Started my first leather flask..

[Scoffham]

Hey all,

Just thought i'd post some pictures of the flask i made this afternoon, having never done one before I found Erics posts to be very useful.. so thankyou Eric! I'm currently at the drying stage. Not having any barley to hand I decided to pack the flask with carrier bags, which I'm really hoping won't be an absolute b*$t@-d to remove!

On a different note... how long does leather dye stain skin for??

 

[Barn Owl]

Very nice,

Ooohh should''ve worn gloves mate,takes a month or two to shift the dye off...

 

[Scoffham]

I did wear gloves when dyeing.. just not when packing... such a big mistake! I'm working with 25ish 16-17 year olds next week that'll love mocking my orange hand!

Quick update, the carrier bags were quite easy to remove (took 15 minutes), and did allow a lot of 'packing' into the flask, giving it a nice shape. When wetting the flask, I tested its capacity and found it to be 2 litres, which is exactly what i'm looking for... very pleased so far...

now i'm off to a bunch of beehives to liberate some wax...

 

[Barney]

that's looking good, cant help with the dye problem though.

 

[Scoffham]

After phoning my bee keeping friend, turns out i'm not going to get anyway near the amount of wax i was looking for... Can anyone reccomend a supplier of beeswax in the north of the country (UK) for a largish quantity of beeswax? The local hardware store sells it for £7 for 200g which is going to get a bit expensive!

 

[w00dsmoke]

Tengu was selling wax via a local bee keeper for a while and it was a very good deal. You could ask Tengu if she has some left.

 

[Eric_Methven]

Looking good mate. If you get really stuck with the beeswax, you could always have yourself a day out in Durham and dip your flask in my wax bath.

Eric

 

[craven]

that is really great, how log did it take you to do? very impressed!!:You_Rock_

 

[Opal]

Brilliant job that Scoff, are you gonna put some holes in it for carryin'?

 

[Scoffham]

Cheers Craven, the planning, cutting, stitching, dyeing and packing took me about 3-4 hours in total... The most time went towards stitching as I like to get each stitch individually tightened.

Cheers as well Opal, much appreciated. I actually drilled holes this morning, once the leather had dried, ready for a nice bit of leather thonging.

I've now finished the flask, managed to make do with the 200g of wax I had, using the oven method (actually had a 1/3 of the wax left over). The waxing took about an hour, as it took 30 minutes for the wax to melt! The flask now has a capacity of 1.8litres.

I'll post some pictures tomorrow once I have made a wooden Bung, and brought some more leather thonging, as I have run out.

Lastly just want to thank Eric for the inspiration and tutorials.


Scoff

 

[dr jones]

beautiful piece of work mate ! quick question , after you have filled the flask with sand and soaked it to stretch it to shape , how do you get all the sand out when youve finished , before waxing ?.

 

[Shewie]

Nicely done Scoffam

I'm almost inspired to have a crack myself.

 

[ForgeCorvus]

beautiful piece of work mate ! quick question , after you have filled the flask with sand and soaked it to stretch it to shape , how do you get all the sand out when youve finished , before waxing ?.

He used carrier bags rather then the grain that Eric suggested/uses

Sand must be a total pig to remove, barley is supposed to be easier, but I think I'll have a go with bags if they're that simple to remove

For beeswax etc I've used these people before
www.candlemaker.org.uk

They do stuff for living history crafters and re-enactors


Oh, and the dye stains the top layer of your skin so it'll have to wear off...you can speed it up some if you use a pumice.........or you could apply fake tan all over and pretend to be Dale Winton

 

[brancho]

Very nice job
Pity about the hands especially round the kids I know what my scouts would be like

 

[Thijzzz]

That looks gorgeous, very nice work!

Maybe you can get the dye of bij "washing" your hands in wet mortar, if you happen to have any. It used to work when I had marker all over my hands - mind you, I was 10.

PS: It does hurt a little.

 

[topknot]

Not my bag , but that looks good.
Topknot.

 

[TeeDee]

I did wear gloves when dyeing.. just not when packing... such a big mistake! I'm working with 25ish 16-17 year olds next week that'll love mocking my orange hand!

.

Just tell them that you know David Dickinson and you were giving him a back rub.

 

[Scoffham]

Cheers for all of your very kind comments. Luckily my hands have become a more normal colour, as the orange slowly wears off! Might just escape the mocking tomorrow!

Dr Jones, as already mentioned I used carrier bags to expand the flask. I had a long think about what to use, and although not a traditional method, proved to be very good.

1)Pushing, then packed them in using a blunt wooden rod. I used a large carrier bag full of carrier bags (if that makes sense).
2)After leaving the leather to dry overnight I removed the carrier bags using some 4mm brass rod, with a bent hook on the end- and some needle nosed pliers when things got tight.

Just spent the last 20 minutes carving a stopper. I'm having problems getting a good seal between the wooden stopper and the bottle neck; unfortunatly it leaks where the 2 pieces of leather join. I've tried adding extra wax to create a better seal (made a small mess as you can see in the picture below)... I'm thinking I might try and create a leather ring to act like a rubber O ring.

 

[Scoffham]

Just tell them that you know David Dickinson and you were giving him a back rub.

The orange punter was recently in Penrith, so there might be some that actually believe me... definately not a reputation I'm looking for!

 

[Barney]

Scofhfam it sounds like you are stretching the seam when you are inserting the stopper(woooo Matron), a wooden sleeve waxed or glued into position inside the neck might work.