Dark age meet up?

[Toddy]

Oh, that sounds good
Is there anything we can bring to help ? I know Russ will be interested in the forge
I can get bronze, silver and pewter if it's of use. Somewhere there's some casting sand........no idea if I can find it though

atb,
Toddy

 

[Wayland]

I'll bring my silver working kit along too, that'll give us a good supply of tools to work with if you need any.

 

[Eric_Methven]

Excellent Gary. If you don't mind, I'd like to take some detailed photos of you silver working tools with a view to replicating them some day. I take it they would also be suitable for working pewter?

Eric

 

[Singeblister]

yeh anyone who can bring materials to work with would be great , regarding tools are we alowed to use modern day tools ?

 

[Eric_Methven]

yeh anyone who can bring materials to work with would be great , regarding tools are we alowed to use modern day tools ?

Generally speaking, I do use some modern tools, but not if they are powered or have plastic or composite handles. I have modern chisels and wooden handled craft knives and they seem to be OK for demonstrating - but I don't show them to the public and try to pass them off as authentic. I explain that they are modern equivalents of what would have been available to craftsmen of the period. For leatherwork, most of my tools would have been familiar to Viking/Saxon leatherworkers. I use steel needles though where they may have used boar bristles. I use linen thread and beeswax which they would have done, so it's not that difficult to reproduce items authentically providing the techniques remain true to the period. Purists and thread counters might say no, but that's not why we're going. We're going to have some fun.

On a different matter, can anyone tell me how authentic braided whips might have been in the period? I have a new toy that I'll be bringing along for folks to play with -

If anyone wants to try and make it crack, or even snuff out candles, it'll be there for you to have a go. The whip is 8 feet long.

Eric

 

[xylaria]

I was working in the museum on london in the early ninties when the whip and knickers came in. The whip was a wooden stick with multiple goat orgin(kid?) unbraided leather thongs with knots on the end, and the knickers where hip hugger type in black leather about a size 8. The layer was between 10th and 15th C, I think now it has being decided that the whip was 11C and was it was for maltreating slaves. They got in expert from the amsterdam sex museum to look at them.

OK thats not much help, but it is interesting.

 

[Wayland]

yeh anyone who can bring materials to work with would be great , regarding tools are we alowed to use modern day tools ?

No problem, most of the village is built and maintained using modern tools. If we have an authentic tool great, but if not just use what we have within reason

Power tools are probably not a good idea though...

 

[firecrest]

did they have a good range of colours in their textiles? did they have purple?

 

[Wayland]

did they have a good range of colours in their textiles? did they have purple?

The richer you were the more colours you could afford.

I've seen a rich purple produced from the dyes they had available but it takes some doing.

These colours are all authentic as are many others.

 

[firecrest]

Ah well I was going as a wench, itll just be browns for me.
I tried to email bernie the bolt about wool cloth in the link someone provided but it doesnt appear to give his email address, the link where it says "email" only pops up as the word" email" in my yahoo window.

 

[Eric_Methven]

Ah well I was going as a wench, itll just be browns for me.
I tried to email bernie the bolt about wool cloth in the link someone provided but it doesnt appear to give his email address, the link where it says "email" only pops up as the word" email" in my yahoo window.

His email is:
berniethebolt3@aol.com

Eric

 

[Wayland]

Just so you are aware, I'm going to be off-line for the next ten days so don't panic if I don't reply quickly.

 

[firecrest]

have a good trip. I hope youre offline as your going somewhere nice and you arent just putting the computer in PC world for a repair

 

[Wayland]

Working in Jordie-land.

 

[John Fenna]

Ahh - they aint discovered the "computer" up there yet!

 

[Eric_Methven]

If you're passing Durham, pop in for a cup of tea.

Eric

 

[Wayland]

I will be passing at about 6am....

 

[nickg]

Folks

I have about 1.5kg of pit roasted muntjac venison left over from the New Year meet at Swyns last weekend. Is it worth bringing down with a big cooking pot and use it as the basis of a big stew for all of us (excl the veggies etc). can I get a consensus from evrybody please. we would need a big bag of root veggies and pearl barley, lentils, fresh herbs etc and some stock. Cooked on a slow fire for an hour or so it would be scrummie.
Let me know your thoughts on the idea.

Cheers

Nick

 

[Eric_Methven]

Nick, that would be brilliant. Apart from breaking bread and sharing a meal with friends, it'll be one less meal to lug down on my back.

I went and bought the train tickets today. Got them for £27 for the two of us and that's return as well as booked seats. Not bad considering I would normally spend over a hundred on car hire. So Cameron and I will be travelling down on the Friday at around lunchtime. The train only takes 45 mins compared to 5 hours and twice the cost on the bus. We'll both have rucksacks and I'll drag a shopping trolley with tools and leather (and the other stuff I'm trying to get made for people).

Eric

 

[Cobweb]

That's very good value Eric! Have you got a lift sorted yet?