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.
