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.