Wednesday, June 29, 2022

Pieced gorytos, part V and last

The final steps were essentially no different from last time.  I put the strung bow in the case and used it to approximate the size and shape of the cover onto folded paper.  The curved top is my guess as to how it should be shaped if I manage to find a more authentically-shaped bow in the future.  I then traced it onto another piece of buckskin.

As with the main body, I stapled the seam at the edges, made the stitch holes with a hobby awl and sewed with heavy linen thread.

The belt attachments are roughly copied from the ones I made last time and are similarly fabricated from 14ga brass, cut with an angle grinder, annealed, and with the top bars expanded by being hammered with a small steel block.

I didn't have enough of the giant upholstery tacks from last time and they were no longer available at the fabric store, so I ordered some 1/2-inch brass tacks from Crazy Crow.  These have an advantage over the upholstery tacks in that, being solid brass, their finish can't be scratched off and the heads won't rust if scratched.  Stephan Eitler offered the quite reasonable alternative that the cord simply passes through a hole or slot in the spine and that what I've been interpreting as the attachment devices are actually ornamental.

The finished gorytos.  There is some difficulty in balancing how far up the spine the cord is attached (so the case will hang diagonally) versus how far down the cover can go (so it can sit partly on the spine instead of just lying on the bowstring and potentially slipping off).  The excess overlap of the cover onto the spine, combined with the square upper corner of the spine and how soft the leather is, explains why the cover appears particularly slouchy.  I may cut a semicircular notch on the upper (folded) side, as appears in some of the Persepolis reliefs and which I did in 2015.

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