materials contained in the matrix are released. If possible make a small scraping with a file or knife blade and sniff it immediately. Styrene-based plastics smell very different from animal materials though epoxy-based plastics have little smell. A hot pin, judiciously applied will penetrate a plastic surface and may release the smell - though owners object to this treatment.

Whales:

Most of the great whales are members of the cetacean order Mysticeti, the baleen whales. They feed off coastal banks and ice edges, consuming small organisms: plankton, krill or fish which they strain from sea water through plates of baleen. In the days of sail and the hand-held harpoon the main quarry were the three large species of Right whales, principally the Arctic Right whale (Greenland whale or Bowhead). The main catch of modern whalers in the present century was another group of large baleen whales, the rorquals.

The sperm whale is the only great whale in the order Odontoceti, the large group of toothed whales which includes porpoises and dolphins. Sperm whales, which prefer warm deep oceans, were not exploited until the early 18th century. Sperm whaling became the major industry for Yankee whalers although there was a significant London based fleet in the early 19th century, and later fleets in Australia. Sperm oil proved superior to whale oil (from baleen whales) as a lamp oil and was also non-drying and viscostatic and thus an excellent lubricant. The head chamber of this whale also contains spermaceti wax which made the finest candles.

Sperm whales develop some 23 pairs of large, roughly conical ivory teeth in the mandible which fit into sockets in the upper jaw. After extraction from the tough gum the teeth were filed or scraped smooth and carefully polished with shark skin, pumice or wood ash. The chosen design could be drawn or traced on to the surface. Some pictures were copied by pricking the surface of the tooth through a template, held or pasted to the surface. Pictures of women in particular are thus often outlined with dots or crosses, but these are rarely seen on ships or whaling scenes most of which seem to have been done freehand.

Ivory teeth were also cut up and carved into a variety of scrimshaw artefacts and used for inlays.

The mandibles (lower jaw bones) of the great whales were also a popular scrimshaw material. This bone could be sawn, bent, polished, carved and engraved and so was fashioned into dozens of things from purely functional tools to engraved plaques. A fine bone stay-busk (corset stay) with a British Sperm whaling scene is on display.

How To Do Scrimshaw:

Most of the natural materials, ie. elephant ivory, walrus tusks, whale ivory, mastedon ivories, are on the endangered species lists, so stay away from these.

Why? Simply put, it's usually against the law to sell and buy. Although on occasion people selling may have permits. So you have to look for alternate materials: cow horn, antler, soup bone, ivory nuts, shell, plastic and stone.

If you are not artistically inclined, you will need a picture. You can build up a collection by watching the newspapers, ads in newspapers, greeting cards, postcards, any picture that appeals to you.

The picture is transferred to the material being scrimmed by tracing with carbon paper or the dot method. It is then sprayed with a fixitive like Myston to prevent the picture from being wiped off as you work. It also helps fill any scratches you have missed when polishing. 

You then use a sharp point to scratch the picture into the surface of the material. Shading is accomplished by a series of parallel lines, the closer the lines the darker the shading. Lines of varying depth also give you light to dark.

To see how you are progressing, at varying times, black ink (India Ink) is placed in the engraved lines. More lines may be needed to darken areas for greater shading. Excess ink can be taken off with a damp cloth. Most of us "spit on a kleenex". The whole picture can then be cleaned with alcohol, however you may find this lightens the picture too much. The whole picture is then polished with trewax.

Because every scratch in the surface of the material will take ink, it is important that the surface be scratch free. To smooth the surface files will be needed to take the rough outside ridges of the antler down. 400 grit abrasive papers are then used to take the file marks down. 600 grit is used to pre-polish, followed by Zam on a cotton buff. The final high polish is done with white rouge on a cotton buff.

For a scrib you can use a pin vice with a commercial steel sewing machine needle. This is kept sharp by fine honing. If your needle isn't sharp your lines will fracture or chip leaving you with fuzzy lines.

The other tools used for engraving are old steel gramaphone needles, carbon steel points, drill steel, exacto knives, anything with a sharp point. India ink or colored ink is used to fill the engraved lines.

Shading is done by two methods:

Stipple Method:

The use of dots instead of lines.

Advantage:

- Easy to control
- Unlimited texture and shading can be accomplished

Disadvantage: 

- Time consuming

Line Method:

A series of parallel lines are cut to produce shading.

Advantage:

- Lines easily follow the flow of the picture
- Large pictures can be done quicker
- Less tedious, thus less fatigue you don't tire as quick

Disadvantage:

- Lines may chip when they cross
- Shading is more difficult to accomplish 

Have fun!

It's not surprising that the most frequent motif for scrimshaw was the whale.

Whalemen lived to hear the call, "Thar she blows," indicating the excitement and resultant profit of a catch. In addition to depictions of whales and ships, scrimshanders also carved lovely native girls, tropical islands, fish and seabirds, their sweethearts back home, their villages, political issues, and war scenes. Nostalgic pictures of their own houses often bore a caption like "Home, sweet home." One whale's tooth displays, on one side, a picture of a respectably attired wife at home; on the other side an exotic South Sea girl in sarong. The caption: "To our Wives and Sweethearts. May they never meet".

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