August 2024 – Nothing In It

Lantern Hooks

Posted on 2024.08.162024.08.15 by Elliott Evans

I made these back in the fall of 2023, but was not able to finish painting them until Spring, and wasn’t able to try them out until Pennsic (and get photos), so here we are. These are metal hooks meant to hang the lanterns I made a four years ago from the camp walls I made six or so years ago. The problem is that the canvas roofs of the pavilions hang down over the walls for a fair distance. The past couple of years, I have tied twine to the ring at the top of each lantern, then hung the twine from the metal frame of the pavilion. The meant that the lanterns were hanging against the walls, which I found to be less that optimal. The hooks clip onto the tops of the walls, hang down to below the bottom edge of the canvas, and then extend far enough so that the lanterns hang straight.

Clipped to the wall and hung with a lantern

Pull down the canvas to complete installation

I made these by buying 1/2″x1/8″ welding steel bars from the hardware store, then bending each bar to shape using metal bending jaws in my bench vise. because of the length of the material, I had to bend the bars off center so that they would not hit the beam of the vise. This caused racking in the vise, so I tried to bend two bars at once to balance things out. This bent the beam on my light duty vise so that it is now useless, It’s OK, that was a good excuse to buy a heavy duty vise to replace it.

I also tried using aluminum bar to make it easier to bend, but the aluminum does not stand up to sharp bends as well and sometimes just breaks. I painted the steel bars black to protect them from rusting (I hope).

These stayed up for 2 weeks at Pennsic without incident, and the lanterns didn’t fall off even in the severe rain storms that we had. Success! They joined the lanterns in the 6 lantern storage box that I built 4 years ago.

Sawhorse Crate

Posted on 2024.08.142024.08.15 by Elliott Evans

I made four Japanese-style sawhorses several years ago, but I realized recently that I had no way to transport them except to toss the pieces into the trunk of my car or pile them in a wagon. Then, some friends of mine moved away and gifted me with a pile of lumber they had been using as storage shelving. I spent a few days at the 51st Pennsic War medieval event constructing this 26″x16″x11.25″ crate using only hand tools, as a demo of Japanese style woodworking.

I used a ryoba nokogiri saw to do all the cutting of the pieces from the boards, and some of the joinery. I used oire nomi chisels and a mawashibiki saw to cut the remainder of the joinery and the handle cut-outs. A yotsume kiri gimlet came in handy for pilot holes so that the wood didn’t split when I drove in the nails with a genno tsuchi hammer.

Contrary to common belief, Japanese carpenters would not have used fancy joinery without nails to construct such a simple workman’s item. That kind of specialty carpentry was mostly used for devotional items or religious buildings. They probably would have used forged nails instead of wire nails, but I don’t have any of those handy. The big chunky box joints are seen a lot in shipping and storage boxes.

The linen bag holds the wedges and pegs that hold the horses together when assembled. I wrapped the handle cut-outs with some of this great palm rope from Hida Tools. I call it a crate instead of a box because there’s actually an opening in the floor because I just used two pieces of 1-by-12, leaving a 2-inch gap in the middle. This should let the sawdust and shavings out.

The completed box plus sawhorse parts is pretty heavy, so I have to store it on a lower shelf instead of storing the loose pieces on the highest shelf in the garage. I might try to figure out a packing pattern for only one horse’s worth of pieces, then make 2 of those for the other 2 horses.

Jinmaku no Maghnus

Posted on 2024.08.12 by Elliott Evans

To commemorate the 35th anniversary of his knighting, I also made a jinmaku camp curtain (“windscreen”) for our friend Sir Maghnus.

It is the standard length (5 yards) and height (72 inches), but instead of the Kaminari colors of black over red, it’s white over blue and the white “chief” is invected like his arms. It took a while to do the scalloping, so I don’t recommend doing it “just because”. It’s a nice touch for a special anniversary, though.

Jinbaori for Sir Maghnus

Posted on 2024.08.082024.08.14 by Elliott Evans

Our good friend, and the head of our household, Sir Maghnus an Chnoic na n’Iora is this year celebrating the 35th anniversary of his knighting at Pennsic. A military leader in medieval Japan with this level of seniority would have a jinbaori “camp coat” to wear over his armor so that he would be more visible and identifiable. I have been “planning” for some time to make one for him eventually, and this anniversary year really kicked my planning into execution.

The main body of the jinbaori is royal blue felt lined in navy blue linen. The collar lining is some “dragon and phoenix” silk brocade from the stash of Mistress Achren, who passed away some time ago. The “clouds” in chief are white felt. The whole thing is rather large, about 40 inches wide, because it is meant to be worn on top of armor.

The chest closure and “hold open” loops are some decorative chain, gold chain being one of the symbols of a Knight in the SCA. The buttons are actually extra buttons I purchased as spares for a very early piece of garb of mine. Since I never needed the replacements, they were available for this project.

Here’s the view from the back, showing more felt embellishment. The “clouds” at the top are of a piece with the front. The “hill of squirrels” motif at the bottom is more felt, this time using black felt pieces on the white to create the vair pattern. This is his heraldic arms, and such display of heraldry is common on jinbaori.

Attaching all those pieces of black felt was something of a pain, but I was able to sew continuously along the zig-zag edges of the pieces to reduce the labor significantly. While materials like felt don’t seem very Japanese, the “rules” of Japanese clothing seem to go largely out the window with jinbaori. These were intended to be showy and look as expensive and impressive as possible.

The completed project is quite large, heavy, overly warm, and probably somewhat fragile. I doubt it can ever be cleaned, so it probably won’t see very much wear. It should make a great display piece, and will really make him look quite impressive if he ever gets a chance to wear it in court.

I’m actually very happy with the way this came out. I was mostly just winging it when it came to construction, so I’m glad it came together at all.

Largesse Braids for the East

Posted on 2024.08.042024.07.30 by Elliott Evans

Every year at Pennsic, the Kingdoms in the SCA trade gift baskets. This year, my Kingdom is gifting the Crown of the East Kingdom with a basket of goodies that they can use during their reign or give out as largesse themselves. I decided to chip in with some of my stock of illustrated scroll blanks and some fresh medallion cord braids in East Kingdom colors.

These were all in violet and gold silk lace-weight yarn, with multiple ends of yarn per strand. These braids enabled me to practice some new techniques and on some new equipment, so it was totally worth it.