[Regia-NA] Q re: bone working

[rmhowe]

J Hill wrote:
> Thank you!  That is just the sort of info I need.
> AFter I posted, I found a tandyleather on line, too.  Maybe they just 
> closed their retail stores.
>  
> When you are working w/ leather, do you prefer vegetable tanned leather? 

It's the only type you can tool. It's generally the only
type they had, although other types were used for shoes.
Mostly it was done with oak although there were various
wild methods from Roman times on, involving even urine
and dog doo.
Modern Chrome tanned leathers can be spotted by looking
at a cut edge, you will see a grey interior.

In period the only stain we can reasonably prove other than
oiling and use seems to be a vinegar/rust type of black.
This produces a slate grey type of black.
You can achieve this by putting rusty iron into a vinegar
mixture and waiting a few weeks. A faster method would be
to light some fine steel wool and let it burn in a pipe,
which produces iron oxide (rust) quickly. A less sticky
method [says he that has used vinegars for cleaning iron]
is acetic acid/photographer's Stop Bath, which is vinegar
without the sugars.

Various oilings will produce various shades of brown.
Neatsfoot oil or mink oil, or stuffing the leather with
tallow or stuffing which is highly rendered beef fat.
You repeatedly rub it in until you can't get it to absorb
anymore.

See the medieval-leather@egroups.com group backlog which
can also be read and post group messages to on the web
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/medieval-leather/

Dye methods for leather are not documented before the 1500's.
That doesn't mean they did not have them. It means we don't
have the recipes.

Magnus