Parchment
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Ooh, I've got some good stuff on the preparation of parchment for use in rituals of ceremonial magic at home... I'll try and remember to dig it out and post excerpts later. 
But I warn you - it's not that civilised.
But I warn you - it's not that civilised.
It's a real footer doing it at home, and it *stinks* but imagine making rawhide, i.e. soaked, hair slipped off and then soak the skin for a couple of weeks in a solution containing lime (I forget the proportions, need to find my notes), then lift out and scrape as finely and as cleanly as you can without holing the skin or leaving weak spots.
Stretch very finely and tightly onto a frame and allow to dry, then sand gently with pumice, sometimes using chalk too, to give a fine, smooth surface.
There will always be two sides to the vellum (a fine quality) or parchment and the hair side is always the darker.
Generally the younger the beast the finer the quality but the smaller the sheet. Calf skin is superb, though kid and goat skin are very good. Sheep skin works but it's sort of waxy/ greasy, no idea why.
What the method you have Gregorach?
Cheers,
Toddy
Stretch very finely and tightly onto a frame and allow to dry, then sand gently with pumice, sometimes using chalk too, to give a fine, smooth surface.
There will always be two sides to the vellum (a fine quality) or parchment and the hair side is always the darker.
Generally the younger the beast the finer the quality but the smaller the sheet. Calf skin is superb, though kid and goat skin are very good. Sheep skin works but it's sort of waxy/ greasy, no idea why.
What the method you have Gregorach?
Cheers,
Toddy
Westnorfolk said:
You could give it a try, but rabbit skin is very thin, and it's hard to de-hair it without making holes iirc. It's also very small to try to trim to a page size.
If you do try, will you let us know how you got on?
There must be some of the Fair Game folks who've had a try at rawhide from rabbit; you could maybe post a query there.
cheers,
Toddy
Toddy said:
Well, I have two rituals described in The Book of Black Magic by Arthur Edward Waite, one taken from the Key of Solomon, one from a manuscript entitled True Black Magic. (Usual accuracy and attribution disclaimers for this subject apply. I do not have access to the original sources).
The rituals are essentially similar, differing in some minor details of preparation and the details of the appropriate invocations. I'm going to ignore the latter - I assume they're of no real interest here, and I don't have anything to say about them. I'm just going to stick to the bits that actually deal with the preperation.
The parchment is to be made from the skin of a virgin kid or lamb (apparently the Key of Solomon makes a distinction between virgin and unborn, but no further details are given). The animal is to be killed by a single blow across the throat, then skinned (according to the Key of Solomon, it should be skinned with the same knife used for the killing, whereas True Black Magic specifies a wooden knife). The skin should then be streched, covered with salt and placed in the sun (the Key of Solomon says for 1 day, True Black Magic says 15). Then a large piece of quicklime should be placed in a glazed pot with consecrated water (no precise quantities are given) and "when the coal is extinguished" the skin is put in to steep (Key of Solomon: "till it peels of itself"; True Black Magic: "nine entire days"). Then scrape off the hair with a wooden knife (the Key of Solomon specifies hazel wood). Following this, the Key of Solomon says "[t]his being done, and the skin also cleansed, strech the same upon a board of new wood, and round about it set stones of the same length as the sides of the skin [and] leave it in the air until it be dried, taking care that the place is clean", whereas True Black Magic simply says to "[l]et it dry for eight days in the shade". Both also recommend asperging the skin (sprinkling with consecrated water), which might be important or it might just be ritualistic - I'm not sure.
Both texts then warn that the parchment will lose its virtue if it is seen by a woman "in her times"...
So basically... Get a skin, as young and flawless as possible, strech it, salt it, steep it in slaked quicklime, scrape it and dry it. You might want to strech it as it dries, and you might want to sprinkle it with water. I'd also probably want to wash it after taking it out of the quicklime, but there's no explicit mention of it in the sources I have here.
Oh, and if you're interested in making pacts and the like, apparently the proper ink recipie for such purposes is 10 oz gall-nuts, 3 oz roman vitriol or green copperas, and 3 oz rock alum or gum arabic...
Cheers for that 
Pretty straightforward really and the ink recipe is a classic too.
The wooden knife is actually a good idea. Have you seen a bone folder that printers and bookbinders use to get a clean smooth crease? The wooden knife won't tear the skin but it will rub and smooth it
atb,
Mary
Pretty straightforward really and the ink recipe is a classic too.
The wooden knife is actually a good idea. Have you seen a bone folder that printers and bookbinders use to get a clean smooth crease? The wooden knife won't tear the skin but it will rub and smooth it
atb,
Mary
Yep
But I'll have to ask dean what he did to his as alot/most of the hair fell out on its own on one of them (we were trying different methods)..... not what you want when trying to keep the fur but the skin made great cordage when braided in strips and maybe ok for parchment.Ed
So does any one make vellum on here? It's just that I'm thinking of making the middle son a scaled down 17th C military drum and I'd rather trade for it if I can than buy
ATB
Tom
ATB
Tom
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