Dúnedain Waxed Leather Water Bottle
Posted: Thu Nov 07, 2019 8:25 pm
I've wanted to share this here for a while now, so it's fitting that this be my first real post back on the forums!
Back in January a local friend, fellow artisan, and reenactor bt the name of Casey Thornton taught a short series of classes on making waxed leather water/wine bottles in the traditional hard-sided style that many here I'm sure are familiar with. He sells them through his personal business, Old World Equipment, so he asked that we not use his methods to start manufacturing them, as a professional courtesy, but otherwise offered the classes for free, minus material costs. I've always wanted to try my hand at making one of these, so I jumped at the chance! After finishing mine, I can safely say that he need never worry about me manufacturing them for sale because it was a GIANT pain, haha. In particular, the process of soaking the leather and stuffing it with pearl barley was extremely time consuming, not to mention a complete and utter mess. Furthermore, I found it extremely difficult to maintain a regular shape during the stretching process, and my end result did end up slightly lopsided (although it's hardly noticeable to the casual observer, I think). If I were ever to make more of these, I believe I would try creating a mold from wood (or perhaps 3D printing one), and wet-forming the leather over that, then stitching it all together once it dries. Although this method would probably waste a bit more leather, since the pieces would have to be trimmed after the fact, I feel this would yield more consistent results, and overall just be much, MUCH less labor intensive.
As you can see here, I attempted to include some simple Numenorean-inspired decorative tooling on the front side of the bottle. I designed the embellishment to include a number of elements clearly established in Tolkien's own drawings, and the overall shape was meant to evoke either a floral motif or perhaps a stylized star shape (but hopefully subtle enough not to scream DÚNEDAIN STAR at anyone who might pass by). While perhaps it doesn't EXACTLY follow all the rules of the design language we have established here, I felt it had enough kinship with it to feel fitting and appropriate as a simple adornment to an otherwise very plain and functional item. This was done with the mind of giving it a bit more sense of cultural depth (as Elleth's kit has been such a shining example of lately).
The stopper is a very simple and rustic piece of cherry wood from a tree in Casey's backyard and quickly roughed out on a grinder in his workshop. The very last thing I finished on this project was the shoulder strap, which I made literally the morning of a recent hike and photo shoot, because I realized only then that I had neglected to do so up to that point. I probably would like to eventually swap out both of these items because the stopper is perhaps just a tad TOO rustic for my taste, and the strap is made from some modern, prefinished oil-tan leather I had lying around, which I would very much like to replace for something that fits the otherwise EXTREMELY period-correct construction methods and materials.
Anyway, PICTURES!
Here is the finished product:
And here are the progress pics:
Back in January a local friend, fellow artisan, and reenactor bt the name of Casey Thornton taught a short series of classes on making waxed leather water/wine bottles in the traditional hard-sided style that many here I'm sure are familiar with. He sells them through his personal business, Old World Equipment, so he asked that we not use his methods to start manufacturing them, as a professional courtesy, but otherwise offered the classes for free, minus material costs. I've always wanted to try my hand at making one of these, so I jumped at the chance! After finishing mine, I can safely say that he need never worry about me manufacturing them for sale because it was a GIANT pain, haha. In particular, the process of soaking the leather and stuffing it with pearl barley was extremely time consuming, not to mention a complete and utter mess. Furthermore, I found it extremely difficult to maintain a regular shape during the stretching process, and my end result did end up slightly lopsided (although it's hardly noticeable to the casual observer, I think). If I were ever to make more of these, I believe I would try creating a mold from wood (or perhaps 3D printing one), and wet-forming the leather over that, then stitching it all together once it dries. Although this method would probably waste a bit more leather, since the pieces would have to be trimmed after the fact, I feel this would yield more consistent results, and overall just be much, MUCH less labor intensive.
As you can see here, I attempted to include some simple Numenorean-inspired decorative tooling on the front side of the bottle. I designed the embellishment to include a number of elements clearly established in Tolkien's own drawings, and the overall shape was meant to evoke either a floral motif or perhaps a stylized star shape (but hopefully subtle enough not to scream DÚNEDAIN STAR at anyone who might pass by). While perhaps it doesn't EXACTLY follow all the rules of the design language we have established here, I felt it had enough kinship with it to feel fitting and appropriate as a simple adornment to an otherwise very plain and functional item. This was done with the mind of giving it a bit more sense of cultural depth (as Elleth's kit has been such a shining example of lately).
The stopper is a very simple and rustic piece of cherry wood from a tree in Casey's backyard and quickly roughed out on a grinder in his workshop. The very last thing I finished on this project was the shoulder strap, which I made literally the morning of a recent hike and photo shoot, because I realized only then that I had neglected to do so up to that point. I probably would like to eventually swap out both of these items because the stopper is perhaps just a tad TOO rustic for my taste, and the strap is made from some modern, prefinished oil-tan leather I had lying around, which I would very much like to replace for something that fits the otherwise EXTREMELY period-correct construction methods and materials.
Anyway, PICTURES!
Here is the finished product:
And here are the progress pics: