QPT2 - Non Rigid Heddle Brocade

Brocaded Non-Rigid Heddle Band

QPT 2014

Entrant: Kaolin Konalsdottir

Category: Textile Arts – Inkle Weaving

The Project

I chose to make a non-rigid heddle (a.k.a. Inkle) brocade band, using a brocade pattern from the early period. The loom is a basic inkle loom. The heddles are lengths of string looped around one of the pegs of the loom.

Materials:

Linen thread

Gold Metallic DMC embroidery floss

It is my hope to use this piece as either trim for an outfit or possibly, assuming I manage to get enough length, as a belt for a dress.

The Inspiration

While doing research on appropriate trim for an early period persona, I came across images of brocade trim made with tablet weaving, silk, and flat silver or gold ribbon. I wanted to make something that would fit both my persona, a crafts person in early Anglo-Saxon Northumbria, and was some I could make myself.

While researching the brocade technique I came across an article on early period metallic trim by Carolyn Priest-Dorman “Metallic Trims for Some Early Period Personae”. There were several patterns in the article but the one I liked the best was the Birka 6 pattern.

Deviations from Period

I chose to make the background out of linen rather than silk. Silk is quite far out of my budget at this time. Linen and wool are period fibres that could have been used for the background fabric for bands, though little if any have survived. A fine linen was easier to find than a fine wool so I chose the linen.

Another material choice I made was to use metallic DMC embroidery floss rather than the wide, flat ribbons more commonly seen in brocade. This choice was based on availability and cost. It is likely that I was not using the correct search terms for the wire but I was not able to find anything that looked like the extant examples.

I did initially try to use jewellers brass wire but found it was stiff and prone to kinking making it hard to use effectively. Hammering it to flatten it only made the wire more brittle and impossible to use. Fighting with my materials seemed as daunting as fighting with my techniques so I dropped the wire idea and chose a flexible metal looking fibre instead.

The biggest deviation from period was the choice to use a tabby weave (one up, one down) for the background, rather than tablet weave. I am not as comfortable with tablet weaving and trying to learn to brocade on a tablet woven band, while trying to manage the weaving itself seemed daunting to me. Instead, I chose a background that I was far more proficient with. This way there are no mistake in the background to detract from the brocade pattern itself.

The Process

My first order of business was the take the black and white pattern and convert it into a graphed image that I could then use for the pickups. This involved estimating the number of warp threads based on the width of the single dots. Once that was done I simply copied the pattern to the graph paper and colour coded it to make it easier to see the pick ups themselves.

A border was added to the pattern to hide the loop around of the metallic thread. This made the pattern a total of 20 warp threads wide. The tape at the bottom of the pattern is sticky on the two ends and keeps me from loosing my place in the weaving process. I move it to the current line, working my way up from the bottom, to make a full repeat.

A few straight tabby weaves were done, before the actual brocade began, to give myself a border at the beginning of the band. During normal weaving this is the area were the width of the band is set by gradually pulling the weft threads tighter in each subsequent pass.

In the case of brocade, there are two shuttles. The first carries the background fibre, in this case the red linen. The second carries the brocade fibre itself, this time a DMC embroidery floss. I should have made a few passes with just the background fibre instead of both the background and the brocade fibres.

The loose threads you see in the back ground of this image is one of the unwoven layer of warp threads and not mistakes or dropped warps.

To make a single pass of the background weft, the shed , the space between the heddled and unheddled warps, is opened by pushing down or up on the unheddled threads, a weaving sword is pushed into the space and twisted to cleanly open the shed. With the weaving sword I use the shed is approximately 1.25 inches wide allowing a clean pass of the shuttle.

The weft is pulled through leaving a small loop on the side the shuttle was passed from. At this point the weaving sword, or weft beater, is used to push the new weft tightly against the old ones. After the threads are firmly packed the short loop is gently pulled tight.

The order of operations is to make one pass of the background colour, followed by a single pass of the brocade colour. Back and forth along the length of the weaving.

Un-heddled warps being pushed down

Un-heddled warps being pulled up.

A clean open shed, ready for a shuttle pass.

The process for doing the brocade is a little more involved. First, all the warps have to be side by side before the pick ups can be done. This prevents the accidental picking up of extra warp threads.

 Then using a pointed stick, each warp thread that the brocade fibre goes UNDER, is picked up. If the warp threads are bunched up it is very easy to pick up the wrong number of warps, and you will not know until you have reached the left side of the pattern. Having a border made it much easier to see if my counts were off, as I always had to drop two and pickup three.



 The stick is used to lift the picked up warp threads and the weaving sword is slipped through the shed once more. This weaving stick is knife shaped, square on the back side and wedge shaped at the front, to make it easier to pack each pass of the wefts. This makes for a smoother band and helps the brocade really show nicely against the background colour.



 Beater in Place.




As with the background weft, the brocade weft is packed tightly against the previous pass of the background colour while there is still a short loop on the side passed from. This is then taken up before the next weft pass.

Side loop being shown.

What I learned

• The initial end of the weaving should only be done in the background colour. This will give a smooth selvage at the beginning and make it easier for the addition of hardware if needed.
• The width of normal inkle weaving is pulled tight enough that the weft passes can not be seen. With brocade that is not the case. The warp threads need to be equidistant, laying neatly side by side, to allow the brocade weft to show correctly. Comparing earlier repeats that do not show the pattern as well, to later repeats that do show the pattern fairly well you will notice quite a bit of difference between the width of the band – 3/4 inch compared to 7/8^th inch. It doesn't seem like a lot but the wider section looks much nicer than the narrower section.
• The brocade weft needs to be thicker than the background weft. I figured this out during the first few passes of the brocade. A single twist of DMC floss barely showed against the background. After I removed the initial passes and doubled the DMC floss the brocade showed much better.
• As much as the doubled DMC floss looks okay, I want to use a single, thicker weft for my next brocade band. Where the two floss lay beside each other in the pass the brocade effect is much smoother and more noticeable against the background. Where the two twists of floss cross over each other in the pass the brocade is less noticeable and does not fill out as nicely.
• As silly as it seems one thing I learned is to double tie my warp threads. In the process of sliding my band forward a couple of the warp threads became untied, making those warps loose. I managed to retie one but was not able to find the other end of the other thread. As a stop gap measure I pulled the loose warp snug, tied it to another warp and place a wrapping of masking tape around the ends to keep the warps evenly snug.

Conclusion

I really like the colour of the gold on the red and if I get enough yardage I think it will make a very lovely trim for a court tunic. I hope to find a more suitable brocade fibre than doubling up DMC floss. I think a thicker gold cord would look much better than the floss.

I have seen images of other peoples efforts where they used a flat wire but have yet to find a source for this. If silver and gold wire was not so expensive I would try once more to make my own flat wire by hammering out would wire.

I think now that I have learned the basic technique for brocading it is time for me to try brocading a tablet woven band. With any luck I will be able to find a nice thin wool thread to use for my warp and background wefts. With a fine enough background thread a single length of the DMC will look good and allow me more practice before investing in gold or silver flat wire.

References

Historical Relevance

1. CROWFOOT E, HAWKES S. Early Anglo-Saxon Gold Braids. York: Archaeology Data Service (distributor)Available at: http://archaeologydataservice.ac.uk/archiveDS/archiveDownload?t=arch-769-1/dissemination/pdf/vol11/11_042_086.pdf. Accessed November 13, 2014.
2. Metallic Trims for Some Early Period Personae, Carolyn-Priest Dorman, Cs.vassar.edu, (2014). Metallic Trims. [online] Available at: http://www.cs.vassar.edu/~capriest/metaltrims.html [Accessed 13 Nov. 2014].
   
3. Walton Rogers P. Cloth And Clothing In Early Anglo-Saxon England, AD 450-700. York: Council for British Archaeology; 2007. pg 96-97
4. Mayhew C. Viking Age Tablet Weaving. 1st ed.; :13.

Techniques

5. JOHNSON N. Pick-Up Or Brocade Weaving On A Simple Heddle Loom. 1st ed. Available at: https://www.cs.arizona.edu/patterns/weaving/articles/tw_3_2-03.pdf. Accessed November 15, 2014.
6. Cook M. Tablet-Woven Brocade. WeaveZine. 2008. Available at: http://www.weavezine.com/content/tablet-woven-brocade. Accessed November 13, 2014.
7. DeGarmo T. Inkle Weaving. Degarmonet. 2005. Available at: http://www.degarmo.net/inkle/notes/brocade.html. Accessed November 13, 2014.

General A&S: Leather Boots

I was asked by a friend of mine to make him a pair of leather boots based on a 13th C German Riding boot. My entire experience with foot coverings up to this time was some very simple turn shoes based on bog finds. Needless to say the first thing I had to do was look at picture of other reconstructed boots. Surprisingly, there was little to be found on the Internet. So I looked up 13th C Boots and found a line drawing on the only shoe making link I have ever found online Footwear of the Middle Ages. I did find at least one book on period shoes but am currently unable to buy books and the local library is useless.

With the line drawing for 13th C shoes and a side buckled boot I took measurements of my friends feet and started working on drafting a pattern. The measurements I found useful were:
1) Outline of socked feet.
2) Around the widest part of the toes.
3) Around the arched section of the foot.
4) Around the Ankle.
5) Around the thickest part of the calf
6) Height from sole of foot to bottom of the knee.
7) Height of foot from sole to ankle.
8) And lastly, the length of the top of the foot from tip of the longest toe to the front of the ankle.


First I made a paper pattern on cardstock, taping extra pieces together to get the length required. Then I made a fabric mockup to test the shape and sizing. The first mock up led me to make some changes to the basic pattern I was using from the Footwear site.

1) The leg portion went from a single piece of leather to two pieces of leather. One piece that was the width of the distance from side to side of the ankle and the height of the leg from ankle to knee. The second piece was straight on one side and sloped on the other, being narrower at the bottom than at the top. It was also an inch shorter that the other leg piece to allow it to wrap over the top of the foot. After discussion we opted for 5 straps and buckles instead of the 10+ shown on the drawing linked above.

2) A tongue was added to cover the top of the foot where the "v" opening in the foot portion of the pattern. Thinking about it all after the fact I expect the author of the site expect that v to wrap around the ankle.

 3) The drawing suggests they were slipped through slots in the leg pieces and only attached at the beginning and end. All the stress of buckling is on the straps but should they break they can be replaced. Instead I sewed the straps all the way around the outside of the leg leathers. The straps sewn on like this allow the leathers to be tighten up completely to wrap more snugly around the wearers legs.

After some tweaks to the pattern and another set of mock-ups seen in the top to pictures linked, we decided it was more or less exactly what the person was looking for. He purchased a deer hide and told me to use what I needed to use. At this point I became rather paralyzed with fear. I was very much afraid to cut out the pattern in the leather and make mistakes, resulting in wasted leather.

A few weeks passed where the leather and pattern sat on my work bench and dared me to start. Which I eventually did. I laid the leather out and carefully cut out each piece, labeling it left or right as I went, using a Olfa rotary wheel. I allowed 1/2 inch for seams, since I was planning on sewing this on my sewing machine. Luckily I own an industrial strength machine and with a larger needle and some nearly unbreakable thread I was able to do 90% of the sewing on the machine.

In the leather version I allowed a full inch around the foot so that the owner could take them to a local cobbler and have a modern sole sewn on. That is why the foot looks so loose in the pictures to the left, compared to the picture of the fabric mock-ups.

He is pretty happy with them and truthfully I am glad they turned out as nice as they did. I learned quite a bit about drafting a pattern based on a drawing, learned about the shape of the foot and how it effects the way the shoe looks, and even learned how leather and fabric differ. I think at some point I want to carve out a pair lasts , wooden foot shapes, and see how different make a pair of shoes that way is to basic turn shoes.
 

White Wolf Fion: Update on Bone

I've been having trouble finding bone that was both big enough and thick enough to do some decent carving into. I've spent the last month or so just collecting various bones from all over the place. I even resorted to begging for old soup bones from other SCA folks.

I tried all the local meat shops and found one selling 4 inch pieces of bone as "Marrow Bones" at a rather inflated price. Two bones for $10.00 but I went ahead and paid the price. I purchased some Red Deer bones from a farm about an hour away but found them to be to small to successfully reproduce some of the straps ends I want to do.

The largest bones I've been are to find are smoked beef bones for dogs. The company sells many sizes from the small soup bone looking ones to the jumbo, must have been a monster, beef bone. I purchased one of those and went about the cleaning process of simmering the bone in a pot of sudsy water. The bits of meat came off but the bone itself was very greasy. So much so that when I took the saw to it to cut it into pieces grease balls formed at the cut line. Way to greasy to safely use as a strap end.

The other day while we were at the feed store the spouse found some naturally smoked beef bones for dogs. They were a little expensive but they had at least one flat surface, were 8 inches long, and you got three in a pack. I asked about bone cleaning on the "Bone, Antler, and Horn Crafting" forum on Facebook and go the same directions for cleaning the bone. Simmer gently in sudsy water. So I went about cleaning the bones.

I forgot to add the soap to the first pot of bones but they simmered for 3 hours. When I pulled them out the bits of meat and skin came off easily but the gristle and cartilage would not let go of the bone. I put the bones back in the water and added 2 tablespoons of laundry soap and let them simmer for another 3 hours. This time the gristle and cartilage was slimy feeling under the hand but with some effort I was able to scrub it off and the bones are definitely useable not greasy.

The second batch of bones I decided to follow the method above that had worked so well. However, when I but the bones in the second bath I used 1/4 cp of laundry soap. Three hours later I pulled the bones out to find them very easy to scrub the gristle and cartilage off but the previously exposed bone was start white and somewhat sticky. I am presuming this is residue from the soap and will come off during the carving process. However, I will be keeping a close eye on those pieces to see if the bone is weaker than it should be.

Now that I have some bone to work with I hope to do a heavily carved strap end. I haven't decided whether I want to do the interlace pattern on the front of my goal piece, or if I want to try one of the foliage and animals heads seen in some of the earlier bronze straps ends. Either way it will be a great practice piece and I expect to find I need yet another tool to do the deep carving pieces.

White Wolf Fian - Strap End #2

Another strap end is nearly complete. Here is the strap end in the small hand vise I made from a branch. I did most of the shaping on the bone before I finished the clamp but the incision work could not safely be completed without the clamp. The tool in my hand is the small skew chisel made for me. It works very well, but like most chisels is prone to slippage. Without the vise, the slippage made it dangerous to do the incision work on the strap-end. After the vise was completed it only took me a few hours to score each of the lines on the piece.

The one line that was difficult to get done was the outside border line. In the booklet "Working with Bone, Antler, and Horn" by David Constantine (a.k.a Halldor the Viking) available for free download in PDF format on the Bone, Antler, and Horn Working Facebook Group, the best tool for making smooth, evenly spaced edge lines is an edge scribing tool. Very similar to the skew chisel, the tool has a 90º bend in the steel and is set in the handle at the distance you want the borders. You then score the bone while keeping the edge of the bone pressed tightly against the handle. When I first read the booklet, I thought "Nah, I don't need that" but now I think it is a brilliant idea and will be making one as soon as I can get the steel commissioned.

After I scored the lines I decided to colour them with charcoal dust and Tung Oil. As with the Red Oche and Tung Oil on my last strap end, the colouring worked well. It also showed me all the little scratches left in the bone when my chisel slipped. A quick reminder to do the polishing and scraping before you add the colourant to a piece of bone.

Last night I decided to wipe the excess colour off and drill the holes using the point of my knife and the small drill bit I had made for me. It took 3.5 hrs to drill both holes using these tools but they work well . Unfortunately, the oil hadn't quite dried and between the wiping and the handling while drilling some of the oil came out of the incisions.I am going to take advantage of this mistake and do my final scrape and polish before reapplying the colour.

 All told from beginning to end this strap end will have taken me almost 12 hrs to complete, scattered over several days. That does not include the time spent working on the hand vise or adding a handle to the skew chisel. It does include the expected time of 1 hour to scrape and polish the strap-end and reapply the colour to the lines. If I have to go back and deepen the lines after the polishing, that will add another hour or two.

I've had a couple of people ask me for pictures of the pump drill I purchased from Daegrad Tools in the U.K so here you go. I still find it very hard to use. Mostly it seems to be a lack of Rhythm on my part, but anyone who has heard me sing or watched me dance could have told you that.

The shaft is made from a birch dowel, as is the crossbar. The cord is jute, I think, and the flywheel is a round of Horse Chestnut. I sealed the flywheel with varnish to prevent it from warping or cracking due to humidity fluctuations that we always get in the Summer time.

For the heck of it I have included a glimpse of my current bone working tool collection. The  tools that were made for me have had cherry handles added to them. They are bulky because I am using them like palm tools found in wood carving. The larger handles makes it easier for me to brace in the palm of my hand.

My final photos are of a small section of actual Red Deer Antler I acquired today. This was cut from a mature male by the farmer who raises them for meat. Unlike White Tail deer the Red Deer antler has a wider and flatter beam with shorter tines. The antler from Elk are more like the White Tail Deer, though the beam on the larger males can be wider than the White Tail's. I can see the advantage to using one over the other for making combs and the like but as for the material itself it is nearly identical. However, the cost of the Red Deer makes it a material saved for a special project.

White Wolf Fian: Practice Piece #3

I've been slow on starting my next strap-end. I'm not sure why but the creative juices seem to have dried up this last few weeks. Maybe it is because the weather has finally turned to Spring and I have been thinking more about being outside and working in the yard rather than working on bones. Even looking through my various research papers and books on bone carving did little to get me working again.

In an attempt to get over this lack I have taken on a personal challenge of creating at least one thing with bone or antler each weekend using only my period tools, in addition to all the other crafts I work on. Last weekend was the first of what I hope will be many through the summer, fall, and winter months. I ended up making two nalbinding needles and a sewing needle. Here is my array of finished bone and antler goods so far. From the left: Antler Ring, Bone Sewing Needle, Large Bone Nalbinding Needle, a Medium Nalbinding Needle, First Strap-End with Ring ans Dot Decoration, and Bone Cloak Pin.

I did discover something terrific while I was working on the needles. I can make holes by using a combination of my carving knife, the tools I have so far, and files. I can get large holes, like in the nalbinding needles or very fine holes like in the sewing needle and strap end. It takes a lot of patience, something I am short on most of the time, and some care to get the really small holes made but I can makes holes. I am ecstatic.

 My idea must have worked because on Tuesday I started my next strap-end. I forgot to take a picture of the bone before I started the scraping and filling. It was cut from a soup bone with was only 1.5 inches long. Here is a picture of another blank cut from the same bone. You can see that is is heavily curved but the walls are very thick.

 I used my knife as a scraper and my big file to get it squared off on the top and bottom. I am going to spend much less time worrying about the bottom of the strap-end since it will be covered by leather or fabric once it is in use. That will change if I come across any research that indicates they spent as much time finishing the bottoms as they did the tops.

 I still have some leveling work to do on the top as well as sawing and filing the tip to give it to classic tongue shape seen in many strap-ends. Once that is completed I can move on to the decoration.

With this strap-end I plan to explore incision work. The strap-end I eventually will replicate is heavily incised and carved. In fact most of the strap ends, even the few bone examples I can find, are heavily carved. I actually expect I will do several incised strap-ends in an effort to explore the various carving tools; knife point, file point, chisel, and v-gouge.

The knife, chisel, and v-gouge are very common tools used for carving wood. I am still approaching this project as if I am carving very hard wood. I want to be able to get fine, deep details so that my strap-ends look good from a distance as well as up close. If it turns out the chisel and the v-gouge are not effective on bone I will limit myself to knife and files on my final piece.

White Wolf Fian: More on Tools and a Glorious Find

After my blog post yesterday I decided it was high time I tested the Ring and Dot tool on something other than wood. The results were great. As you can see the tool did work but there were some unexpected things in the working.

1) The centre point is to long. I had to start the hole with the centre point then use course and fine pointed files to deepen the hole so I could dig in with the outer tips to make the rings. It took forever. To do all five decorations took three hours. Definitely slow and it took a lot of patience to continue.

2) Some sections of the bone were slightly softer than others making it easier to dig deeper into the bone itself. the first ring and dot, the one at the top of the cross near the belt end, is deeper than the others because the files were able to dig the centre hole deeper.

3) Because the centre hole was deeper more of the outer points cut in making a wider ring. I actually like the wider rings but was not able to replicate it on all of them.

After I made my designs I added some tung oil to some iron oxide, made from an "Indian Paint Pot" a geological oddity that is essentially a piece of iron ore encased in a shell of rock, to create a orange red pigment to dye the strap end and make the decorations really stand out. Amazingly enough today's picture actually shows just how polished the ash and fabric made the strap end. The red line along the bottom is a small crack in the bone that I could not remove with carving and polishing. Once the tung oil is dried, three or four days, I will try to remove the staining with another concentrated polish.

Now on to the Glorious Find as I call it. I contacted a re-enactment group, at the suggestion of another person in the White Wold Fian, that had some photos of wood working and bone working tools on the gallery page. The owner of the pictures was kind enough to respond to my question by pointing me to Deagrad Tools, a company that specializes in making Roman, Anglo-Saxon, Viking, and other period tool reproductions. Their main site is in the UK but they had an ebay site that was much easier to shop from. They had a replica Medieval Pump Drill with a small Ring and Dot tool and a 3mm drill bit that is specifically designed to work on bone and antler. I have ordered it and hope it arrives soon.

I have also commissioned a Ring and Dot tool and Drill Bit from another semi-localish smith who has made the tools in the past and has more experience with tools of this nature. I have also asked my local smith to recreate the tools I got from him using a different type of steel. It may seem ridiculous to have so many different sets of the same tools but I look at this as a learning experience. I can look at the different methods, steel, and functionality of tools made by different people. One from a smith who is making the tools based on line drawings from books, another set from a smith who has made similar tools in the past that are know to work correctly, and finally a set made by a company who's sole business model is to reproduce tools from the period presumably for the experimental archaeological and professional re-enactor groups.

White Wolf Fian: Drill Bits Research

For you following at home you know already that I had trouble with the small spoon bit made for me by a smith. Well, it turns out the larger spoon bit will not work on the bone either. I've tried resharpening it, assuming that I did it incorrectly the first time. I have sharpened knives and gouges in the past but never from the "raw" state fresh off the forge. Sharpening had no effect, other than make it work better in wood. For some reason it will not work on the bone.

I went back to my reference material, specifically "Bone, Antler, Ivory & Horn: The Technology of Skeletal Materials Since the Roman Period", and found a small passage that I had forgotten from the first time reading the book. " Although a considerable number of early frill-bits are known (Peterson 1951; Wilson 1968, 1976) most of them are shell-bits (or spoon bits)which, although effective on fibrous material like woos, would make little impression on bone, antler, or ivory." (pg. 59). The author then goes on to say that twist drill bits are not unknown for the period and speculates that the bit used to make the ring and dot decoration, very similar to modern day centre point (Brad point) drill bits, could also have been used to make holes.


Since it is quite clear that making a centre point drill bit that is small enough to make the holes for riveting the strap ends to the belt is not feasible, at least not for myself or the smith I have access to, I am leaning towards the twist drill bit. Some digging on the Internet, my 24hr accessible library I found an image of a twist drill bit from the Roman Era, and a book all about Roam Era Woodworking which has been ordered.

The image to the left is taken from the website http://www.dartmouth.edu/~rogerulrich/tools_woodworking.html is a drawing of a spiral or twist drill bits found Aquileia, Italy, 12 and 15 cm long. The drawing is from the site owner's book  Roman Woodworking Tools, R.B. Ulrich, who's field of study and research is Classical Art and Archaeology, especially the Roman period, Roman architecture, ancient Roman woodworking and technology. His is the book that I now have on order from Amazon and will be in a couple of days.

If you compare the Roman period twist bit to the modern day twist bit you can see there are some similarities. Modern day drill bits have the twists going all the way up the shaft as opposed to the one or two turns seen in the period versions.

The same goes for the centre point drill bit. On page 61 of "Bone, Antler, Ivory & Horn: The Technology of Skeletal Materials Since the Roman Period"  there is a line drawing of "centre-bits or scribing tools from Slavic settlements at Stare Mestro (after Hruby) and Levy Hradrec (from the Tempel, after Pic)(scale 3:4)"; Figure 38, pg 61. The tips are the only part of the tool that looks similar to modern day centre point drill bits. It is in fact, this tool that I commissioned for the purpose of making the ring and dot decorations.

I have found images of tools used by a member of Darc, a Dark Ages Re-creation Company that look amazing like those Master Stephen showed in his bone working class. http://www.darkcompany.ca/projects/stools/index.php?submenu=L. That means the tools can be made they just may not be able to be made by myself or by the smith I have access to.



 If all attempts to make working period tools fails I will revert to using modern drill bits to create the holes for the rivets. However, it is my goal and my intention to have period style drill bit to drill the holes in my bone strap-ends.

White Wolf Fian: Spoon Bit - Update

 After carving the handled I tested the smaller of the two spoon bits on a piece of bone. There was no effect on the bone and the tip of the bit bent. After some discussion with the smith I believe the metal was hammered to thin. Another possible problem is the metal for the smaller bit as different than the metal used for the other two bits and may not have taken the hardening processed as well. He is going to make another small spoon bit using a better grade of steel.

I am looking at other shapes of bits that may be usable for drilling holes in the bone. I am going to cut the thinner parts of the bit off and sharpen what is left into a slightly different shape to see how well it will drill a hole. If all else fails the spoiled bit will get turned into an awl that can be used to create starter holes in wood, leather, or even heavy fabric. Either way the work on the bit and the handle will not be wasted.

White Wolf Fian: Ring and Dot Tool & Hand Drill Bit

I finally have the Ring and Dot tool and the spoon bits for drilling holes. A smith made the tools and I had to sharpen them and add handles to make them easier to use.They are not very big as you can imagine. The largest of the spoon bits is slightly over 1/8th inch wide. The ring and dot tool is slightly under 1/8th inch wide.The smith who made them used heavy duty steel coat hanger wire to make them

To sharpen the tools I used a small set of files to give the edges the correct bevel of about 22º. Then I used oil and wet stones to give them their final sharpening.I tried them on a piece of birch after I sharpened them and found they worked well on wood. The tests on bone did not yield the best results.I decided part of the problem was the wire dug into my palms to much and made it hard for my to put the kind of pressure I think I need to dig into the bone.

To remedy this problem I am putting cherry handles on the tools. I started with rectangular blocks of cherry wood. So far I have shaped the wood down to create a wide based for my palm to pres against while the handle near the working end of the tool narrow enough for me to see what I am doing during use. Once the handles have been sanded smooth I will seal them with a coat of polyurethane so they last a very long time.

WWF Post #3 - Polishing with Ash

A bit more work on the three pieces I have on the go currently. This time it was trying out Master Stephen's information on polishing bone and antler using wood ash. Luckily, we have a wood stove that is burned in the winter time so wood ash is very much available to me. I didn't have a piece of wool but I did find a piece of really course blanket in my scrap bag to use as the cloth.

Things I learned:
1) When I added water to the ash, I was left with a very course material. The really fine dust just disappeared.

Resulting Idea) Maybe I should try shifting the ash into different grits to see if that will give me a finer polish.

2) Ash is great for polishing but does not act like sandpaper to remove stock. After polishing all the little nicks and such were very visable, to me. I know that someone standing three feet away will not be able to see these imperfections but I will know they are there.

Resulting Idea) Not really an idea so much as a continuation of a thought I had when I challenged in...I want to find some way to do the really fine smoothing that is accomplished with modern sandpaper. Perhaps the sandstone grit will work to remove the nicks and smooth the surface more perfectly.

3) It is hard to photograph a polished surface.

Resulting Idea) I need to figure out a way to take good clear photos that will be successful in showing the before and after surfaces of the bone and antler. Spouse has suggested outside in bright sun so I will try that on the next sunny day.

4) The antler ring did not take on as high a polish as the bone.

Resulting Idea) I need to figure out is this is an artifact of the antler itself, the shape of the object (small round ring), or does it simply need more polishing.

White Wolf Fian: Practice Piece #2

I've managed to get a few more pieces for my tool kit. I bartered for a medieval style saw with Lord Edhan. I found a file that has a curved and a flat course and medium tooth on it. And the white wire you see is a heavy duty coat hanger that I plan on turning into my drill and ring and dot tool. One of the reasons I have started a new piece rather than finish the first is because I have not made the ring and dot tool yet.

I decided to go ahead and jump right in on a strap end. I haven't up my mind what decoration I will use but I suspect it will be something very simple. I seem to remember seeing a strap end in my Bone and Antler book that had a series of ring and dots that were coloured. I think that is where I am going with this end.

I'm using beef bone. It is the easiest for me to get my hands on. I can either buy soup bones or I can buy a bone from the pet shop and clean out the crap they stuff in it for the dogs. I've got a few bones already so I plan to start with those.

I found a bone that had a relatively flat section and cut out a piece that was 3/4 inches by 2 inches. Unfortunately, I pretty much suck at hand sawing so I ended up with a piece that was thicker on one end than on the other, and thicker on one side than the other.

I forgot to take a picture of the work but I scraped with the knife to get the sides about the same thickness and I use the saw the straighten out the back and side. I also used the saw, after marking the bone with a pencil, to cut the end in the general shape I wanted it to be. Once done with that I went back to the knife and files to smooth out the end, flatten the top a bit, level out the back, in general cleaning the rough piece of bone into a shape that is recognizable and workable.



I really need my drill and ring and dot tools so I can finish this and the first piece, the bone cloak pin. I want to try using linseed oil or tung oil mixed with soot or powdered pigments to stain the piece in such a way that the decoration really shows up. I have some Red Sandlewood, called Saunders in period cooking, that supposedly colours food red. I wonder if it will work to colour oil as well. Otherwise, I need to get some red ochre for the colour red.

Something I learned with this piece is that a tiny bone shaving in the eye burns. I've had wood shavings in the eye that hurt but they never burned. I'll have to be more careful about my work and try to keep the bits and pieces out of my eyes. I also think I need a different clamp system for bone and antler work. I think part of my control issue with the saw is that I was trying to saw a tiny little piece of bone while it was clamped into my work bench clamp. I was bending over and the frame of the saw kept bumping into the work bench.

From beginning to this point I have spent approximately 4 hrs on this practice piece. Looking at it again I think I still need to flatten the top a little more before I start the decoration.

White Wolf Fian: Progress #1

Progress has started on my White Wolf Fian. I decided that progress would start by working the projects provided to me by Master Stephen at the Bone and Antler Carving Class. Here is a my progress after 3 hours of scraping and filing on my Bone Cloak Pin. I have a small course set of files, an extra carving knife, and a small fine file that I used as my starting tools.

The knife worked much better than the files. Even the course files took a long time to make any indentation in the bone at all. The knife allowed me to shave and chip away at the bone pin much more successfully. The course file did work well to create the beading along the shaft of the pen.

I still want to slim the shaft down more, so it goes through the fabric easier, and I want to add some kind of decoration to the top wedge. With that in mind I need to make myself a Ring and Dot tool. I am planning on making one from an old cheap flat head screw driver that has been filed with a wedge file to make the three prongs needed to make the Ring and Dot.

I also need to make a hole drilling tool. I'm not really sure how to proceed. Right now I am thinking that I will take a very small rod of steel and grind the shape into the end. I want to avoid using power tools if at all possible to the grinding will be done with a course grinding stone set up to be powered by either the foot or the hands. We'll see how well that works. If it doesn't work I may have to find a smith to make the tools.

Nalbinding: Mittens and Socks, Oh My!

 Just a couple of projects I have been working on. A pair of wool mittens in a slightly modified York Stitch and a pair of wool socks in Mammen Stitch.

Because the York Stitch is so prone to helixing (a tight twisting) I decided to add a row of mammen every 5 or 6 rows. It helped a little bit with the twisting but not enough. I really do dislike the York Stitch, mostly because of the twisting but I also find it very slow to do.

Mammen Stitch, on the other hand, is the stitch I tend to go to more often than not. It is denser than Oslo but doesn't use as much yarn as the Broden, Dalby, or Aisle stitches.

This is the first pair of socks I have made using the reducing heel method. Previous socks had been made using the slipper method where you made the toe then made a tongue for the bottom of the sock. The reducing method is the one seen in the Coppergate sock and seems to hold up to regular usage as opposed to the tongue method.

Nalbinding: Playing with Connections

I haven't done another hat recently but I was asked to make another pair of socks for the spouse. I decided I wanted to try playing with the connection B1+F1, the same connection used on the Aisle Mitten. With the Aisle Mitten the rows are very tight on one side and smooth on the other and fabric is very dense, making it really good for heat retention and water resistance.

I decided to use the same connection but with the Mammen Stitch. I don't know what I was expecting but I was definitely delighted to find that my efforts resulted in a fabric with a tight set on rows on one and a smooth surface on the other. The fabric isn't quite as dense as with the Aisle stitch but it is still dense enough to make for a great winter sock here in Canada.