I've been making and using Walnut hull ink, and wood stain for a few years now. Of course I've neglected to post a recipe until now :). So here it goes:

1) Collect walnut hulls.
I get them wherever I can find them. Many of the places I haunt seem to have an abundance of Black Walnut (Juglans nigra) trees around. Just wait for the nuts to fall and collect them! I've found that it really doesn't matter too much if the hulls are fresh, rotten or dried.
2) Boiling / steeping
Take all your walnut hulls (you can leave the nuts in), put them in a BIG pot and add about twice as much water as hulls . There are two ways to go from here. You can just let them steep in the water for a couple of weeks or you can start boiling them. If you let them steep, the pot will develop a thick covering of mold fairly quickly. The mold can be taken off fairly easily but is pretty disgusting. I am not a patient person so I generally opt to start boiling the hulls immediately. This is best done OUTSIDE, the smell can be pretty powerfull. I use a coleman stove and plenty of fuel. Once the water has boiled to about half the volume, I strain out the hulls and put the water back on to boil and reduce. You can now discard the hulls.
3) Ink or Stain
At this point you need to decide what you are actually making, other than a stinky mess. You can make two different types of ink or two different stains.
a) Walnut (brown) ink and stain- Keep boiling down the mixture until you get the depth of colour you want, A very light brown is good for unobtrusive page layout lines, but generally too light for script. It is also less permanent than the Iron/gallotanic acid ink I will out line next. I believe it is best to boil until you have a very dark brown, you can always dilute it later. For ink, once you have reached the desired colour, strain all the bits out of the mixture with an (unwanted) cloth, then dissolve some gum arabic crystals into the mixture to improve the viscosity for writing, this helps keep the ink in place on the parchment/vellum/pergamanata/paper as it dries. To make stain; strain and bottle it. That's it. Just remember that this stain WILL raise the grain on wood. A few applications of this stain and then boiled linseed oil makes a gorgeous finish.
b) Black ink/ stain- What we've gone through all the trouble to extract here is the gallotannic acid in the walnut hulls, the same compound present in oak galls. To make black iron/gallotannic acid ink we need to add iron oxide (rust). any rust will do, you can use rusty nails, scraps of steel, or deliberately rust some steel wool, As the mixture boils down, add your rust, the more the better. Keep boiling until the fluid is very black. Strain the fluid through and old cloth. As above, if you're making ink, dissolve some gum arabic into the mixture and bottle. To make a stain, just bottle it.

After a purse in the book Purses in Pieces.  The front of the purse is a 15th C Dutch find from a midden heap in Dordrecht. 

The inside pockets was Mahault's request, based on several different 14th and 15th C purses, found in the book and elsewhere.   The book does not show the inside of this particular purse.

 I changed the motto on the front (also Mahault's request) to read "Amor vincit omnia et nos cedamus amori"  which translates as "love conquers all and we must submit to love".  The original inscription was incomprehensible but had the word "amor" in it. 

The bird decorations on the loops were changed to squirrels as they are Mahault's device. 

The beads are not my fault.  I blame Mahault entirely for them.  I did, in fact, give her the purse with leather straps.  She took it, threw them out and put the silk cord and dichroic beads in there.  I take no responsibility for the non-medieval additions. 

The buckle, which did not appear on the original find, is sterling silver.  It is a casting of a 14th C. buckle in my possession.   It is reasonable to add it there, as the purse will need some type of closure method.  Some of the other purses in the book (and heaps) had toggles or ties left on them.  A quality metal buckle, like t his one, would have been too valuable to leave on an item being disposed of, so that may explain why none were found.  There are illuminations from the period and region that clearly depict this type of purse being closed with this type of buckle. 

Tags: 15th c. dutch purse

Tags: stealth gauntlets

 Spent yesterday in the garage working on a few projects.  Cut greaves out of leather (kindly provided by Nigel).   covered one pair of stealth gauntlet metacarpals with leather and dyed the gauntlets and gloves brown.  Cut, shaped and attached a demi-greave to my left leg harness, and cut out the demi-greave for the right harness before I ran out of time.  I copied the shape of the lower lame for the demi-greave pattern and just added a slight flare on the bottom.  This morning I've been researching gauntlets from the battle of Visby and found quite a few interesting pics of 14thC. effigies and sculpture for reference material.  This afternoon's agenda includes uploading some of my previous research and documentation on the Charles VI jupon, as well as continuing my research/documentation on this.

As nagged by Mahault, I'm posting this first entry so those of you who choose to visit won't be faced with a blank journal.  M and I planned out projects for the upcoming year (or so), and shelved a few projects that I have on the go (notably, some stealth gauntlets that I was about to coat with aluminum phoshphate, pics later), at least for now.  I am hoping this lj will remind me to take pics of my projects in progress and help me organize my research, patterns, sources etc.

Current Mood: creative