How much for a cas o dat er rummin you drabit piece of land lovin scum, youd be a son of a worken woman you nasty little tripe eatin good for nuttin oyster. What’s ye callin urself by dis day?

Well, do no be silent as i stand at attention you filthy dogged piece of mouldy stale bread.

Geronimho!

bahaha your a rusty nail callin yourself by  name of an hammer. bahaha. You be no geronimho, you canne be, ur but a boy o 12.

I do ne tink you know the mout dat you be wabberin you blackened chimney sweeping haggard smelt. Dont ya be getting too big fur ur one rotten shoe, n hurry up n pass me dat rum i a call fur.
Gerohnimo was a blackend shite o a soul, well passed his day o glory so i mite say. Oyo.
Left his parts at di end o mi scabbard and den a mout o a trashin monster in ol locker o Davey.

Were be ur jerky an smaffs. Get me ten o em smaffs. I feckn lov em smaffs, get em hury boy. You dented tin cup headed sea trout mouted octopuse tentacle. Get em en mi pack aye. DONT u bet gettin smart n touchin dat er at you purple little blister. Feckin gobshite.

Fill dis ere bottle by wata, and havit i be not a payin fur it. no wit eve one peso of dat wretched king o spain.
Oyo girlohmineo now be you watchin me kick the living boards outa o yer fettered farders door. bahaha.
O an ere be a penny fur ur tears on de end o is belt, u ugly treedwellin hog.

I be off like da wind u little toad.
nd so be your name changed,
Next time i pass dis ere road.
oyoyoyoyoyooyoyoyoy oyo oyo oyo oyo oyo oyo oyo

ooooooooyyyyyyooooooooooo

A bilge suckin horrid shite lef me en es ere colony o lepers n josh franked shite eaten powder munkeys.
Lef me wit naut dooblins n a right hangover from a fowl knock to the skol.
Finish me off in de sea so ee taught… Feckin sprog.

ell Stil av mi hat an me head tank you very mooch.

aha oyoyo dat  twisted alf witted shite. Head for a rock in a wooden box, i’ll av is eye fur it trew. I’ll Keelaul is sorrid state back n fort while  some lassy pour at loovely rummin awash me face, so i wil. Ar, watch his skin rub of on em barnacles o his ol boat.
Ar. ..feckin slimy little kelp eatn slug.
Lef me no choice but to slit ese ere 25  necks by scabbard.
no choice boot Commandeer is ere vessel by name Drake.
No choice ba running back to sea ta get awash from ese ere squiffies,
an ta get some revenge a da hornswaglin bilge rat.

An so it goes i be taken ol drake from er majestie,
with a Black spot to mi name for an orrid act o common piracie.
oyo oyo oyo oyo oyyyy

The full set of photos contain lots of stone and metalworking as well.

Stone, bronze and iron age

Burnt stones and flint, leatherworker’s rubbing bone fragments and pebbles. Family cist grave, Patrickholm, 2100BC-1750BC

Bone axe-headed pins. Orkneys, AD0-600

Weaving comb and leather fragments. The triangular piece looks like it might have been from a tent. Newstead, 100-175AD

Bone shuttles, Dun Scurrival and Elsay, horn(?) weaving tablets, Burrian, Jarlshof, Keill, Tain, Keiss 200BC-AD200

Bone dice, Newstead and Sty Wick Bay AD1-200

Broxmouth, Burgar, Hillswick, Howmae, Newstead and Thrumster, 200BC-AD400

Bone, metal and wooden British leatherworking tools. Awls from Ruberslaw, Burrian, Druimvargie Cave, Foshigarry, Knop of Howar, MacArthur Cave, Skara Brae, Torran Dubh, Buiston and Newstead. 8500BC-900AD
Needles from Hillhead, West Grange of Conon and Laws of Monifieth. 300BC-800AD.

200BC-AD800

Making antler combs 200BC-AD800

Comb blanks and flat plates 200BC-AD800

Bone pins, Kerrera, Buiston, Burrian, Jarlshof and North Uist, Covesea. AD500-1100

Bone pins, Skara Brae, Broxmouth, Jarlshof, Roughout.

Bone pins, AD600-1000 Burrian, Foshigarry, Jarlshof

Bone combs, pendants, handles and belt sliders, AD500-1100. H.KL3

Bone needle cases, Freswick and Vallay AD800-1100
Bronze needles and bodkins, Balevullin, Freswick, Newstead, Swandro and Traprain Law 200BC-AD1000
Bronze shears, Loch Erribol, AD1-200.

Pin beaters used in weaving. A’Cheardach Mhor, Dunbar and Jarlshof. 200BC-AD400

Bone needles and bodkins. A’Cheardach Mohr, Burrian, Foshigarrt, Freswick, Jarlshof, Keiss & Newstead. 200BC-AD1000

I think this little fellow is walrus ivory, a game piece in the shape of a cowled figure from Mail in the Orkneys, AD750-800. He looks similar to the hooded figures shown on the Pictish standing stones of the period.

Bone comb from a pagan male Viking grave from a Viking and native cemetery on Orkney. Eighth-ninth century. The museum shows the grave as excavated.

Bone Mattock, knife and tool handles. Foshigarry, Vallay, Burrian, Cairston and Stromness. 200BC-AD800

Medieval

Antler comb from a woman’s grave, Cnip, c. AD1000.

Bone needle case with remains of metal needles. Woman’s grave, Cnip, c. AD1000.

Bonework debris, Bac Mhic Connain, Borough of Biordsay, Foshigarry, Gurness, Jarlshof and Westray, 4000BC-AD1500

Knight from the Isle of Lewis chess set. This one’s a token effort. I’ll cover all the pieces in another post as I’ve been chasing them around the various musea that have them. Walrus Ivory, found in Uig, Lewis in 1831. Other pieces are in the British Museum. H.NS19023, H.NS 25-9.

Leather belt pieces and bone awls with off-cuts from leatherworking, from Fast Castle, Berwickshire.

Early Modern

Powder horn belonging to James Graham, 1st Marquess of Montrose (25 October 1612 – 21 May 1650), his arms are engraved in the silver base plate.

I’ve finally finished the first cut of the NMS photos. Here for your edification and viewing pleasure is the first lot of leather photos. I’ll do the skeletal materials photos in another post, and I’ve already done the leatherworker’s toolkit elsewhere. Click on them to embiggen if you want a closer view.

The full set of photos contain lots of stone and metalworking as well, I’ll also get the textiles and paint photos up in the Fullness of Time™.

Stone, bronze and iron age

Weaving comb and leather fragments. The triangular piece looks like it might have been from a tent. Newstead, 100-175AD

Embossed and decorated leather chamfron panel, Newstead. 75-100AD

The one-piece shoe on the left is from Newstead (2nd C), the wooden last from Buiston and the two piece shoe from Iona (both 6-8th C). This is one of the problems with the NMS, they group similar items together even though there may be several centuries apart and from different cultures and imply a relationship between the objects that doesn’t necessarily exist.

Multi-part shoes, Newstead 2nd Century AD. There’s at least two and possibly three different styles of shoe here.

Multi-part shoes, Newstead 2nd Century AD. There’s some unrelated leather working tools on the top shelf.

British leatherworking tools. Knives from Cairnholly, Cleughhead, Luce Sands, Traprain Law and Camelon. 7500BC-900AD. At least the dates are fairly obvious on this set, even if it does cover nearly 8000 years. The shoe is from Newstead.

British leatherworking tools. Awls from Ruberslaw, Burrian, Druimvargie Cave, Foshigarry, Knop of Howar, MacArthur Cave, Skara Brae, Torran Dubh, Buiston and Newstead. 8500BC-900AD
Needles from Hillhead, West Grange of Conon and Laws of Monifieth. 300BC-800AD.

Medieval

Leather shoes from the lead mining site at Sillerholes, West Linton, Peeblesshire. 13th to 14th century.

Leather belt pieces and bone awls with off-cuts from leatherworking, from Fast Castle, Berwickshire.

Leather shoe soles. The one on the right is a child’s size. 15-16th century.

Early Modern

Shoe sole detail, Tomb of Mary Queen of Scots. 1606-12. The cut in the sole for hiding the welting [see comment below] sole stitches can be clearly seen.

Large bombard from the 17th century, four layers of leather in the handle, possible traces of red paint on the back edge. H.JS32.

I have some detail photos here.

Scottish Bollock Knives, 17th C

L: With gilt and engraved decoration indicating it belonged to the Master of Home. H.1991.1865.1

R: with scabbard and gilt and decoration on the blade, dated 1617. Scottish, probably Edinburgh. H.LC. 111a and b.

Note the diamond cross-section. Most earlier daggers of this type have triangular cross-section blades.

I’ve arranged the photos by item type, starting with archery equipment and then move on to other items. You may have seen some of these photos before but hopefully most of them will be new. The photos also link through to my Flikr account. I’ll update the descriptions when more information becomes available.

Archery Equipment

Leather bracer embossed with the royal arms of Henry VIII.

Left: Ivory bracer with leather straps. Right: leather bracer, with stamped rosettes.

Left hand mitten (both mittens found were for the left hand). I suspect these were used to protect the bow hand when shooting fire arrows from a longbow. The triangular shape of the thumb cut out can be clearly seen.

Fingertip detail of left hand mitten (both mittens found were for the left hand). 260mm long, 150mm wide at widest point. Unidentified leather, the other one found (81A3292 was sheepskin). The leather was stitched with the flesh sides together, then turned inside out so the seams were hidden/protected.

Mary Rose arrow spacer. These would commonly be used with a linen canvas bag and be slung off a waist belt.

Mary Rose arrow spacer with the remains of arrow shafts in situ. These would commonly be used with a linen canvas bag and be slung off a waist belt.

Leather Bottles and Buckets

Back of Mary Rose leather flask 79A1232, 282mm high, 213mm wide and 57mm deep. Stitching is original and there is still some sealing pitch present. This bottle is asymetrical - the front is much more deeply curved than the back.

Mary Rose leather bottle of the costrel form, 81A0881. Front is decorated with three vertical ridges with a double zigzag pattern between the ridges and to either side. There are several pairs of parallel tooled lines including a large inverted V and various rectangles on the base and back. The inside is coated with an unidentified subastance. The photo was taken in low-light conditions inside the museum, colours may not be accurate.

Mary Rose leather bottle of the costrel form, 81A1214 was found in a chest along with some personal items and woodworking tools. Front and back are decorated with five pairs of parallel lines from top to bottom, framed by a horizontal line at the base and two parallel lines across the shoulders and neck. There are two asterisks on the base, with a saltaire cross (X) diagonally between them, and a saltaire cross on each end. There are reinforcing pieces in the shoulders/lugs and a gasket piece around the inside of the neck. There is the remains of a waterproof coating on the inside surface.

Reconstructed Mary Rose leather bucket. The leather buckets all have rust marks from iron handle rings and some have the remains of pitch sealing, indicating they were water rather than powder buckets.

Mary Rose Leather Bucket handle close-up

Footwear

Height separated welted shoe components from the Mary Rose (possibly 81A1861) showing the way the layers go together. The colour of the label corresponds to the colour code on the chart behind.

Assorted shoe parts found in the 2002/3 dig.

Shoe quarter from a type 1 shoe, displaying a topband in place.

Type 1 shoe (high slip on with the throat raised by the extension of the front of the quarters).

Museum display showing the differences between type 1 (high slip ons with the throat raised by the extension of the front of the quarters) and type 2 (slip on shoes with straight throated vamp and straight top edge on the quarters.

Replacement partial shoe sole cut from an old bucket. The lines of stitching can be clearly seen, and can the incised arrow marking it as the king

Replacement partial shoe sole cut from an old bucket. The shaded area indicates which part of the bucket the sole was cut from.

Mary Rose type 3 thighboot (rounded toe, turn/welt construction, secured with four straps), there

Mary Rose find 79A0877 type 3 thighboot (rounded toe, turn/welt construction, secured with four straps), outer and innersole. There

Scabbards and Furniture

A display of leather scabbards from bollock knives (top, centre) and a rapier (bottom) together with the copper alloy fillings used to support them.

Rapier scabbard with incised decoration and hanging strap.

Mid-section of rapier scabbard with incised decoration and hanging strap.

Mary Rose bollock knife scabbard with stamped decoration, the scabbard has two compartments, one for the bollock knife and one for a by-knife.

Pouches

Fine embossed bovine leather, 275mm x 190mm showing the inner flap and the inside of the outer flap. Outer flap is lined with silk, the inner flap is two layers of leather stitched with the skin sides together.

Detail of the silk inside of the outer flap of 81A2685, 275mm x 190mm. False colours due to low light levels in the museum.

Top:An unidentified Type 1 Leather pouch Bottom: An unidentified leather pouch.

Fine embossed calf leather, 278mm x 197mm. The inner flap is plain. Type 1 pouches have two sections for storage, the larger is the same width and height as the outside of the pouch, the smaller is stitched in position between the inner and outer flap. Unlike the other type 1s, this one has a third pouch in front of the others.

I’d been given a combat-grade saex with a forged iron blade, leather bound scale tang hilt (the scales were two thickish slices of a branch with the bark still attached) with held together with rough steel rivets. The point was 10mm in diameter and the “edge” was 3mm thick. It had seen some use in combat and was rough, ugly and I couldn’t get my hand all the way around the hilt, but you don’t look a forged blade in the mouth. It didn’t take me long to reshape the point and file and grind an edge, and there was enough meat on the tang for me to be able to turn it into a whittle tang. I made the hilt from a carved lamb bone from a roast we had, with 3mm brass plates at each end. The tang passes through the backplate and is peened over. The buckles are made from the same lamb leg as the hilt, using opposite sides of the lower end of the femur near the joint. I then needed to make the scabbard.

Saex scabbard, loosely based on one from Jorvik. The original has much coarser knotwork but still shows paint in the same colours.

I knew of an illustration on the Regia Anglorum website and spent a ridiculious amount of time trying to work out the knotwork design. I relied heavily on contemporary manuscript knotwork, and drew the techniques from the MoL Knives and Scabbards book. I got it wrong.

This is the original illustration I was working from. If anything, I've been able to clean it up a bit.

It wasn’t until we got to York in 2003 that I realised that I was too keen to see the manuscript knotwork on the leather and that I’d misunderstood how the scabbard was used. The knife should fit almost completely in the scabbard, with the different knotworks corresponding to the blade and the hilt.  Here’s a photo of two similar scabbards I took in Jorvik:

Two saex scabbards at Jorvik.

The upper one shows similar punch work to this one from the Yorkshire Museum up the road.

Saex and knife scabbards in the Yorkshire Museum

The one on the right is discussed in another post. The one on the left is the one I attempted here. I’m happy with the stamped decoration along the edge of the blade, but the knotwork is completely wrong and the execution is 11th-13th century. I’ll have to remake it one day, but I need to work out if I have to shorten the blade first. The York postcard below shows someone else’s interpretation of a couple of scabbard, they have their own problems but aren’t bad.

Postcard: Replica leather knife sheath from The Jorvik Viking Centre.

I suppose the moral of the story is to make sure your references are clear before you begin anything.

References

 J. Cowgill, M. de Neergaard,  N. Griffiths, Knives and Scabbards (Medieval Finds from Excavations in London), HMSO London, 1987

Regia Anglorum, http://www.regia.org/, accessed 26 April 2006.

These photos are from our visit to the Museum of London in 2006. The light levels in the museum can be quite low, so the photos sometimes are underexposed. The level of detail on the placards was also fairly limited, but most of these items have been published by the MoLAS if you want to read up further.

I’ll keep the captions brief and to the point.

Roman leatherworking tools found around London, 1-3C AD.

Leatherworking tools, about 14th century. The small costrel in the middle is often cited as evidence for sand moulding. I can't see how you'd sand mould the ribs or why you'd need to once you'd moulded the ends and neck.

Small decorated knife sheath, 15th century.

Leather glove, 15th c. from Bankside Southwark. The cutout for the thumb stall is teardrop shaped, there is a repaired tear across the mitten.

Leather costrel, 1400s. More on these in a later blog.

Arrow spacer, 1400-1500. These were sewn into linen arrow bags, protecting the feathers from crushing. The small notches allow small broadheads to pass through. We've made a copy of this one and found it worked really well.

Archer's armguard, 1500-1550. Found in Worship Street, another of virtually identical shape was found in Newport, Wales.

Leather ink well.

Stylus case for holding styli for use with wax tablets.

Jack, 15th-17th century from the shape of the handle - the pewter lid is a later addition. Compare this with the ones at Warwick Castle.

Jack, handle view. The twist in the body is caused by uneven tension when sewing the back seam. I've only done it this severly once.

Iron-bound leather fire bucket. I suspect this is late 17th century or even more recent.

Sewn leather fire bucket. Decoration is painted, the letters "SB" on the top row, "B" in the middle and the date "1666" on the bottom row.

Pen knife and moulded leather case. Mid-17th century.

Front left: Leather tennis ball, stuffed with dog hair.

Paints

Appropriate paints include tempera, gouache and oils. The selection of paint  depends on the period being represented by the object. Tempera predates Egypt, and was still commonly used until superceded in about 1500. Gouache paints were in use in the early 1400s in mainland Europe and probably migrated into the UK shortly after. The name originally applied to a completely different paint, taking it’s modern form in the 19th century.

Contrary to many claims about a much later date of invention, Theophilus, writing in the early12th century disussed the preparation and use of oil paints using linseed oil as the medium and rosin as the binder (Book 1, Chapter 25). I suspect the Warwick jacks are crested with an oil-based paint. More relevant to us here, he also gave a couple of recipes for a varnish made from linseed and rosin (Book 1, Chapter 20).

Each of the types of paint have their pros and cons, oil paints are easy to use and waterproof when dry, but dry slowly and continue to oxidise and darken as they age. You’ll need to use at least three coats to get any colour density. Gouaches are better at covering than oils, and dry quickly, but aren’t waterproof when dry. I usually thin with a few drops of gum arabic to improve water resistance and then compensate by doing two coats. Tempera is hard to get unless you grind and mix your own, it has most of the benefits of gouache but is often fugitive.

Purists may skip this next section while we discuss modern paints. Art quality acrylics work wonderfully over large areas or in places where the object is likely to get wet: I use acrylics for objects used by kids due to the wearing properties and water resistance. The bigest benefit is flexibility – acrylics can be used on soft items or things that have a bit of spring without flaking. Acrylics aren’t capable of flowing the way gouaches and oils do, so don’t suit my painting style. They also tend to bead when applied in fine lines, so can’t achieve the same clarity as gouache. 

Gel inks  provide good coverage and can be used to provide very fine lines, so can be used to compensate for the shortcomings of acrylics. You have to have a good eye for colour to be able to match the acrylic paint with the gel. These come in pen form with a steel rolling ball, so can be used for fine lines on knotwork that would have originally been done with a steel nib or crow quill. The black comes in handy for correcting the bits where you go slightly outside the lines.

Modern enamels are a pigment in a synthetic oil base. I’ve never tried them on leather, if you have, let me know how they go. I can’t see any reason why they wouldn’t work, but may be a bit brittle on flexible objects.

Metal foils and leaf are a great way of highlighting detail. Use the same methods that you would for applying leaf to parchment.

Layout/Transfer

My sketching tends to be fussy and not suited to easily transfer to leather. For these things, I do my layouts by finding an image on the Internet or in books, bung it in a word processor and then put any text required around it. Here’s one I prepared earlier.

Design for James' jack

This design was a commission for a jack for James’ birthday. The arms in the were taken from a larger design done by Wendel Hollar for the Honorable Artillery Company in 1643. I’ve removed the supporters, the crest and the mantling. The arms are considerably older than this, but it does show the correct form during the period in question. The initials IW are used as the letter I was commonly used in place of J in the early modern period. The year 1641 is arbitrary, but as James is younger than me, it seemed appropriate that his jack showed a newer date than mine. Paint colours come from a slightly later colour print. 

The design was printed and transfered to the leather using one of a few different techniques. If it’s a flat design painted directly on to the finished leather, I cheat and transfer the design with yellow or white ”carbon” paper available from larger haberdashers – that’s why the red pen outline is on the design above.

Left: IW 1641, with the arms of the HAC, Right: WR 1639, with the arms of the Order of Prince Arthur, a company of archers

 For embossed or chased designs I do the work before dyeing the leather by poking small holes along the lines with a needle or awl and after securing to the leather, rub powered charcoal or chalk through the holes, then remove the paper and join the dots before embossing, often using the back of a butter knife to start. Once the relief work is done, the leather is dyed and sewn and then painted.

The pattern and leather with the linear elements of the design embossed.

 I didn’t end up painting the one above, but the principle is the same. Try to avoid handling the area you’ll be painting, particularly if using water based paint as the oil from your fingers will cause the paint to bead and cover unevenly.

Painting

In a manner somewhat reminiscient of the Monty Python Blue Peter sketch, now paint the design. It takes some practice to get paint to flow properly on leather, particularly if the grain is particularly deep. Pick something easy to start off with and don’t be afraid to wash it all off, let it dry and have another go.

Finishing

Again, I look to Theophilus and varnish over the painted design. If I’m using gouache, I’ll use three or four coats of varnish to improve the water resistance and then a good coat of bees wax polish. The jack on the right in the top photo has been in use for nearly 10 years, the only time I had problems with the paint running was last Easter when it was used in a re-enactment tavern in a river valley where the humidity was always over 90%. It was continually wet for four days straight and the bottoms of the serifs started to bleed on the evening of the last day.

See my earlier “Care and Feeding” for more tips on maintaining your painted leather for a good working life.

Examples

Saex scabbard, loosely based on one from Jorvik. The original has much coarser knotwork but still shows paint in the same colours. Gouache on the leather, the bone has a black paste worked into the groves. The bone buckles and hilt came from a lamb roast.

Costrel neck, in the style of one from the Mary Rose, 1545. It was to have been a copy, but I got the length wrong and had to use different shaped ends to compensate. Gouache on leather.

Lincoln Imp mask and tail based on the imps around Lincoln Catherdral. Moulded leather mask and horns, embossed ears and tail. The hair is an old fur stole. Acrylic paint and gold leaf.

References

Baker, O.,  BLACK JACKS AND LEATHER BOTTELLS: Being some account of Leather Drinking Vessels in England and incidentally of other Ancient Vessels,  England 1921

Preservation Brief 28 – Painting Historic Interiors, http://www.nps.gov/hps/TPS/briefs/brief28.htm, accessed 2 October 2009

Theophilus, On Diverse Arts, http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/theophilus.html, accessed 2 October 2009

Paint

Glenda had won a small knife with a rosewood handle a few years earlier and Iwanted to make a scabard for it. The one shown below from Parliament Street, York seemed to fit the bill. It was rather nice to have both sides of the original for once so I could see how the pattern should be laid out on the leather.

 As the blade of the new knife was straight, I simplified the design by omitting the raised section along the back of the blade. Many of the Saxon knife scabbards I’ve seen cover both the blade and most of the hilt, and have different patterns on each section of the scabbard to indicate which is where.

When making knife scabbards, I make a copy of the knife in wood to use as a last so I can mould the leather to the knife shape without rusting the blade or staining the leather black from the iron in the blade. Some people just wrap the knife in plastic and use that, but I enjoy making the wooden model and sometimes draw the hilt decoration on to see if the design works in three dimensions.

Make the pattern on paper by tracing one side of the knife, then the back, then the other side, allowing a bit extra for the bend radius of the leather (I allow half the leather thickness at each right angle bend), some more for the stitching margin and just a bit more for good luck. Then I draw the design of the scabard decoration. Using the awl or a sharp needle, prick small holes in the paper at the intersections and at sufficient points along the lines that the pattern will come through. Lay the pattern on the leather and mark the outside. I use a fine black felt-tipped pen and kid myself that it’s okay because 17th century embroidery was marked up with black ink and a crow quill. Put the perforated pattern on top of the leather and rub some ground charcoal or chalk through the perforations in the pattern. Join the dots with a pencil or ink if you like.

The pattern and leather with the linear elements of the design embossed.

Dampen the leather and emboss the lines using the back of the butter knife. I find curves are easier if you roll the knife towards the point as you folow the curve. The photo below shows the stamps – a couple of bits of knocked off the corner of a fence post, a nail with the point knocked off and a curved bit of scrap iron from a spearhead socket. The spots along the bottom edge were done with the back of a series of different sized drill bits.

Home made punches from odd bits laying around

 Once the embossing was finished, I dampened the leather again, wrapped it around the last , taking care to shape the flare from the flat blade to the round hilt and stitched the seam. While still damp, I dyed it by dipping in a tray of spirit based leather dye.

Saxon scabbard, the girdle loop is fingerbraided. Knife by Alex Schiebner, Talerwin Forge.

I took this photo in 2003 of the original, the scabbard looks much straighter than the report drawing.

Reference: Tweddle, D., The Archaeology of York The Small Finds 17/4 — Finds from Parliament Street and Other Sites in the City Centre. York Archaeological Trust, 1986.

Reproduction Rus knife, 9th century

The knife is based on photos taken by Chris Morgan at The Hermitage museum in Russia and augmented by photos I took of similar period knives in the Yorkshire Museum in York. To be honest, the blade isn’t the shape I’d first planned, but the steel didn’t want to be that shape so it’s the same as another one that the steel was happy with from the place and date. My black smithing skills are a work in progress. The scabbard is also more complex than the first one I’d chosen, I had planned to do a plainer/easier one but when Glenda’s socks arrived I realised how much effort went in to them and stepped up a notch.

The steel is a medium-carbon (0.6%) cutlery steel from a billet left over from the 1940s that I was given on the proviso that I used it to make “medieval” knives. Hilt is a lamb leg bone, left over from a roast dinner, fittings are brass, the scabbard is 2mm vegetable tanned top grain leather, dyed with one coat of red Raven Oil and one of whisky Raven Oil. The chain is made from fine wire that I thought may be steel, but now suspect is stainless florist wire. Fittings on the chain are tinned brass.

I tried to do as much as practicable with hand tools. The blade was forged and heat treated, then ground to shape. The bone was cleaned, boiled and then left in the sun for the ants to finish off for a couple of months. Dot-circles were done using a tool made from a large iron nail, turned in a drill. I figure they could have used a bow drill to do the job. The brass edge strip was made by working sheet over an iron mock-up of the finished scabbard edge, and the rides in the bands were done in repousse using a block of Sydney Grey Gum (farmed on site) with a groove cut in it and a piece of 3mm brass rod tapped in from behind with a hammer.

My initial sketches of the blade and hilt

The blade and hilt were assembled, and then the leather was wet, wrapped around the knife and clamped to dry. The brass cross and diamonds were cut, embossed using repousse techniques of the Viking period, and then attached to the mounting rings with riveted brass strips.

Initial scabard sketch

Assembly was a simple matter of holding it all together and banging a few rivets in. After that, the scabbard and knife had the various bits of trim attached with rings. The bells on the hilt serendipitously came from a new skirt Glenda had just bought. The kids were annoyed by the ringing, so they were removed and became surplus. Due to my habit of corroding metal, I wore light leather gloves throughout, and lacquered the hilt and scabbard once complete. The blade has been lightly treated with olive oil.

 Original Examples

The knife in question.

The knife on the right is the one I’d originally planned to do… the bands on the scabbard and the edge are really from this knife.

And some of its friends showing off bone hilts. The top two show a similar flare at the back.

9th century bone handled Viking knife, Yorkshire Museum

Care

Basically, keep out of the rain, and dry the knife if it gets wet. The blade and bone parts of the hilt could do with an occasional wipe with olive oil, and at least once a year, feed the leather parts of the scabbard by waxing with a commercial pure bees’ wax and turpentine furniture polish from a reputable furniture store, and buff off. I’m happy to do any necessary repairs short of a complete remake.

Sources

Thanks go to Chris Morgan for supplying photographs and design consultation.

Ivarsson, Hersir Ragnar, Accoutrements, www.vikingagevessels.org/documents/D_ACCOUTREMENTS.pdf  accessed 26/08/2005

Stevens, Lora-Lynn, Viking Chain Knitting (Trichinopoly Chainwork), http://userweb.suscom.net/~apolloniavoss/projects.htm#TrichinopolyChainworkClassHandouts, accessed 12/09/2005

Wiseman, N, Knitting with Wire, Interweave Press, 2003

York Archaeological Trust, YAT AWY3 Anglo-Scandinavian and Roman remains at 28 – 29 High Ousegate http://www.iadb.co.uk/waterstones/intro.htm

York Archaeological Trust, YAT AWY7 Excavations at 62-68 Low Petergate http://www.iadb.co.uk/ayw7/index.htm

There. Now showing off is safely out of the way, lets get on with the construction. All three are based on scabbards from London in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. Interestingly, there appears to be a decline in the number of scabbards found during this time, but no corresponding decrease in the number of knife finds. This reflects a change in men’s fashion, where wearing a scabbarded knife was no longer de rigueur. In fact, there are a total of three scabbards known from this period, two of traditional construction, and one showing all the techniques of bookbinding instead. It is this last one I copied for the regimental scabbards, taking a bit of artistic licence making it one of a matched pair. Apart from it being a chance to practice my embossing skills, the main reason for the choice was that there is no stitching for careless people to cut when putting the knives back.
The top of the original scabbard is damaged, so I’ve based the way they fit the knife handles on some earlier scabbards and an early 17th century pen knife in the Museum of London.
After making a paper pattern and roughly cutting the leather to shape, the leather was dampened and shaped by stretching and clamping around wooden knife-shaped formers the same shape but slightly thicker than each knife.
The gluing was done once the leather was dry, before any of the design was applied. This was mainly to ensure that the shape was more or less final and embossed parallel lines were approximately parallel and the lines going around the blades didn’t spiral. If I’d done the embossing first, it would have changed shape where the leather stretched. If you prefer to do the embossing flat and then mould and glue, go ahead: that’s how I do scabbards with knot work designs where distortion of the design is less noticeable.
The design consists of stamped diamonds, fleur-de-lis and arabesques, framed with straight lines and highlighted with short parallel lines and dots. I made the diamond and lily stamps from scraps of metal lying about, the thin curves from the edge of a bit of thin steel cut off a forged spearhead socket, the rondelling with a plastic gear from elder son’s Meccano and the dots with an old bit of brass rod. The frame was embossed in the now traditional method with the back of a butter knife. The leather is 1.6mm veg tanned cow hide, glue was contact cement because I knew these would have a tough life and finished with olive oil, which protects the leather but is also food-safe.

References

Egan, G., Material Culture in London in an Age of Transition – Tudor and Stuart period finds c1450-c1700 from Excavations at Riverside Sites in Southwark MoLAS Monograph 19, London, 2005