Pen Knife and Goose Feather Quills

What is a friar or a monk without a scribal kit right?  Well I wanted mostly for a method to write in my journal.  I like the idea of looking like a period scribe at the event, but journaling was the primary reason.  To write one needs a pen.  To make a pen one needs feathers and a knife.  To make a knife one needs a metal file and some bones.

I bought the following metal file from a flea market for about 75 cents.  Rock on!  The guy laughed at me when I asked for a "bulk" rate.  I bought about 20 files, a couple old hatchets and some other stuff.  He said "you must do a lot of wood work?"   I didn't have the heart to point out that these were metal files.  I told him that I was planning on making medieval knives out of them.  He looked at me like either he was drunk or I was.  We were both happy with our end of the bargain and that made for a good day.

Taking the rusty metal file I put it to the grinder for about 5 minutes to take off the rust and smooth our the metal ridges.

Since the edges are the only part that will show I spent more time assuring that those side had no sign of the prior life as a file.

I sketched out the shape of the knife on the blank and proceeded to cut it and grind it to shape.  Note that I could have worked the piece hot, but the benefit of using metal files is that as long as you keep the piece cool, quence often and don't over work you have a VERY hard piece of metal.  I didn't want to lose the heat treatment so I worked the piece bare handed.  Whenever it got warm to the touch I wet it again.  This was key to keeping the temper.

I cut this with a angle grinder with a cutting bit.  I kept spraying with water while cutting to keep cool.

After cutting I used the bench grinder to bring it to shape.

I then moved to a sander to fine toon the shape and help hone the edge.  I also refocused the bod of the blade to make sure it was semetrical.  I marked the pin placement and began drilling the pin holes.  Note this part was the worst.  The metal IS VERY hard as I have stated.  That makes drilling very tough.  I used a metal bit with diamond chips and it still took about 5 minutes of slow drilling to complete each hole.

Metal done-ish for now.  Move on to the bones.  Ox bone plates cut to shape.  This is the first set.  As you will see later, I broke this set.

Bone plates cut to shape, now to go back and work the blade some more.

Blade cleaned up as much as possible without the hinderance of the bone handle getting in the way of the sander.  I cut a small brass 1/8th inch rod into sections about 1/16th of an inch longer on each side of the handle.

I peened the brass pins down to hold the bones in place.

I first filed the brass pin flat to allow for an easy surface to start peening over.

... AND... here is the fail.  Missed the pin and cracked the bone.  I did the same thing earlier on the paternoster too. 

Two fails in the same day.  I used a cut off bit on my dremel to cut off the head of the pin.  I then used the punch you see below to push the pin out of the knife.

Round two.  Same approach, differant bones.

Cut and ground and sanded and peened.  Better this time.  No cracks.  I haven't finished polishing the blade and yet it is still sharp enough to shave with.  Yeah!  I love a sharp blade.

Now to play with some quills.  These are some feathers I collected with my kids around a local pond.

I sorted them out and cut the following to length.  I took only the largest, straightest ones for quills.  I used my new knife to remove the fletching from the shaft.

I heated up a bucket of clean sand in a cast iron pot and then used that hot sand to cure the quills and harden them. 

 

No detail pics of the cut quills.  I have tried about 1/2 the ones you see below and find that it is much HARDER than I thought.  I plan on taking a class about it during Pennsic.  Not sure if I am doing somethign wrong or if there is an issue with my quills.  They look great when cut, but are way too flexible to write with.   Oh well.... I tried.

Finished penner and quills.

Olive Pit Paternoster

Another prerequisite for the friar's kit?  A paternoster.  I have a large one I hang from my belt, but I started this one a while back and really wanted to finish it.  It is my Olive-pit-paternoster.  I needed to finally string the beads I finished and make a cross to put on the end.  I made the one you see below and then broke it.  I roughed out the image below and drilled five holes.  I planned to peen a brass rivet in each hole as a decorative addition and to mark the five wounds of Christ.  Bad idea.  I peened one OK, and then cracked the cross with the second one. 

I was very frustrated after breaking the cross so I left it alone and moved back to stringing the beads.  Previously I had nicked the ends of the pits off with a knife and then used the end fo the knife in a twisting motion to "drill" the ends out.  I found that the holes I made were large enough for a small thread, but they were not large enough for the hemp cord I wanted to use.  I used a hand drill to open up the holes of each bead.  I broke about 4 in the process so I recommend making more than you need if you plan on replicating this project.

To help in tying the beads on I used a small piece of wire.  I tied the knot over the wire which allowed me to move the knot to the end of the bead before tightening it up firmly. 

There were two sizes of olive pits.  The smaller ones posed more of a problem.  Thes are the types that ended up cracking when I drilled them out.  There was some "meat" left in the pit.  It was like drilling through a walnut.  You pass the shell, but then the meat of the nut/pit some times jammed up the drill or caused it to stick and then crack the seams.

Finally finished.  I didn't use a "standard" number of beads in each section.  I have seen period paternosters with 6,7,8 and 10 beads per section.  I chose to use 8.  Basically I like the number eight and that is all the olive pits I had left after breaking a bunch.

After completing I made a small wool sack to keep it in.  Done and packed.  NEXT!

Finished Bone Thimble

Not much of a write up on this one.  Just some pictures of the finished thimble.  I sketched some lines on the thimble with the hopes of using that to guide the location of the dimples, but then after reading a little more about thimbles in a book I have, I found that the random location of the dimples was more likely the process used.

I cheated here... I know,  yuck!
I used a Dremel at this point.  Up until this point I had only used hand tools, but I gave up and decided to wrap this project up quickly.  A decision I'm sure I'll regret.  I have more bones in the basement so perhaps I'll make another some day all by hand.

Bone Thimble

Here is s quick little project that has been in the back of my mind for a while and was recently stirred into the front of my mind by my spouse.  When she is out for the evening and has taken the kids with her, that often leads to a particular favorite type of dinner.  I generally like a large portion of good steak with a small side dish of lamb chops.  All cooked very rare on the verge of raw.  OK, I know.  I'm a carnivore, what can I say.  Well last week my wife had such an adventure and I had such a dinner.  Here is the result.  I decided to boil the lamb bone for about an hour, scrape it clean and let it dry in the sun for a week.  I picked it up from the side table while I was watching a movie and thought "what the heck.... here goes!"

I started using some hand files to shape this very well fitted bone thimble.  I still plan on drilling some holes in rows around it, but for now this is what I have.  After I finished it I really wished I had some "before" pictures so that you could see how much fitting it took.  Oh well.  The bone and files were within reach, but alas, the camera was not.