Well, Plataea 2022 ended on Saturday and although there's a lot to be said, I'm limiting myself to some observations to bear in mind about all the stuff I brought out there:
- A four-inch-wide (internal), eight-foot-long PVC pipe with caps held on by duct tape makes a very protective package for spears, but it's so heavy and awkward (particularly when you already have two suitcases and a rifle case with your bows and arrows in it), and expensive to ship, that I wound up leaving both it and all my spears spears with other reenactors who felt they'd have a use for them and less difficulty/expense transporting them. I will not travel with spears in the future. If I send any more to Greece, I'll send them well ahead of time by the cheapest service available and leave them with a trusted friend.
- Under the (to my Pennsylvanian standards) quite aggressive heat and sun, the film of linseed oil-beeswax sealer I applied on top of the oil paint on my crescent shield softened and rubbed off. Specifically, the area on top of the dark red ochre-painted part of the shield; the area on top of the white edge was somewhat more resistant (presumably because the film is transparent and the dark paint heated up in the sun faster). The same mixture used as a paint binder on my new gorytos was also more resistant, but did soften after prolonged exposure, allowing thicker bits to be scraped off. The rosin-beeswax glue attaching the leather facing of my new akinakes scabbard also softened. By contrast, anything treated, bound or sealed with only linseed oil or rosin (the ochre paint on the shield, the spear handles, and the sinew wrappings of my arrows) were all fine. So basically anything containing beeswax was in danger of melting.
- The buff leather weapon belt performed admirably. The chrome-tanned belt sagged and became uncomfortable. I'm not sure whether this is because the holes I punched in the buff belt allowed it to be laced tighter or because it's a thicker leather, but I suspect both. The belt being nice and snug was definitely helpful.
- As I suspected, the smaller bow and commensurately smaller gorytos and arrows were much easier to carry. The search for an accurately Classical-styled bow of less than 36 inches strung continues.
- The 1/2-inch-thick wooden crescent shield is at least as heavy as larger wicker ones in the same style. This, too, needs improvement. I also threw together a round wicker mat with pelta-style grips and a suede facing, which at 16 inches in diameter (about the size of the smallest Scottish targes, and barely large enough to cover my arm from elbow to knuckles with fingers closed around the handgrip) is so light I barely notice I'm wearing it, but I'd have felt much, much better about it if it were crescent-shaped.
- A 12-ounce ceramic bottle, while convenient to carry, is only around a quarter as much water as I need to drink over the course of a Greek midsummer day in the field. Also, water left out becomes as hot as the surrounding air in just a few hours. What I wound up doing was to take a two-liter plastic bottle of water and keep it overnight in the hotel minifridge where it half-froze, wrapped it in spare clothing and kept it in my tent in my suitcase. That way I could still at least refill my ceramic bottle with slightly cool water by the end of the day. A proper cooler with ice blocks would've been better.
- Food must be kept elevated or it will be invaded by ants. A table of some kind, a crate, a box, anything will help.
Showing posts with label oil paint. Show all posts
Showing posts with label oil paint. Show all posts
Wednesday, August 3, 2022
Various practical addenda from Plataea 2022
Thursday, April 2, 2020
Painted suede is a conditional go
About a year and a half ago, Todd Feinman at RAT told me about a period leather finish that could be made from one part melted beeswax and two parts linseed oil. The oil polymerizes so that the mixture isn't sticky when cured, and the beeswax keeps the mixture flexible.
Regular readers will recall that I've long been troubled by the question of how to reproduce the crenelated decorations frequently seen on Greek depictions of the gorytos. You could stitch on dyed leather or cloth, but that always struck me as needlessly laborious, and very difficult unless the case's main seam were opened up, so I've concentrated on finding a paint that will do the trick. It's my understanding that the gorytos and other such gear were made from soft, sueded leather cured with fat or oil, similar to braintan, so any paint would need to be water-resistant (as braintan-type leather soaks up water like a sponge and is hard to seal) and flexible so as not to flake off. It recently occurred to me that the beeswax-oil sealer might make a good paint binder for that purpose.
I tried it out by mixing a little melted sealer and red ochre (I didn't take measurements, but the amount of ochre wasn't enough to thicken the binder significantly), and when it cooled, rubbing it into a scrap of buckskin, scraping off the excess, and rubbing what was left in again. A few days later, when it felt dry, I cut the scrap in half and rubbed a top coat of unpigmented sealer onto one of the pieces. I also tried "priming" another scrap with sealer before painting it and adding a top coat, and rubbing/scraping/rubbing plain red ochre oil paint onto a third piece, which was also then given a top coat.
Yesterday I put all four pieces into a sink full of water and let them soak for an hour and a half. The result was impressive: None of the paint on any of the four pieces ran, smeared, or softened in water. They had apparently sealed in all the pigment in a good-as-waterproof manner. I even scraped the paints with my fingernail and none came off. The plain oil paint worked just as well when rubbed and scraped instead of merely brushed on, but it cured much stiffer than the beeswax-oil paint, so between the two, I think the beeswax is preferable. The additional top coat was not needed, though I suspect it would make the paint job more durable in the long run. Because German buckskin is so pale, only a little paint is needed.
This technique comes with a number of caveats:
1. I know of no evidence whatsoever that the Persians or anybody else actually used a paint like this in antiquity. The materials would've been available, but I have no reason to think that anyone combined them and used them in this manner, other than that it would've been a great way of making those crenelated bowcase decorations.
2. I used hardware-store boiled linseed oil. This version has some sort of chemical additives that cause it to cure faster than the kind that would've been available in our period, which (if used as a paint binder) would've been functionally equivalent to the purer linseed oil still sold in art stores for making traditional oil paint. In other words, if you use the more period-correct oil, you'll need to allow much more time for it to "dry." On the other hand, it's doubtlessly less toxic.
3. Many leatherworkers believe that linseed oil's chemical properties degrade leather fibers over time. However, I think the paint only soaks in shallowly, so I don't think it'll prove much of a problem.
4. The rubbing and scraping technique is useful only for producing large, simple designs. It may be possible to apply finer oil paint designs on leather that's been glued to a hard surface and primed with drying oil; if so, that technique might be appropriate for scabbard facings glued to a wood core.
Regular readers will recall that I've long been troubled by the question of how to reproduce the crenelated decorations frequently seen on Greek depictions of the gorytos. You could stitch on dyed leather or cloth, but that always struck me as needlessly laborious, and very difficult unless the case's main seam were opened up, so I've concentrated on finding a paint that will do the trick. It's my understanding that the gorytos and other such gear were made from soft, sueded leather cured with fat or oil, similar to braintan, so any paint would need to be water-resistant (as braintan-type leather soaks up water like a sponge and is hard to seal) and flexible so as not to flake off. It recently occurred to me that the beeswax-oil sealer might make a good paint binder for that purpose.
I tried it out by mixing a little melted sealer and red ochre (I didn't take measurements, but the amount of ochre wasn't enough to thicken the binder significantly), and when it cooled, rubbing it into a scrap of buckskin, scraping off the excess, and rubbing what was left in again. A few days later, when it felt dry, I cut the scrap in half and rubbed a top coat of unpigmented sealer onto one of the pieces. I also tried "priming" another scrap with sealer before painting it and adding a top coat, and rubbing/scraping/rubbing plain red ochre oil paint onto a third piece, which was also then given a top coat.
Yesterday I put all four pieces into a sink full of water and let them soak for an hour and a half. The result was impressive: None of the paint on any of the four pieces ran, smeared, or softened in water. They had apparently sealed in all the pigment in a good-as-waterproof manner. I even scraped the paints with my fingernail and none came off. The plain oil paint worked just as well when rubbed and scraped instead of merely brushed on, but it cured much stiffer than the beeswax-oil paint, so between the two, I think the beeswax is preferable. The additional top coat was not needed, though I suspect it would make the paint job more durable in the long run. Because German buckskin is so pale, only a little paint is needed.
This technique comes with a number of caveats:
1. I know of no evidence whatsoever that the Persians or anybody else actually used a paint like this in antiquity. The materials would've been available, but I have no reason to think that anyone combined them and used them in this manner, other than that it would've been a great way of making those crenelated bowcase decorations.
2. I used hardware-store boiled linseed oil. This version has some sort of chemical additives that cause it to cure faster than the kind that would've been available in our period, which (if used as a paint binder) would've been functionally equivalent to the purer linseed oil still sold in art stores for making traditional oil paint. In other words, if you use the more period-correct oil, you'll need to allow much more time for it to "dry." On the other hand, it's doubtlessly less toxic.
3. Many leatherworkers believe that linseed oil's chemical properties degrade leather fibers over time. However, I think the paint only soaks in shallowly, so I don't think it'll prove much of a problem.
4. The rubbing and scraping technique is useful only for producing large, simple designs. It may be possible to apply finer oil paint designs on leather that's been glued to a hard surface and primed with drying oil; if so, that technique might be appropriate for scabbard facings glued to a wood core.
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