Not the kind you put powder in, the sort they had way before that...
I had this horn kicking around for about 15 years that I have tried to sell to one of the viking people I know to make a drinking horn from. Apparently that is too much work or something? It sat around unsold for 15 years. Now I don't want a drinking horn, I like to be able to sit my drink down without an engineering degree so I decided to make a hunting horn instead.
Now I did not want it to look like a fox hunters show piece, I wanted it to look rough like something that got beat around crawling through Sherwood Forest looking for outlaws. I sanded most of the roughness out of the horn with 80 grit and worked up to 150 grit. Still I did not want it to be so smooth that it looked regal or anything so I left a lot of the wear marks the cow actually put on the horn before he gave it to me.
After it was reasonably smoothed down, I cut the solid tip off and drilled it out to carve a mouthpiece. I drilled out the rest of the solid tip of the horn and reversed the tip (now a mouthpiece) and glued it into place.
I did not want any fancy metal or brass on it so I cut and shaped two strips of goat rawhide that still had the hair on it, and soaked and stretched it, smeared the back with glue and sewed it on along with the carry strap. Once the rawhide shrunk back into place it all became one.
The thinner you get the horn the more it resonates but I wanted one that you could sit on by accident and did not have to think much about. I can get some pretty good decibels out of it (after some practice) but my friend Pete used to be a bugle player and can make the thing holler.
The only thing I had for a pattern was the memory of a horn on the Robin Hood statue that I saw in Nottingham so I am pretty impressed at how simple it was to knock off a real screamer. Now when the viking people are hung over in the morning I can make them wish they bought the horn off me years ago.
I had this horn kicking around for about 15 years that I have tried to sell to one of the viking people I know to make a drinking horn from. Apparently that is too much work or something? It sat around unsold for 15 years. Now I don't want a drinking horn, I like to be able to sit my drink down without an engineering degree so I decided to make a hunting horn instead.
Now I did not want it to look like a fox hunters show piece, I wanted it to look rough like something that got beat around crawling through Sherwood Forest looking for outlaws. I sanded most of the roughness out of the horn with 80 grit and worked up to 150 grit. Still I did not want it to be so smooth that it looked regal or anything so I left a lot of the wear marks the cow actually put on the horn before he gave it to me.
After it was reasonably smoothed down, I cut the solid tip off and drilled it out to carve a mouthpiece. I drilled out the rest of the solid tip of the horn and reversed the tip (now a mouthpiece) and glued it into place.
I did not want any fancy metal or brass on it so I cut and shaped two strips of goat rawhide that still had the hair on it, and soaked and stretched it, smeared the back with glue and sewed it on along with the carry strap. Once the rawhide shrunk back into place it all became one.
The thinner you get the horn the more it resonates but I wanted one that you could sit on by accident and did not have to think much about. I can get some pretty good decibels out of it (after some practice) but my friend Pete used to be a bugle player and can make the thing holler.
The only thing I had for a pattern was the memory of a horn on the Robin Hood statue that I saw in Nottingham so I am pretty impressed at how simple it was to knock off a real screamer. Now when the viking people are hung over in the morning I can make them wish they bought the horn off me years ago.
