Saturday, October 27, 2018

Parchment Workshop

The workshop went very well.  I lost most would-be participants to the fall cold that swept through and people are still coughing from, but I had 3 enthusiastic students, and we had a great day. 
My time estimate was excellent except for defrosting the hides.  I had to resort to hot water so we had something to work on.

Photos by Hrólfr Á Fjárfelli‎ and Simon, who were also participating.


Peggy fleshing the hide.
Then they dehaired, 2nd fleshed, stretched (using both pebbles and continuous lacing)

wet scraped both sides with a round knife, sanded with a cuttle bone (pumice, parchmenter's bread, and shaving with a round knife are also options).
Cut a finished piece of parchment off of the frame (this was before the wet one went up), and then cut it to shape for best use of material.  Peggy & Simon each took home an 8x10 piece of parchment, Hrolfr says he'd like to make his own.  Peggy is reserving smaller deer hides should they become available (big bucks make great rawhide, but not great parchment, stick with younger animals).
Overall it was a great day.  We started around 10:00 a.m. and ended about 5:30 with reasonable breaks. 


Tuesday, October 16, 2018

Preparing for a Parchment Workshop

October 21st will be my first go at running a parchment workshop.  I'm doing it from my home because that is where I have everything set up.  I'm hoping to do one in PA in the spring.  It's an all day affair, even with each stage prepared ahead of time with different hides. 

I still have to clean the place up, but otherwise I'm ready to launch. 

I have hides in the following stages, each one ready to advance to the next according to the order of how a single hide would progress from raw material to finished parchment. 

1: A dried rawhide (this won't go into water, but that's where it would go in the next step)
2: A softened green hide ready for scudding, which will go into the lime bath.
3: A hide that I froze after the lime bath with hair slipping.  Depending on how the hair comes out we'll use this one for degraining and 2nd fleshing, or we'll do a grain-on.  I let the hide tell me that.  This goes into the rinse water.
4: A hide ready to go up on the stretcher for wet scraping.  There's a bit of a hitch here as I have to skip ahead to cutting a finished piece off of the stretcher, but that's OK. 
5: A hide for sanding and re-wetting for the final stretch into parchment.  Sometimes I stretch 2x, but this is nice & clean, so once will probably be it.
6: (this is where one ought to cut the hide off the stretcher).  We'll take the parchment we just cut off the stretcher (herse) and I'll show how to store it rolled, and how to cut it to shape.

I have to sweep the basement, weed around the barn entrance, clean up in the barn (there is room for me to work, but not for 6 other people to watch), and hook up the other hose because the one on there now sprung a leak when my father backed the trailer over it.  I should probably add a few more lights in the basement too.
I also need to figure out how to raise the fleshing beam for taller people.  I'm a mini-human, so that setup won't work for average to tall people.
I have trash bag aprons, rubber gloves & hairbands.
Will have to fill water buckets the day before, and probably make labels so I don't lose my place and that will make it easier for people taking photos to know what is what.