Middle Earth Ranger Forum

It's finally finished! It took me almost a week of off and on work to get it right, but I've found a lot of interesting things about beeswax. Pictures to come in the morning! (when the camera actually gets charged )

FYI this is the thread I posted the original tutorial: http://ranger.budgetauthenticity.org/fo ... ?f=27&t=38

I wanna see that bottle LOL seriously, can't wait. Love how-to's. I have a bottle already that I got at the Ren Faire a couple of years ago, but I love the shape of the bottle tutorial and would love to make something for fun.

Ken

Brilliant! I can't wait to see! No, seriously, my patience for pictures is not very strong

Soon, very soon. My fiance is taking them as we speak. I, on the other hand, have the WORST picture taking skills. Really, they are terrible. I tried.

So after about an hour of screaming and vulgar words at my computer, my fiance uploads them in 10 minutes. Without further ado, the bottle!!

The bottle is really solid, and the beeswax really darkens the leather by an incredible amount. The bottle template used in the original tutorial holds about 3/4 of a liter of a cold fluid, minus sodas and the like.

Very nice. I'm going to have to try it. I like the idea of useing barley much better than sand.

I'll agree. I wasn't keen on drinking sand for months. Although I couldn't find any barley local, but I did find Pearl Couscous. It works just as well.

Wonderful job! You have me inspired, I am starting mine today!

Post some pictures when you get done with yours, Ringulf! I will say a Dremel made this SO much easier.

I recently made one similar to this. I filled mine with marbles to shape it. They worked well enough.

I tried my hand on a small bottle (about pint sized) just to get the techniques down. I also used the barley since I was sure it would be easier to get out once it had dried. Works pretty well. Waiting for the first to order some brewer's pitch since Central Texas can be a little hard on beeswax. If this one works out when finished I will have to make me a canteen sized one for my kit.

Yours looks great. I hope mine looks as good when I am done.

Ringulf wrote:Wonderful job! You have me inspired, I am starting mine today!

Well I did what I said I would, I started that very next day and planned out a cool dwarven/viking kind of bottle based on the Norse Odin masks modified slightly to capture both cultures.

I started out really well and went downhill at the barley stage.

The strcture of the bottle and the sewing and all was fine but cosmetically it came out quite differently than I had invisioned it. It no langer has any color diferentiation.

But I suppose in some ways it is a "happy accident" in the fact that it looks freekin' ancient and could be atractive for that reason alone...I don't know I am on the fence but I learned a great deal!

I found that for making thes bottles stretching the "pocket with an inflatable bladder (sheeps stomach if you want to be very period or a puching balloon from the dollar store both would work) I chose the latter and did it with no mess at all. (nice after the stinking, fermenting, barley and leathery vomitous mass I had to try to extract like chucky toothpaste, by rolling it up from the bottom) oi what a disaster!

That's really interesting! Did you fill the balloon with water or somehow pump it full of air?

I am also interested in how this balloon process works !

Pretty simple really.
To insert the punching balloon, (I would reccomend these because they are thicker and more durable than regular party balloons) I inserted a 1/4 inch dowel into the balloon then the whole thing into the bottle with the neck of the balloon out. Remove the dowel but dont lose the fill neck of the balloon!

I started to just blow it up and it was do-able but hurt after a while and it did not work as well as using the little motorized air pump you use to inflate an air mattress. Stretch it as far as possble and clamp the top. (do not tie it or you will ruin it every time you need to put more air in as the leather stretches) Do this a few times as it gets to the maximum stretch of the inner pocket.

The nice things about this method are:

-obviously less mess,
-easy removal
-no bleading out the seems.
-the only wetting done to the leather is what it takes to get it soft, no washing, rinsing or god forbid squeezing!