michaelsbagley

The inside of the demo is sealed in natural beeswax.... which did hold up okay during the test run at Beaufort this past weekend.... But I think I am going to upgrade to using brewers pitch for the inside. I will probably continue to case harden the leather with beeswax, but add pitch to the inside to ensure good product qualtity. So I am going to hold off on taking orders for about a week until I finish the orders I got from Beaufort, and obtain some pitch (which I have to internet order).

Leather tankards are very high on the list of new things to try... I wound up getting so busy with wine and mead making over the last few weeks, I had to defer the leather tankards until after the Beaufort event I am going to this weekend.. Soooo, give me a few weeks and I will very likely be adding leather mugs/jacks to the list of wares... I imagine they will be much cheaper than the costrels as they are much easier to make.

My turn around time will be about two to three weeks not including shipping time (which is usually only 3 or 4 days for continental US, or 5 to 7 days for Canada)... It's not likely, but in case I get a backlog of orders, I solemnly vow to keep those who have ordered appraised of any delays. I have a good reputation of being timely, and I intend to keep that reputation. Just let me know when you have your pennies saved MadL, I'd be glad to make one for you.

Now that I am done stuffing my face... For the metrically minded, they hold about 600 ml... One importrant factoid, is I am using natural beeswax to case harden these... I could use paraffin if there is bee alergy concerns (but please note beeswax will be my de facto material, SPECIFY if you need paraffin)... Using pitch would be more period accurate, but pitch is such a messy nasty substance to work with, I would have to almost double the price to make one using pitch (and it would be modern "brewers pitch" and not the completely historically accurate kind of pitch).

Hey all Over the last week I've been working on a new period item... Leather costrels. I will have one of the two prototypes with me at Beaufort this weekend (one of the prototypes turned out very bad), and I am thinking of taking orders on these in the near future if there is interest. The main advantage of these leather costrels, is they don't break like glass does. They are also historically accurate... Here is link to a 17th century one Here's another link to a late 17th century costrel Here's another image of a costrel from the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto, it is close in size to my sample above (photo curtesy of Kate Souris) There is also an image of a costrel dated to the early 18th century in George Neumann's "Early American Antique Country Furnishings" (pg. 237) Anyways, let me know if there is interest as these are very labour intensive, and I don't want to waste time if there is no interest, I'm thinking of selling these at about $60. I have seen them online for as much as $120... But I was told that particular one was on the higher end of the price range for these. If there are any questions, please post here or message or email me if you prefer.

Damnation and hellfire!!! There is an event in March I was hoping to go to, but I am certain that it will come to a decision between RF5 and the March event (no way will I get to do both), and I know the wife is leaning heavily towards RF5... And now with so many great folks planning on attending RF5, I am starting to think I should just forget it and just give in and go to RF5....

I believe that from you Sterling, I've met around a dozen members of the Archangels, and have seen pictures of many that I haven't yet met... Until Brit. Privateer posted that picture, I hadn't seen an image of more than 4 Sea Rats... Now I have seen a picture of 7 or 8... That isn't a very good indicator of there being as many as the claims. I had originally thought the claim of the huge numbers was an exageration of the newspaper article, but if the group is actually claiming those kind of numbers... I'm just not sure what to say or think about that....

I still have HUGE reservation about believing a group of 100+ members exists with 50+ active members... It would take a group photo of at least 30+ of said members for me to even consider giving that claim any credance... Not that I don't wish such a group exists, I am just too much of a realist to believe it without seeing it.

Thanks for sharing that one! I once made a 5 gallon batch of cyser, but I had to abandon it because of moving from one country to the next, so I never got to taste the fruits of my labour... and hard spent cash on a lot of not so cheap ingredients. I think I might just wait a month or so until the season is just right and give this smaller batch recipe a go!

As someone who has cause to cross the border regularly, I find this news horrifying. I guess from here on in I make sure I leave the laptop at home (not that I bring it with me often anyways)... If my laptop was ever confiscated, I would lose way to much information that is valuable to me.

Congrats to the happy new parents! Here's to the happy new family!

Ya know, Marcel would be a French version of the name Mark... But I'm glad you didn't choose that.. I had an old boss whose name was Marcel, and he was a whole lot of a jerk, so Raphael it is... Can we call you Raph for short?

I knew I recognized that dog, but I couldn't place it! I suppose I could have asked, but it never struck me as being important ebough to remember to ask... Now you've got me thinking about that old show, I HAVE to do a search on it to see if it is available on DVD... NetFlix here I come! My avatar, which changes about every few months or so, tends to just be a my favourite photo of myself at the moment... Nothing interesting or exciting... Although I have used a cute pirate themed animated gif from time to time just to amuse myself.

I'm going to have to agree with the others... I just re-read the whole four pages of the thread, and the Sea Rats have NOT been slammed, insulted, or put down, not even once. They have been complimented (many times by many people in the thread), and they bloody well deserve the compliments, judging from the pics, they are a really sharp and really authentic looking group. BUT, the two articles about them, those are a different story altogether. While I am happy one of the better and more authentic pirate groups is getting media attention, the media seems to have grossly misquoted and falsely represented the group... So yeah, it is fun to rip on those articles. Flinter5, time to stop being so sensitive and stop looking for insults where there are none. I don't know you, but BOTH threads where I have seen you pipe up, BOTH times it was to take offence at things where no offence was being given. You seem passionate about pirate re-enacting, so please do stop by the pub more often and try and get to know us, someone as passionate as yourself would be a welcome addition here... But please do try and take what is said here at face value and please stop trying to read "dark motives" into our fun and light hearted banter. The last example for those who don't remember Cheers

In either the web article or the Skirmish article there is a claim to over 100 members, with a second claim of over 60 active members (or there abouts)... I'm not sure if this is a gross misquote of the writer of the article or what the deal is... But all the photos of the groups seem to be the same three or four guys, with one woman in the photo Cheeky posted. That and I have doubts that there are even that many pirate re-enactors on the whole darn continent, never mind that many all in the same one group.

Ya know, I hardly ever peak down here in "The Way to a pirate's..." But I saw this thread and had to look. Wow, nice!I wish you all the best of luck with this Dutch! It looks like it will be gorgeous when it is done!

There is also this thread on Coffee and coffee houses. If we are lucky, maybe CrazyCholeBlack will pipe in here, I believe she has done quite a bit of research on the matter and does a period coffee house portrayal on occassion.

Bueatiful as always Mr. Skinner! Can I ask what you used for the toggle? It's kind of hard to tell from those photos... Wood? Bone? Antler? Tightly rolled pale leather?

I don't do all that much leather dyeing... So I am not an expert, so please take this with a huge grain of salt... But from what I do know of leather dyes, is that they are almost always "sealed" in with some sort of sealant or leather conditioner... Which means that dyed leather will most likely NOT take another colour (darker or lighter) over it. I have heard occassional stories where people have had some luck dyeing a darker colour over a lighter colour, but more often than not, it is a bitch rant or horror story I hear when people attempt over-dyeing with leather. I guarantee this is not the answer you wanted, maybe someone with more leather dyeing experience than I have will pipe up with some method or means of doing this successfully.

When and if you start making a lot of fruit infused meads, another really good book to have is "The Joy of Home Winemaking" by Terry Garey. This book focusses on winemaking, but once you get a good feel for water to honey ratios, it is easy to convert most fruit wine recipes to fruit mead recipes (also known as melomels). The Terry Garey and Ken Schramm books collectively make up my wine and mead making bible... I have close to a half a dozen other books on the topic, but I hardly ever refer to any books but those two. Another really good reference for fruit wines is Jack Keller's Winemaking Home Page , his web site has hundreds of recipes for tons of different fruits or fruit blends. On average (although there is plenty of possible variations) relacing the sugar in a fruit wine recipe with 2 to 3 pounds of honey is a good baseline for converting fruit wine to fruit mead recipes. On a quick search, I found the below recipes for you... It seems that watermelon doesn't stand on it's own well enough and works better in blends. If you ever have any questions, please feel free to resurrect this thread or contact me privately if you prefer... Watermelon-Peach wine recipe Other watermelon fruit blend wine recipes

Actually I want to thank you right back... That set of instructions and recipe in the link you posted has inspired me to put on a batch of mead. I had originally thought I was going to have to wait until my cherry wine was done, but then the thought of using the plastic water containers made me think that I don't have to wait, and I can start today! I just got back from the grocery store with a 2.5 gallon jug of water (I prefer doing bigger batches) and a whole load of blueberries to make some blueberry mead. I would have put this off for months had I not seen your post and hadn't got thinking about it.

Hey Zeph, The clearing of the chilled stuff is not an accident, but science (or magick or some arcane thing I barely understand)... Chilling is used in both wine and mead making to help the yeast settle so the end product comes out more clear. There is a longer way to do it (which I use since my fermenters won't fit in the fridge), and doing it the longer way also helps me with the aging thing. Personally I tend to prefer to serve my mead at room temperature, but that is a matter of personal preference, I know about an equal preportion of folks that like it chilled or not. One thing you might want to do when you have a few spare sheckels kicking around, is pick yourself up a copy of "The Complete Meadmaker" by Ken Schramm... You can find it in most bigger book stores (or get it ordered for you easy enough), and it only runs about $20... Or if you want to spend a few extra bucks on shipping, go to Amazon or your favourite online book source. It will be a well worth it investment! I love my copy, and it is very well read, re-read, and read again... Ad Nauseaum... M.A. D'Ogge, Unfortunately I didn't have enough mead for the honeymoon... I guess we should 'ave planned our wedding date a little better, and should have had a batch ready for that old tradition... Uzo... That stuff will mess you up, but it is tastey though (in small doses). Opa!

Lately my thoughts have been turned to my hats... I've started to think about finishing at least one of them instead of leaving them all raw. As far as I can figure, lace most commonly was used to edge hats (although re-enactors also use thin strips of fabric, which may be correct as well). There are many threads about hats, but I couldn't find one that focussed in on lace... In shopping through some of the "suttler" web sites, it seems that "lace for hats" is little more than twill tape/edge binding, at a width and thickness more ideal for hats than clothing. Is this correct? Or is this twill tape thing just a "suttler-ism"? Prior to my looking into this, I had always thought that lace was lace, and lace for hats was the same as the lace that is used to edge clothing (fancy stuff), but the hat variety would just be thinner and of a width more appropriate to hat edging. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Unfortunately, because I moved from one country to another about two years ago, and have been too busy since then settling, I haven't made a batch in quite a long time... I shared my third and second last bottles with various members of the Archangels (and a few other folks as well) at RF4 back in February... But I guess I could bring my very last bottle to share with you Dutch. I would love to make some blueberry mead (my ABSOLUTE FAVOURITE), as blueberries are at their cheapest right now, but my gear is currently all being used up by a couple of batches of cherry wine (yes just wine not mead )... But I am bound and determined to make sure my next batch of liquid consumables is to be a mead, which should be palatable by next summer... Maybe just in time for Hampton?

I've been making mead for quite a few years now... It's lots of fun... Well the drinking part is the most fun. The biggest trick (and the hardest trick) for making GOOD mead, is patience. Mead is drinkable (pending on the recipe) in anywhere from 3 to 6 months... But here's the kicker, most mead (regardless of recipe) isn't GOOD until it is over a year old if not two years old. In fact, in my experience, most of the mead I have made hits it's pinacle of tastiness at about 4 to 5 years. But I do have the advantage of having all the cool mead making toys, and I tend to make mead in either 3 or 5 gallon batches, so saving many bottles to let them age is much easier for me. Using cheap grocery store honey will make a decent mead, but using a more "farmer's market" varietal honey will make a freaking fantastic mead. I find people who really enjoy beer, tend to LOVE mead made from buckwheat honey, the ladies tend to favour orange blossom or tupelo honey (or a blend of both)... Mead making is a vast and wonderful art, enjoy... And I hope we cross paths some day so we can give each other samples of each others work!