Old Soldier Sahib

I finally received my copy of the Al Stohlman book and voila! - concise illustrated instructions! ...now to ruin a whole lotta thread as I practice until I've got it down pat.....

I don't know....I've always used pine tar (mostly because I have a gallon can of it under my bench) and used lamp black to darken it if required...

I forgot to mention that using bitumen or roofer's pitch will result in black wax, and pine tar will produce dark brown wax....

There's a coincidence - I just reserved that book in the city library not half an hour ago! Your linen thread won't get stained if you polish the hook first....

I imagine that this method limits the practical length of the thread to a fathom (one arm-span) or less, and that longer lengths would just 'marl' into a tangle. this shouldn't present a problem, as a fathom is as long a piece that can be used when hand-sewing.

Black cobbler's wax is handy stuff - wooden-boatbuilders use it (builders of Norse Faerings call it 'boat soup' - heated to near-bubbling and painted onto the wood to soak into and fill the grain and preserve the wood.) as do pipers (Players of the Great Highland Bagpipe only use it to wax the cords that they use to tie-in a traditional leather bag, but makers and players of the Scottish and Northumbrian Smallpipes and the Uileann pipes use it to seal their bellows and bags) I had been rooting around my shop, looking for that last bit of black cobbler's wax that I was SURE that I had somwhere (not wanting to order some in from the bagpipe supply shop (only available in expensive tiny wee blobs) when I remembered the old recipe. You'll want to do this outside unless you're lucky enough to be living with someone whose idea of heaven is living in a house that smells like a square-rigged ship! Equal volumes of bitumen or pitch - if you can't find that, use Stockholm (Pine) Tar - and bee's-wax. Rosin (available by the bag at any dance shop, or by the cake at any music store that caters to fiddlers) or Beef suet Melt the bee's-wax in a double-boiler (to lessen the risk of fire) that you've selected for the purpose because it'll never come clean again - use only enough heat to melt the wax - DON'T boil it! When it's thoroughly melted, slowly stir in the chunks of pitch or dollops of pine tar. When the pitch and wax is thoroughly blended, add a bit (roughly 10% of the total already in the pot) of either rosin or beef suet and then stir until it's all blended. Pour into cakes (I use paper shells and an old cupcake tray that I don't think the wifie has missed yet) and allow to cool. Rosin will make it drastically more sticky - your thread will grip tight against the leather and other strands of thread - and make it more hard when it cools, and the suet will make it 'greasier' and thus more inclined to soak in. It took me a while to experiment and find the optimum amount of rosin to add for the task at hand.

Cheers - I'll keep at it, then!

Can anyone explain how to hand-roll linen thread to make it heavier? There are a few clues in Tim Severin's book "The Brendan Voyage" about the retired harnessmaker John O'Connell rolling single-strand flax thread into 14-strand cord, rolling it on his thigh like a cigar-maker. I can understand it in principle as being somewhat simular to 'laying-up' rope-yarn into cable-laid rope. I've been trying and getting nowhere, likewise with my effort to "break it against the twist with a casual flick of the wrist" but I only succeed in slicing up my hands with the cord....

Good for you! I've been eyeing the "Al Stohlman round knife" in the catalogues, but my interest stopped when I saw that it's made from stainless steel. In my experience, ss is good for one thing and one thing only: 'not rusting' - it takes forever to sharpen and doesn't keep an edge at all. I've got some truck springs at the back of the shop that I've been turning into chisels as needed - I think I'll make my round knife based on your photies!

I'll never stand in the way of a fellow that's determined to buy another shop tool - but remember that the original was made without a bandsaw (or indeed any power tools at all) and you don't need much beyond a handsaw, chisel, drawknife, brace-and-bitt and spokeshave to make this bench - barring the metalwork, of course.... I intend to replicate my used-up and broken horse over the next few months. I'll post a topic on it once I start.

I've just found this forum today after a few hours of 'internet research' and I'm mightily impressed. My Maternal grandfather was a Staff Sergeant-harnessmaker who served in the Royal Horse Artillery 1879-1903 and the CEF 1914-1919. I inherited many of his tools and the fragments of his harnessmaker's bench when I was a small boy. He worked in a livery stable at the corner of Oak and Broadway in Vancouver from his demob in 1919 until postwar prosperity led to the end of horse-drawn vehicles in urban Vancouver in around 1947. he then repaired shoes at the same shop until the day he died. Growing up in a family that, while not poor had ungrateful memories of poverty, meant that anything I wanted beyond a certain line in the sand I was going to have to make for myself. This was great, as I learned a great many skills including the rudimentary use of my new/old awls, palms and needles! My 11-years-old daughter has the usual adolescent female horse-madness, so we took a trip down to the stables in Southlands that one of her friends goes to. Having obtained the brochure (and winced at the hourly rates) something posessed me to say: "Do you have any tack that needs repair?" The instructor promptly showed me some saddles that had had the stitching come adrift. A couple of enjoyable hours double-stitching a saddle thrown over a rail fence in trade for a couple of lessons for her! I've a lot to learn, as I suspect that some more work will be offered to me, and it won't be all as easy as that was....