WaffenrokEdit

Turnshoes and PattensEdit

I made these turnshoes over the weekend. I put about 36 hours hours total in to the shoes alone and another 8 hours of work into the Pattens. The pattens are designed from a meseum piece I found on the internet and made from a piece of oak 4'X4'. Oak was a commen wood in Germany so I chose this as my wood. The turnshoes are made with a 5oz leather for vamp and a 10oz veg tanned piece for the souls. Everything was hand stiched using a waxed lined thread. The Leather for the patten used the same leather as the soul. It was hand carved and tooled with my SCA device and a border pattern

IlluminationEdit

This illumination took me about 3 hours to draw and around 8 hours of painting to complete. I used a hard stock paper and acrylic paints that came with an illumination kit. Normally this would have been done on vellum or parchment but didn't have any readily available. I used several sources from german manuscripts between 1400 and 1600 to get ideas for my project. I placed an order for Gold Leaf but it hasn't arrived as of yet so for the gold areas I used a gold paint that came along with the illumincation kit as well

Paper MakingEdit

Well This was actually the first of my projects. I experimented with paper making using recycled paper, flower petals, lint, a blender and a small kitched strainer. I was surprised that it actually worked. So I decided to do some research and found out that the screened frame is called a Deckle while the wooden frame that sits on top of the screen is called the mold. Below you will see the deckle and mold I made using an oak frame, piece of screen, copper trimming and brad nails to hold it all together. Also after you make the paper the individual pieces are placed between pieces of felt then put into a paper press in order to squeeze all the water out. The water actually is 95% water when you first make it.

Although there are many subtleties which affect the quality of a paper, papermaking in essence is a simple process. Whether using recycled materials or fresh organic matter, the process starts by shredding the material into small strips and soaking them overnight to loosen the fibres. At the time this would have been old clothing scraps that was beyond recycling for clothing. Next, the fibres are boiled for 2-6 hours, being turned every so often. When finished, the fibres are washed with fresh water to remove impurities and then small particles or specks are removed by hand.

The fibres are beaten in a blender (modern way) or by hand to a creamy pulp. In our period this would have been spend 20 hours in a hammer mil being beaten. At this stage, dyes can be added to create coloured papers. The pulp is poured into a large tub and the fibres are suspended in the water. The artisan dips a framed screen into the water and with great skill, lifts it to the surface catching the fibres onto the screen. The screens can either be left in the sun to dry, or be transferred to boards, pressed, smoothed and then dried.

History of writing mediums

• Clay ca. 4100 - 3800 BCE.
• Papyrus ca. 3000 BCE.
• Parchment ca. 150 BCE.
• Chinese paper, rice or mulberry wood ca. 105 BCE.
• Linen paper ca. 900 CE. (in Europe ca. 1150 CE)
• Linen wood pulp paper ca. 1800
• Wood Pulp paper ca. 1850

After Paper is made it needs to go through a process called Sizing. Sizing is the process of using alum in order to reduce the papers ability to absorb moisture. This was important because inks would blot out and characters written would look like ink blotches instead of letters.

ALUMINUM POTASSIUM SULFATEEdit

Aluminum potassium sulfate had been imported into Europe since antiquity for application in various trades such as fabric dyeing, and it was the first alum used in papermaking. It could be obtained from minerals such as alunite which occurred in sulfur-containing volcanic sediments. Mining sites were sometimes located in volcanic crater bottoms where the stones were extracted with naturally heated water, alum crystals forming in the evaporating solution.

A.1 Alum ProductionEdit

In the mid-15th century, the first European alum mines were exploited at Tolfa, a volcanic area north of Rome in central Italy. This particular site is of interest to us as the source of what appears to have been one of the best varieties of alum in papermaking: the so-called Roman alum.¹ Known for its high quality until the 19th century, Roman alum was recognizable by its distinct reddish appearance, which was a result of dusting the alum crystals with a pigment--probably iron oxide.² The pigmentation served as a trademark of Roman alum. Before use, the alum could be rinsed under cold water to remove the pigment without dissolving significant amounts of the alum itself.

Slate and shale were other minerals which yielded alum when subjected to several production steps which can be summarized as follows: the aluminous rocks were piled up, roasted, and subsequently extracted in water; potassium hydroxide was added to the resulting solution; the crude alum crystals which formed in the evaporating solution were rinsed and redissolved in boiling water to purify the alum; the solution was transferred to large wooden casks where the alum crystals formed on the inside walls; and finally the casks were dismantled and the crystals removed.³

Alum could be contaminated with byproducts of its manufacture, iron oxides and iron sulfates. Iron compounds significantly impaired the performance of alum as a mordant of textile dyes and were more likely to discolor gelatin-alum sizes, as is indicated by the concern of 18th-century papermakers for good quality alums. The repeated recrystallization of the alum effectively freed it from iron contaminants.

A.2 Historical Gelatin-Alum SizingEdit

In Europe, the use of alum for hardening gelatin sizes is recorded during the 16th century. In 1579, Samuel Zimmermann in Germany wrote in a treatise on so-called secret arts, which included papermaking: "The printing and other paper. . . is drawn through alum-water and dried again."⁴ This quotation apparently refers to the separate application of gelatin and alum, a practice which was continued until the 18th century.⁵ In the process, the paper was first gelatin- sized, then steeped in a vessel containing the alum solution, and finally pressed for removal of excess size.

Gelatin solutions already containing the alum were more economical to use. They offered the advantage of preventing the rapid spoilage of the size during storage since the alum crystals were added to the freshly cooked gelatin sizing solution. Despite these advantages of the latter method, both sizing processes appear to have been used contemporaneously