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Stuff for Sailors isn't just gear storage for individual boat owners. Behind the scenes, we build precision parts, forms, jigs, and fixtures for the marine trades — fiberglass shops, shipwrights, riggers, canvas and upholstery shops, engine and mechanical shops, and boatyards who need something exact, made fast, without the overhead of setting up their own fabrication shop.
Detailed layup forms, mold masters and plugs, vacuum-bagging fixtures, and edge/flange templates — built to your exact geometry from a CAD file, a scan, or a hand-measured sketch.
For complex geometry — undercuts, internal cavities, anything impossible to pull a form out of once it's cured — we can print the form in a water-soluble material. Lay up and cure as normal, then dissolve it away in a bucket of water instead of fighting it out.
One-off jigs and fixtures for repeatable cuts, drilling patterns, and alignment work — printed once and refined, or made fresh to spec for a job that only happens once.
Custom fixtures for terminal fittings, tensioning jigs, and alignment tools for standing and running rigging work. Built to your tolerances, not "close enough."
Custom mounts, brackets, and enclosures for chartplotters, radar domes, AIS units, autopilot components, antennas, and sensor housings — sized to the exact unit and mounting surface.
Custom snap and fastener bases, fitting jigs, pattern templates, and hardware mounts for dodgers, biminis, cushions, and covers — built to the exact curve or mounting point.
Custom brackets, mounts, jigs, and low-volume replacement parts for engine and mechanical work — including fixtures for repeatable service jobs and one-offs for discontinued parts.
Fixtures and jigs for repair and refit work across trades, mounts and brackets for yard equipment, and one-off replacement parts for the odd jobs that don't fit neatly anywhere else.
If it doesn't fall neatly into one of the above, ask anyway. Templates, fixtures, low-volume replacement parts, prototypes for a product you're developing — if it can be modeled and printed in a marine-grade material, we can probably build it.
We build from CAD, not by eye. Once a part is dialed in, it prints the same way every time — no drift from one copy to the next like you'd get hand-building templates.
ASA and carbon-fiber-reinforced filaments for anything exposed to sun and weather, PETG for interior applications. These materials are UV-stable and, unlike metal fittings, inherently corrosion-resistant — no rust, no galvanic corrosion, no worrying about what saltwater does to a fastener or bracket over time.
One part or fifty, there's no injection-mold setup cost standing between you and a custom piece. That makes this a fit for the one-off jig just as much as a small production run.
A single piece tops out around 256mm (about 10 in) square on our printer, but that's not the ceiling — larger parts get designed as interlocking sections and joined after printing, so a full-size layup form or a large jig is still very much on the table.
Print it, test-fit it, adjust the file, print again. If the first version isn't quite right, the fix is a file edit and a reprint — not starting over from raw material.
Bringing us a proprietary jig, fixture, or part design? We can sign an NDA before you share any files or specs.
My natural tendency to spot the ergonomic problem, the wasted inch of space, the fitting that almost works — and then build the thing that actually solves it — is what led me to start Stuff for Sailors: a home- (boat-) based shop built around boaters' ongoing storage challenges. I now offer that same problem-solving to the marine trades.
Whether it was developing procedures as a classically trained chef, running the stern of a lobster boat off the coast of Maine, working Washington farmland, building custom timber-frame homes, or running and maintaining a small marina, I've always seemed to have a tool of some sort in my hands. That range means I generally understand the job you're describing — and the constraints you're working under — before you finish explaining it.
A sketch, a sample part, a rough measurement, or a full CAD file — whatever you've got is a fine starting point.
If we're starting from something less than a finished CAD file, we'll build one and confirm the geometry with you before printing anything.
For anything going into production or repeat use, we print a first article for you to check before committing to a full run.
One part or a batch — printed in the material suited to how and where it'll be used.