Here’s a post I did for the International Routier on the subject of shoe horns. They help protect the shoe quarter and back seam, particularly if the shoe is a bit tight. These particular ones were the work of one man over the period of 1593 to about 1614, the photos allow you to see the how his style and skills evolved.
I think I’ve worked out how to do them, so stay tuned for a future how-to (or how-not-to if it all goes wrong).
This is a relatively simple task to finish your leather bottle or flacket in an accurate, effective manner. Most people simply grab a cork from a modern wine bottle (an unbranded one if they are fussy) and make do with that. But is this an accurate representation or just laziness?
The bottle was made on a wooden mould or block, which had a cylindrical projection on which to model the neck. The latter did not project above the seam and only slightly bulged on each side. It was closed with a stopple of metal, wood, horn, or leather, in early times. Some stopples were costly, judging by those bought in 1392 for the Earl of Derby, one of which cost two shillings… Corks for casks and bottles do not seem to have been used till the 17th century. In old prints of that time the bottles and phials, in indoor scenes, are generally closed with bunches of rag or paper. The first corks met with by Professor Thorold Rogers were in 1627. … I have seen three leather bottles which had stopples of leather, but they are rare.
[Baker, p181]
So using corks in leather bottles isn’t really the way to go. It seems cork stoppers weren’t imported in large enough numbers to leave a record until the end of the first quarter of the seventeenth century and then were prohibitively expensive, until nearly the end of the century when sufficient economies of scale were created by mass production of glass wine bottles. (Rogers, T., History of Agriculture and Prices in England Vol VI, 1866. pp. 608-9). Here’s some examples of wooden stopples from the Mary Rose and from London.
Stopple associated with Mary Rose flacket 81A2218, 1545.
Stopple found with Mary Rose costrel 81A2034, 1545.
Carved stopper in the Museum of London, l 30mm; field maple. Egan, pp216-217.
Some of the Mary Rose ones, associated with both flackets and costrels, have an additional layer of leather to assist with sealing. I’ll assume you don’t want to use rag or paper as suggested by Baker, particularly if you use your bottle in re-enactment on the march, but don’t let me stop you if you do want to give it a try. As this isn’t the Reverend’s Big Blog of Wood, I’ll concentrate on copying one of the leather wrapped Mary Rose stopples from this point on.
The first step is to carve the wooden part. Take a branch, stick or offcut of an appropriate timber and remove the bits that don’t look like a stopple with any of cutting, filing, grinding, whittling or other application of brute force until it fits the neck of the bottle in question. If you aren’t going to fit the leather sleeve, congratulations, you have finished. If you are fitting the sleeve, you need to further reduce the diameter of the stopple by the thickness of the leather. How you do it depends on the style you’re doing. Some, like the one I’m doing have a shoulder to help stop the leather slipping up when it’s being jammed in the bottle. Others have the leather sitting proud of the wood. I usually reduce the diameter using files and finish the shoulder with a knife.
In the photos below, I’m using a bit of field maple from one of my trees in the back yard. It had been a cricket stool leg until the application of brute force by a gorilla rocking back on it snapping the tenon. This is the same timber as the London example, used for it’s ultra-fine closed grain and corresponding dimensional stability when it gets wet. I also like the silvery colour and the hand feel when working it.
All the tools you need to do this job
The tool selection is fairly simple, you can get by with needles, and awl and a knife. I used a groover as well to keep the stitching flush with the surface, but a shallow knife cut would also help the stitches lie flat.
Fit the leather tightly to the stopple and cut the ends flush
Wrap the leather tightly around the wooden core and then slice through both layers with a single knife cut. This leaves a piece of leather that is an exact fit for the core. You may find you need to stretch the upper side of the rectangle of leather to get it to fit the taper, the extant originals are fairly rough fitting at the top and bottom.
Use an edge-flesh seam
Stitch the seam and tie off.
I’m using edge – flesh stitches and tieing off with overhand knots in each hole. Once finished, dampen the seam and rub it flat with your prefered slicker.
The finished item, with the sleeve pinned in place.
I’ve found that often the first time you fit a stopple to your bottle, one or other of the lower corners of the seam turns back on itself – as can be seen in the photo above. I don’t worry too much as it can also be seen in both the archaeological drawings. If it is a problem for you, use a little food-safe glue to hold the leather down before stitching.
Total time for this including the woodwork was 20 minutes. I used power tools, even with hand tools it should take less than an hour.
This is a post I wrote for another blog a short time ago. While discussing a particular set of wooden tubs that I’ve been repairing and maintaining for some time, it gives a comparison between the performance of wooden and leather buckets over a 12 month period in the situation that leather buckets were most commonly used in – being left dry for extended periods of time and then needing to hold water immediately. Obviously the findings aren’t valid for other locations and patterns of use where the buckets would be kept wet or used on a daily basis.
The testing was informal rather than structured but I found it interesting to note how the leather bucket performed in a variety of climactic conditions and rough handling, including freezing, 40 degree heat, humidity ranges from 4% to 100% (sometimes on consecutive days) and being dropped from a height of about 1 metre on to concrete. The wooden buckets were exposed to similar conditions and handling. I thought it might be of interest to readers here.
An old friend, let’s call him Helmut the German, for that has become his name, is on a cycling tour of the UK. He’s been keeping us up to date with posts on his blog, and this morning posted his latest report on his day in Salisbury.
Helmut’s photo of Salisbury Jacks
One photo shows a collection of leather drinking vessels of various dates probably from the second quarter of the seventeenth century onwards. On close inspection, the bombard to the right seems to have been the prototype for the Salisbury Jug I wrote about a short while ago. It looks to be about two gallons, so is roughly eight times larger than the ceramic copy. The one to the back left is contemporary with the bombard and should be a quart (1200ml) based on both the minimum legal measure at the time and the scale of the reflections in the photo. The newer 18th century jacks in the foreground would then be about pint each, which again is right for that period.
Victorian period ceramic Salisbury Leather Jug.
Supporting my hunch about the potter moving the decoration to the side, on the leather version the crown and letter “R” are clearly seen on the front (opposite the handle) in the photo and I think I can see the numbers “46” below that. I had been expecting the decoration to be painted on, but the photo shows that it is incised, much like on the ceramic copy.
Today’s Daily Mail contains a report on an 18th century Dutch ship found 30m deep in land reclaimed from the Hudson River.
The fourth photo down the page is of a shoe sole fom the site. It appears to be an innersole and clearly shows the owner’s foot and the stitch holes around the heel. Construction appears to be similar to the Smeerenberg shoe. I’ve pulled the photo in from the paper’s website below, I don’t know how long it will last.
The Reverend's Big Blog of Leather 