Mary Rose Knife Recreation

For sale is a walnut handled version of knife #81A0847 on page 147 from Before the Mast.



Another nice simple utilitarian knife with a lobed handle. The rivets are copper, and the handle is finished with danish oil.


Leather sheath will be dyed to buyer's preference. Total including shipping $65.

Flair Hanger with Hardware

The hardware for the cut out hanger is all set. Heather's suggestion of an angular pad hook works really well, and I love the contrast of the bright hardware versus the dark brown/red of the leather.



I decided to use the new buckles I cast from the 16th century original as the buckles for this one and I really like them I'm going to use them as the basis for a complete set of hanger hardware for the future.


It needs a little bit of clean up and then its ready to go. If anyone is interested in picking this one up let me know!

Some new castings

I've been doing some pewter casting lately to add accessories to my 16th Century equipment. Little things like buckles and buttons, as well as attempts at medals and pins. I say attempts because those haven't worked so far. The buttons and buckles however, have.

My wife and I worked on doing some roughs of different buttons from finds ranging in dates from 1300's to the early 1600's. After doing the molds and getting everything set here is the first picture of the small button suite, not cleaned up yet.


From left to right we have:

1. Ridged Cone - 16th C
2. Pyramid - 16th C
3. Ball - 14th-17th C
4. Lantern - No providence
5. Acorn - 16th C
6. Shallow Dome - 14th-17th C
7. Cross - 15th C

I also very pleased to have purchased an original 16th century buckle from Talbot's Fine Accessories. I made a mold of it and the first result is great. I plan on using this on belts and hangers.



So some other fun stuff I've been working on. I've got some larger buttons ready to be cast in the next day or so as well.

16th Century German Knife - Finished, with Sheath

Finished up the clean up on the German knife and added a sheath. Sheath is made from a double layer of 2-3 oz oak tanned leather, stitched with waxed linen thread. I dyed it using Tandy Leather's Mahogony oil based dye and buffed out with some beeswax. As much as I hate to I'm going to be putting this one up for sale shortly on a couple of forums. Cost is going to be $65 shipping included to the US.

Elizabethan Woman's Girdle

Woman's clothing confounds me. It is this mystical set of garments that shapes and moves bits around and has whale bone in it, expensive stuff has pearls sewn into it, and all other sorts of chaos. When you look at artwork you see high status women wearing not a traditional belt, but a jewel encrusted delicate work of art that follows the lines of their clothing and drops down the front showing off wealth, station, and possibly even holding a small book or knife.


My wife Heather and friend Shelly like making jewelry and paternosters (medieval and renaissance prayer beads), and decided to try their hand at making what the 'in crowd' of the renaissance called girdles.



Their first attempt is a bronze colored waist chain that comes to a foliate style hub.


From the hub comes a length of green pearls (yes real ones), polished stones, and quartz.



It is really pretty. They are trying to do more for an event coming up in a couple of weeks, and if this is any indication of how they will turn out, they will be very impressive.

16th Century German Knife - It's a Mystery

When looking for knife images, I stumbled across a mid 16th century German knife that I really liked. It had a clip point and a nice long profile. I promptly have lost the picture of the original, but I did my best to remember the shape. I have no idea where the image is and I have yet to be able to find it in any of my files and in my search-fu of the intarnets. Mystery part one.

This past spring I attended the Prairie du Chein rendezvous and bought a set of red wood scales. I'm pretty sure the purveyor of the store said they were bloodwood, but the label that was on the wood had vanished into thin air so I can't be sure. Mystery part two.


No matter what it actually is, I like it. The wood has an amazing color to it. Deep and bright, the red stands out, especially after the light coat of Danish oil on it. I chose copper rivets to pop through the wood color and their bright nature really stands out. The fact that the blade has a clip point to it makes it different from anything else I have made so far. I really like how this one has turned out. The pictures don't do the wood justice, I find it simply stunning.


All the pieces of the puzzle ended up making this one heck of a knife. I'll be doing a sheath for it as well, just got to figure out what color to dye the leather now. Maybe I'll just mix a bunch of colors together and see what happens.

Ale through the Ages - Gratzer Ale Bottling Day

Last night was bottling night for the Gratzer Ale that was made at the Discovery World Museum's Ale through the Ages program. We headed up to the biology lab on the second floor to see the volunteers hard at work sanitizing equipment. The class participants were invited to bring Polish beers to sample, and we were able to try the same Berliner Weiss from the first class. Another 2 weeks in the keg did amazing things to it. This one was brewed outdoors during one of the Lakefront's many festivals and was inoculated with a wild strain of yeast if I'm not mistaken. The two weeks it spent in the keg between classes changed the beer significantly. It went from a slight thin and sour taste, with citrus notes to a full on sour. It had the horsey sourness of the wild yeast coupled with the citrus notes making it a totally different animal. The acid level tasted high to me, and I started craving some bread and oils to mellow out the flavors in my mouth.

We took a look at the two carboys that were used to ferment the beer and noticed some substantial differences. One carboy was done with a White Labs Kolsch yeast that Keven mentioned too a bit longer to get going. This one did not have any clarifying/fining agents added to it and had a soft amber color that had the distinct haze of a wheat beer. The second carboy was done with a Wyeast German Wheat strain and had Isinglass added as a fining agent. Isinglass is an agent taken from the air bladder of a sturgeon and was used as a clarifying agent historically. This carboy had a darker color to it, and you could see coagulated material in a low suspension. Once we had taken note of the different yeast strains we were instructed on how the bottling would proceed and we began in earnest.

The bottling session is a group affair. One person per carboy manned the bottling wand, filling bottles off the carboy for us. The bottles moved then to a capping table where members of the class vigorously capped the bottles using hand cappers. They then moved down to a labeling table where folks took labels that Kevin had designed and adhered them to the bottle. The process for adhering was interesting as we used a simple 20ld weight paper with laser printing, and milk. The back of the label was dipped into milk and then pressed firmly onto the bottle creating a bond. Excess milk was wiped off and the label was on nice and tight. Kevin said that he had learned the process from a professor of his who was a homebrewer herself. He has had bottles last years with the milk label, but it is susceptible to water, so no ice in the cooler with these. I was on a labeling station and had good conversation with folks around the table while working. It was also nice to sample a few of the smoked ales that people brought to share.

Overall the atmosphere was very relaxed, friendly and an all around good time. When done we were allotted one bottle of each type and if you wanted to stick around and converse a bit there would be left overs. I stuck around for a bit talking to some folks that do history oriented tasks and a few more seasoned brewers about how they do things (and getting tips on my cherry wheat I have going right now) and was able to leave with an extra bottle or two for some good friends that weren't able to make it to this session.

I had a blast and am hoping I'll be able to do more of these. There is a Colonial Porter class in December that sounded great, and Kevin announced three more classes after the first of the year begining with a Medieval Gruit, a traditional Milwaukee wheat, and a Scotch/Irish Heather Ale. I'm hoping some of my brewing compatriots will be able to join me, but even if they don't I know I'm going to try and make it down!

Kevin has put up information from this last session on his site which chronicles the archeology wing of the Discovery World Museum.

http://distantmirror.wordpress.com/