The theme for this round was to create something to keep your recipient warm during the cold winter months. Well, I don't sew, so my initial ideas (a hood, mittens) were right out. But then I thought, what better way to warm up on a snowy, bitter day than with a piping hot mug of cocoa?
My recipient was Mistress Giraude Benet from Calontir. She provided a link to her heraldry in the questionnaire, which was great! Eagerly, I clicked the link...and then I groaned. A semy of crosses! Oy. That would be a tooling challenge.
Nonetheless, I got to work. I cut the mug from a side of veg-tanned cow hide, and drilled the stitching holes. Then I started the tooling.
The crosses were as frustrating as I had anticipated. After fighting with the first one for more than an hour, I gave up for that night, convinced I had ruined the whole thing. The next day, however, I gave it another go. It was still rough, but I eventually worked out a stamping pattern that seemed to work.
Once the tooling was complete, I stitched the handle and the bottom using waxed linen thread and a saddle stitch. Then I soaked the entire piece in cool water and inserted a mould (in this case, a cannister of spray glue!) to shape the blackjack. I set it aside to dry for a couple of days.
In hindsight, the cannister wasn't be best choice as a mould. Extracting it from the blackjack after it dried was nearly impossible, because there was no good way to grip it firmly enough to pull with force. It took a lot of wiggling and gentle prying to finally extract it. Next time, I'll look for something with a better handle!
Once the cannister was out, it was time to seal the leather. The exterior of the blackjack is sealed with beeswax, which I melted in a crockpot and applied with a soft-bristled brush. I applied an extra-thick layer along the seams, to prevent the inner sealant from seeping out.
The inner sealant is Envirotex Lite, a completely modern epoxy. Using this sealant instead of a historic alternative allows the blackjack to be used for beverages that are hot, acidic, or strongly alcoholic--options that are not available if it is sealed with beeswax or pitch.
All together, there are three coats of sealant inside the blackjack. Each coat had to dry for twenty-four hours before the next could be applied.
After the last coat of sealant had set, I placed the blackjack inside a warm oven, heated to 195 degrees Fahrenheit. This temperature allowed the excess wax to melt off, without risking the boiling of any lingering moisture, which could ruin the entire piece.
The initial applicating of wax absorbed very unevenly into the leather, which I only discovered after the excess was melted away. I decided to apply a second coat to the entire exterior of the blackjack, and then repeated the process to melt away the excess. This improved the evenness, though there were still some irregularities. I was leery of trying a third application, however, and decided that the variations were probably due to a natural characteristic of this particular leather.
No comments:
Post a Comment