Cone Tent v1.2 – Painting

I wanted to pretty up the cone tent. I had by this point realized the mistake I had made when making my template, and decided to make it pretty to make up for the fact that it wasn’t going to look like the tent I was trying for. Sadness!

I did a quick doodle of a paint design I could put on the tent. I was hoping to have the Tir Righ Star encircling the tent.

The design cut out and taped. Looks more teepee that anything else <sulk>

My work place has a storage bunker they allowed me to use. Good thing, as I have no place large enough to paint the tent in one go.

First step was to stretch the canvas out on the floor. I used a strip of duct tape stuck to the underside of the canvas, on top of this strip, another strip (facedown) was then attached to the cement. Each seam was pulled taunt one at a time, trying to keep everything stretched out as much as the tape would allow.

Having spent a good portion of time mucking about with the painter tape, I decided to simplify the design. My back was starting to object.

I was using a 1:1 ratio paint to water mix. The paint was acrylic latex exterior house paint. I had a bit of a score on the paint. I went to Canadian tire on my lunch, and they were having difficulties matching the color I wanted. My lunch was over, so I had to leave the store without the paint. The next day I went back and I guess they had continued trying to get the color and succeeded. I got the can at 1/2 price in the mistint section. Score!

When I got to the bottom of the pin striping I looked at how much paint I had left. I decided I didn’t have enough paint to get all the way to the floor so I added more painters tape to make a strip  around the bottom. I think it looks pretty good.

My Back was right pissed off at me by this point. 4 hours mucking about either stooped over, or on my knees. Not Fun.

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Cone Tent v1.1 The build

At this point I had not realized I had screwed up the template. I marked out all the sections on the painters tarp with wax tailor markers. The template was longer than the tarp, so I ended up using the wasted space at the corners to make up for the short lengths of canvas.

Hard to see in the photo, but there are red lines on the canvas waiting to be cut.

You can see where the additional canvas was sewn on to the end of each panel. 12 feet long.

When I was sewing the pieces together I pinned the seams together to make sure they matched up nicely.

A shot of the tarp almost complete. One side was going to be left open to make painting details on the canvas easier.

The outside edges were all bound over with canvas bias tape. I used up just about every square inch of fabric on this tent. The left over easily fit into one hand.

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Cone Tent v1.0- Design

The big news… Recently I was contacted by an individual from Austin Texas, about purchasing my bedoiun tent. After a very short period of time a mutualy agreed upon price was determined, and the tent shouls be in Texas as I write this. This means I have very little time to make a new tent for camping season. I am holding of on building another bedouin tent. I have a book on its way through inter library loan that might help me make a better more accurate bedouin tent.  That  means I need to make a tent to make duefor this camping season. I am always looking at at strange weird tents that appear in manuscript paintings. I decided I would try to make a truncated cone tent much like the one in the painting in De Machinis from the 15oo’s

Looks much like a tipi with a roundish roof, and a center pole rather than perimeter poles. The doors are loose fabric that is not built directly into the design of the tent. Since I am 5’10″ the door way is going to be high enough for me not to duck into. I figure 11-12 feet tall will keep the proportion looking about right.  the roof ring should be about 1/3- 1/4 the width as the base of the tent.

In another illustration we can see how their are no ropes as the material is doubling as tensioning ropes, and the seems are being peg directly to the ground. Also at least two of the seams have a decorative trim on it.

I needed to build a template so that all the cut pieces would be the same. I had decided on a 2.5′ roof ring, and a 9foot base.  This is were my problems started. I made a card board template and gave myself a 1″ seam allowance on the bottom of the template, but not on the top. In the end my roof ring will be ~ 15″… doh. This screwed up the visual aspect of the original tent, but not enough painters tarp left to complete a full cone tent.

In the next few posts you will see me bodging together a workable, yet sadly not overwhelming medieval looking con tent.

Live and learn folks…. live and learn.

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How to awesome up your work boots.

OK, I will admit it… I have huge feet. So Big that I find that shoe shopping is one of the more depressing things I can do. I ussually revert to buying a pair of mens shoes. Well, I decided I wanted shiny pretty work boots. This is my second pair, and I thought I would share my technique.

You will need one pair of work boots, artist gesso, acrylic artist paint, glitter glue, and a paint brush.

To make the color pop, you need to cover up the dark colored work boots with an artists gesso. One coat is more than enough.

Once the gesso is dry I do a thick coating of red acrylic paint. Red is my favorite color, but you can use what ever color you want.

Micheals craft supply carries a sparkle paint in various colors. Its a small bottle, but I have not even come close to using it all. Once the red paint has dried, apply copious amount of the sparkle glue/paint. Once this first coat is dry, look for dark patchs that have not got alot of sparkle going on. Re coat those areas intil full sparkle is in affect.

Thats it. Now go sparkle up your work boots.

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Inspired and Humbled

 

I am in serious Awe. I need to make me a floor lathe.

yoinked from Stuart Kings blog

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Introducing Brisco

So my plans to have Son of Ash the turnip have failed. I used seeds from the original Ash the Turnip, but I forgot to get someone to water them while I was house sitting. They all died, and I sould be charger with turnip neglect. I was inconsolable all the way to the local veggie stand. There I found a large group of sad looking abandond turnips looking for a new home, a chance for a better life. Well It took me a while but I finally chose a perky round little guy that had his leafs viscously docked from it top. I am hoping it grows back.

I have named the little guy Brisco, in honor of Bruce Campbells role in the TV show Brisco County Jr.

Yes I Haz Problems!

He seems to be getting along with Spike the cactus, and Flora the mulberry tree.

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May Gamers 2010

May Gamers (also known by some as May Bardic) took place yesterday. It was a smallish affair, but also kind of awesome. It was one of those events where just about everyone ended up doing all sort of stuff.

I ran my first games tourney as Lions Gate games marshal. I decided on making a format that encouraged volume of play over skill. I called it a Gluttony Tournament where the goal was to play as much and as many of the games provided. The games I included where 9 man morris, Tablut (tafl variation), shut the box, Pall MAll, and three kinds of boules (Siege, Carpet & Jeu de boules).

I had three different ways to win in the tournament

1. Righteous Indignation over a loss, (Malie over a bad stroke during a pall mall game… mallet flying, arms waving, bellowing disbelief… simply priceless)

2. Obessed over a single game, Ylas over carpet boules (looked like Lucien was going to take the title til Ylas did a last minute marathon).

3. Glutton, most sets played of all 5 games, Agnes Cresewyke did 3 full sets and was partially done two more sets.

The winners all are getting game boards I will be making customized to their persona’s time, place, and preference.

The new Bardic Champion is James Wolfden.

32 pictures after the jump (not in any particular order… Drag and drop is having issues today)

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Siege Engine Boules Beta Testing part.1

My nephew agreed to beta test the catapult boules… Snarf.

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Another Good Weekend.

 

Another good weekend has passed me by. I spent the majority of the weekend in the dusty depths of the wood shop. One major item I got off the list was making a set of Pal Mall mallets. It would have been easier to buy a set, but the commercially available set have such ludicrously short handles on the mallets. Longer handles = win.

I also got to play around with my axe, lathe and froe.  I cut up stump I had in the shop and turned a half round into a bark rimmed bowl. I had thought of Poll Lathe turning it…but I was lazy. I also used the froe to break of a thin strip of wood, and then tried planing it down to a flat board. That’s a skill I need a whole lot of work on.

Months ago, Morweena gave me a number of pine shelves to use in my evil plans. They sat there mocking me for months. I finally showed them whats what and cut them down and trimmed off the rounded edges. Now I have a bunch more room where the shelves had been living and a bunch of ready to go 1×3.5″ boards…. Woot.

I also got to move around a lot of plantage. The mulberry tree is starting to grow, ruhbarb has transplanted, and new bark mulch was installed in all the areas that needed it.

I also got some work done on the up coming games tourney, The mini siege engines got some more work done on them, and I started to read up on what it would take to make a siege engine company.  I need to start making armor that’s for sure. Dose it make me a bad person if I am late period English, dressed in Ottoman Turk Garb, and Fight in Japanese armor?

Good Weekend.

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Siege Engine Boules

I have an evil plan to run a siege engine boules/ golf tourneys at up coming events. Since I have only so many weekends off before camping season starts, I needed to get on with it.

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