Mary Ostler Wood Butcher

Timurid Disked Bell V 1.2 Final thoughts.

Posted on September 7, 2012 by DirtyMary

Finally re-found my password for this blog.

OK I have finshed the tent, but its been so long ago I kind of forgot alot of the process I did to make it. So instead I share a picture and some thoughts on the tent.

The tent worled out perfectly. Its just tall enough to stand up in and change clothing. and wide enough that I can stretch out to sleep in as long as I am next to the pole. The pole was made out of 4″ PVC pipe cut to legth with silver pillar candle holders on both ends to be super fabulous. The pole was painted blue to match the details. I also have a kufi poem written around the bottom of the tent. I dont have the transcribed version in front of me but to paraphrase. Drama is meaningless, your rank is pointless, we are all meat puppets, and tomorrow this will all be over…. or something like that. Works for an SCA motto for sure.

Also finally figured out how to close the door in a period manner on these tents. A picture I had already had posted on this project had the loop and grommet method of fastening already shown.

The loops get threaded through the grommet directly across from the loop. The llop then hangs just long enough to have the next loop threaded through the upper loop and then through the grommet… repeat ad nauseum. It makes for a seem that is shut very tight with no massive gapping holes that normal toggel or tie methods have. Trust me it works great.

Thats it. Next tent on the horizon will most likely be a Chinese/Tibetan Maikhan style tent. I have a stupid awesome idea to make the applique work without any of that annoying sewing.

Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment

Norse Glauchaus…. now with 30% more squirrel.

Posted on March 9, 2011 by DirtyMary

Last May I ran a games tourney. I devised a gluttons tourney, were game played was the only criteria to win… ie: quantity over quality. The Winners of the three categories Glutton (most games of the most varied selection), Obsessed (most played of a single game), and Righteous indignation (biggest temper tantrum will receive a custom made game board to their specifications..

Well Ylas of Lions Gate one the obsessed contest buy playing carpet boules almost non-stop for the event. Her prize was a hand made game board to her specifications. Well she was specific… She wanted Gluckhaus, but based on Norse… also with tree of life, and has to have a squirrel…

<head met desk> x repeat ad nauseam.

I am not an artist. I am a builder drone. I have the skills to do a decent replica of most things I attempt. What I am not skilled at is making unique art. Ackkk.

So in the countless hours I spent looking at Norse knot work junk and stuff I came across the illumination in the image above. Dated to c. AD 750, this is a page from an illuminated copy of Augustine’s Questiones in Heptateuchon. It uses the cross as an illusion to the tree of life. It has four deer like images in the outer wicket, and the eagle up in the tree. The only things it doesn’t have is the serpent/dragon and the squirrel.

I printed out the original image to the size I wanted, and carbon paper copied it onto an oak board. I left most of the fiddly stuff out so I could figure out were I wanted the numbers to sit.

While I was deciding where everything was going to go, I charred in the border bits with a pyrography pen. I did try to do some strictly poker work on it, but it was going to take way to long.

Having decided on where the numbers were going to be, I outlined them with more pyrography, and then filled them in with verdgris, and red oxide in an egg white binder. The green numbers are normal pay outs, and the red numbers are special condition payouts.

Now all the fiddly stuff was burned in. I had to make a zoomorphic squirrel as I could find no images of any online.

Finally finished the front of the board. The only thing not on it from the norse tree of life is the dragon/serpent that lives under the tree of life.

I fixed that problem by placing a more period game of talbut on the underside of the board. This time featuring serpents and dragons.

that’s it… now to move on to Mailes for the biggest wobbler of a temper tentrum (it was awesome).

Posted in burning, Gamemaster, Uncategorized, Wood | Tagged gluckhaus, Norse, talbut, tree of life | Leave a comment

Disked Bell Tent v1.1 In the Beginning

Posted on February 26, 2011 by DirtyMary

Got material and junk from fabric time solutions and a local fabric store (threads and such).

Proceeded to cut out 12 triangular gores with the use of a card stock template. This time I had triple checked the seam allowance around the template. Did not want a repeat of the cone of shame incident.

With the 12 panels cut out, I proceeded to make templates for the upper pattern pieces. The pattern templates were all made of card stock, and the designs cut out using a scalpel. The 8 point star pattern is in deference to the principality stars… I used this as I could not make out what the original pattern looked liked. Continue reading →

Posted in Dyes, Stains, & Paint, Pavillions | Tagged disked bell tent, pavilion, Tent, timurid empire | Leave a comment

Disked Bell Tent v1.0

Posted on February 22, 2011 by DirtyMary

Last summer I had intended to start on my 14th century Timurid Empire disked bell tent. I put it off so I could try my hand at making an Ouled Nail Bedouin Tent. That was a bit of a disappointment, but we must learn and move on. That brings us to present were I have been working on the tent for the last month or so…

There is very little evidence for these tents existence. What little we have is gleaned from Persian & Timurid illuminations from the period, and references in Peter Alford Andrews Felt Tents book. What can’t be gleaned from these two sources I have looked to Mughal era paintings from their sunscreens, and Ottoman Tent Complex tents that are still in existence.

This is probably the best image of the tent I want to make. They almost always appear to to 12 sided, short in height, and have very short walls. I have been unable to see any depictions to date that show how the opening is fastened shut.

A more common depiction is this style of tent used as a sun shade. The foot tall wall has remained on the roof.

Yet another depiction of the tent. The one in the foreground is a bright red version instead of the more typically depicted white tents.

I love the art work on the tent in the background of this picture. Due to its position being depicted as higher than the tent in the foreground it probably is closer in style to the later Ottoman tents that have much taller wall section and smaller wooden disks. I love the art, so it will go on to the tent.

Peter Alford Andrews talks about the style of tent I want to build in a section called `Pictorial Evidence: Guyed Tents`. It is far to long to quote so I`ll briefly cover the important bits I focused on.

1.The disk is evidently rigid and made of either wood or leather

2. The disk is perhaps 30cm across

3. White velum is cut into triangular gores is dodecagonal (12 sided) instead of round

4. the seams are drawn out on guyed ropes at an angle of roughly45-50`

5. eaves over hang the wall a little

6. the walls are 25-30cm high.

There is alot of variation between all of this style tent, but they generally fall into these guidelines.

So out came the graph paper and calculator. Trig is your friend and started to crunch numbers.

My tents specs will be 6ft tall, 8 ft in diameter, and feature a 11″ disk. I haven’t decided if the walls will be attached by toggles or permanently sewn on.

The door opening will be closed by toggles at the seam of one of the triangular gore openings. The pattern to be painted on the tent will determine how far down the roof seam will lie before the door opening starts. An overlaped section will be also toggled to prevent rain from getting in.

The ropes will be attached to binding that will be sewn on the seam lines like in the following photo.

There are no good images of the wooden disk on the Timurid bell tents. There are a few good under side images of 18th century ottoman tents in the “Ottoman Tent Complex” book. These are far smaller then the ones depicted for my choice of tent. Better based on out of period tents than rampant speculation on my part.

Thats about it at this point.

Posted in Pavillions | Tagged disked bell tent, timurid empire | 2 Comments

glass stuff for sale

Posted on February 20, 2011 by DirtyMary

I am selling off my stained glass stuff.

45 partial plates

22 full plates

5 oversize plates (longer than ~12″)

2 Large containers of scrap glass (clear, pale in color, different textures)

1 tub of white/pale scrap glass

1 tub of misc colored glass

1 tub of cream/brown glass

1 tub of grey glass

1 tub of green glass

1 tub of red/orange glass

1 tub of light blue glass

1 tub of bright blue glass

1 tub of purple glass

1 tub of amber glass

1 tub of misc blue glass

1 tub of misc black, and mirror glass

1 tub of glass marbles, and drops

box of misc lead free/leaded solder, flux, swabs, copper foil, came stretcher, came rollers, soldering iron…etc

4 metal lantern metal frames

Lamp base

beveled glass pieces, and beveled mirror pieces

Lots of books and back issue magazines.

Wooden cabinet, and record (glass) holder

glassstar glass grinder

Gryphon Diamond bandsaw.

Asking $550 with everything.

42vince@gmail.com

Posted in Glass, Uncategorized | Tagged stained glass for sale | Leave a comment

Turkish Carpet Project v1.9 Yellow

Posted on January 18, 2011 by DirtyMary

So First Dye job up to bat is the yellow wool. It is the smallest individual color on the carpet, and since I am not that familiar with dyeing, I figured it would be a quick tutorial on how to dye. That and if I totally munk it up, its not going to cost me a fortune to redo.

Continue reading →

Posted in Dyes, Stains, & Paint, textile, Turkish Rug | Tagged ambassador, Dye, dyeing, turkish carpet project, weld, wool, yellow | 1 Comment

Turkish Carpet Project v1.8 Mordanting the Wool

Posted on January 18, 2011 by DirtyMary

I have finally bought most of the wool I need for my project. I still have a bunch more to buy, but I want to spread the cost of the wool out over a few pay checks. I will be dying the wool four colors, and the fifth color i will be leaving the wool natural so no dyeing there. The colors will be dyed with Weld (yellow), Madder (red), Indigo (Blue), and the Black will be a tannin/iron process. I will have to do a second mordanting process for the black as I have yet to buy more wool, plus the pot I have is only so large.

Continue reading →

Posted in Dyes, Stains, & Paint, textile, Turkish Rug | Tagged Dye, maiwa, mordant, Turkish Carpet, wool | Leave a comment

PVC NEY

Posted on January 6, 2011 by DirtyMary

A while back I asked someone what a good Turkish instrument I should play, taking into account I have difficulties trying to reestablish a set finger position once I have moved my hands. I took guitar for years, and always seemed to have huge issues with getting lost on the fretboard. I was told I should look into the NEY flute. I was even pointed to a web page where a guy tells you how to may a PVC Ney. After reading Kees van den Doels webpage I have been meaning to try my hand at making one, and I finally got around to it. Bonus Points for Mr. Van den Doel living in Vancouver.

I had a massive amount of white pvc pipe from the bender tent experiment kicking around. Its not the same as the pipe that the instructions call for, but its close. Why buy when you can recycle.

I cut the pipe down to size with the band saw. Used a piece of paper wrapped around the pipe to keep the end line straight.

He askes for a taper to be filed away on the inside. My normal taper reamer that fits the drill press was just a little to narrow for the job. I used this monster instead to slowly cut the inside taper. Never had the chance to use this bad boy before. It has a ratcheting mechanism in it. Did a fairly decent job, but could not get right to the outside edge as it started to bow outerwards from the weight and pressure.

The next step was to burn finger holes into the pipe using a 9mm drill bit end. Well I tried it, heating the bit with a lighter, then an alcohol fuel lamp and then a torch. They either didn’t work (not hot enough) or worked too well (torched bit over melted the scrap piece of PVC pipe I tried it on)…. so….

Thank you Drill Press. Fast, Clean, and relatively quiet. You are my second favorite tool.

The holes were drilled as acording to instructions. I believe the hole on the back side is a slight bit off dead center, but I don’t think it really matters. I put a dowel plug in the back hole to prevent it from rolling of the table saw.

Next was making the pvc pipe look like a reed by adding narrow waisted points to simulate where the leaves on the reed were. Alcohol Lamp and some twine did the job. Roll the pipe near the end of the flame to heat it up. Then while its still flexible twist the rope around the heated section and keep the rope turning around it intil the pipe gets ridgid again. If you dont keep turning the pipe the narrowing will be lopsided. Strangley the soot deposit works to make it look a bit more non PVC pipish.

I seem to have missed taking a photo of the mouth piece part. I cut up a clear bottle of pop and wound it around the mouthpiece sectionand fastened it with a bit of scoth tape. This is to help get the reed to index between your front teeth. I have very little gap between my teeth so this was a must for me.

The final thing I did was add some whip lashing around all the narrowed sections, and the mouthpiece was also lashed to hide as much to the shiny pop bottle material as I could.

So thats my attempt at a PVC Ney Pipe. I have since spent about 5 hours trying to make it work. I have got one squeak out of it, but thats it. I did take it out to the shop and try the air compressor line on it to see if there is sound. Yep there is a nice sound out of the thing… but its hard to hear over the air lines hissing.

Next up a KABAK KEMANE or a Coconut rebab (inspired by Shareefs rebab)

Posted in Misc. Madness, Music | Tagged Music, PVC Ney | Leave a comment

niddy noddy v2.0

Posted on January 4, 2011 by DirtyMary

I finally decided to just buy the wool for the carpet. I have been waffling on the exact wool for ever, and if I don’t start soon, this might turn into a 4 year project. I calculated how much of each color of wool I needed, and had to wind them to the right size for the dye pot. To do this I made myself a niddy noddy (6ft) out of some rosewood billet cuts I had picked up recently.

I turned the handle and put on two beads so my hand wouldn’t slip while winding. Rosewood finishes so well it was easy to make the handle kind of slippery.

I have one side pined in place, and the other side is free to twist around.

I wish I had curved the arms a bit more. When starting the skein its easy for it to slip out from the ends.

The yellow is wound (yellow ties), and so is the Blue (green ties), and the red has 6/10 wound (red ties). I still have 12 skeins of black to wind, and the white wool will need to be cleaned too.

Posted in Dyes, Stains, & Paint, textile, Turkish Rug, Turning, Wood | Leave a comment

Mary Ostler