Fireworks
No mirror will reflect your image better
than the work you do with your fingers
The water of Creation must flow
between the shorelines of your hands
Ready to receive what no one seems to want:
sleepless nights
days without dreams.
And the wood, hot with sap,
the clay, cold with water,
the wool, warm with life.
Rise up to the land!
from shelters where each one will learn to make
and will dare not destroy
For knowing how to make:
and the song of the bird
and the dark bed of the root grass.
Oh awareness, my awareness!
Thin grass
Held grass
Our land returned!
— Bianca Saury
The farmer told me in a dream, “Make your bread. I am no longer going to feed you.”
The weaver told me, “Make your clothes yourself.”
The mason said, “Take up the trowel!”
— Sally Prudhomme
MATERIAL
• A needle: A small steel rod with a pointed end, perforated at the other end with a slot called an “eye” through which one passes the thread (always make a knot at one end of the thread so it will be stopped in the fabric).
• Thimble: A small metal, cylindrical covering (carved wood or hollow tassel) for protecting the end of the finger (most often the middle finger) that pushes the needle.
• Scissors: steel tool with two sharp blades, serves to cut fabric.
• Thread
RUNNING STITCH Insert the needle into the tissue (held in the left hand), about .5 cm below the exit, pull the needle to slide the thread through the fabric and tighten the thread; start again until complete—the yarn is always behind the needle.
BACKSTITCH Insert the needle, pull it out 1 cm away; insert it again .5 cm behind; the thread must precede the needle; each point is spaced.
RUNNING STITCH The same technique as the backstitch but here the entry and exit points are juxtaposed.
HEMMING STITCH The hemming stitch is always done on the underside of the fabric; to do this, make the thread pass through the thickness of the underside of the fabric, which is folded, and only take one thread in the part of the fabric where the point will be.
HERRING STITCH Contrary to other points, this one goes from left to right. Insert the needle .5 cm above the hem’s crease, making a point before 1 cm longer toward the right; take a thread through the fabric which will be the place, and do it again before 1 cm to the right. The points intersect in diagonals.
BUTTONHOLES Slit the fabric in the desired location. With a taut thread, insert the needle at a point one or two millimeters from the slit’s edge. Then, embroider each edge with a blanket stitch. The ends of the buttonholes are handled in two ways:
• Rounded at one end with a button loop on the other side
• With a button loop at each end
BLANKET STITCH Runs from left to right. Insert the needle a few millimeters above the future edge of the stitch and pull it out perpendicularly to the line of the edge of the stitch, holding the thread under the tip of the needle in order to form a knot. Keep this knot on the edge of the stitch and insert the needle at the next point, against the one that was just completed.
MENDING Before putting on a patch, it is always better to darn according to the principles of weaving; sew the thread through the opening, the needle passing alternately over and under each; each back-and-forth; insert the thread on the front of the fabric; then cut a piece of fabric with larger dimensions than the cover; place the hem stitch there, folding along the whole of its perimeter.
CROSS-STITCH Very useful for uniting two pieces of fabric, placed flat side by side, or one overlapping the other. It is made with two oblique crossing points, the first descending and from left to right, the second moving up and from left to right.
A practice difficult to explain; mainly transmitted from mother to daughter.
MATERIAL One uses two long, blunt needles, preferably steel; their length varies from 20 to 50 cm; one end is pointed, the other is often surrounded in plastic to stop the thread. In the language of knitting, the needle is also designed to maintain all the stitches on one single row.
MOUNTING THE MESH To make the first row of mesh to one specific length to the end of the yarn, the front length corresponds to at least three times the width of the finished row.
Slide the left thumb on the remaining free yarn. The yarn from the ball passes through the left index finger; tighten this thread and maintain it by pulling it through the middle finger, then the ring finger, then the ring finger of the left hand.
Rotate the left hand toward the left in a way to obtain the crossing of the yarn that circles the left thumb to create a second loop. Insert the needle in this loop and, with it, pull the yarn tight on the index finger through this loop. One thus makes a new row. Release the thread from the thumb.
Again slide the left thumb through the yarn.
Successively repeat these operations.
The stitch mounted, the knitting can begin—turn the work over and take the other needle in the right hand. We describe the two stitches one can combine at will.
THE MAIN STITCHES
The right stitch: make the stitch slide toward the end of the needle in order to knit easily.
Insert the needle of the right hand into the first stitch, in the same direction as the left needle; loop the thread from the ball around the needle. While slightly pulling out the right needle, drag this thread onto it and remove a stitch from the left needle.
The wrong side: With the right hand, insert the needle into a stitch in the opposite direction from the left needle; pass the thread around the needle. While slightly pulling out the right needle, drag this thread onto it and remove a stitch from the left needle.
Side stitch: Obtained by alternating one or more stitches on the one side with one or more stitches on the right side. As you return to the work, knit the stitches as they present themselves: right side by right side and upside down by upside down.
Garter stitch is uniquely composed of right-sided stitches.
Stockinette stitch is composed of alternating a row of right side stitches and a row of opposite side stitches.
INCREASES Knit one stitch without dropping it, and redo the same stitch taking the thread behind (if it was a stitch on the right side, it will be followed by a stitch on the wrong side and vice versa); then replace the stitch on the other side.
DECREASES to decrease, knit two stitches and fold the first needle over the second using the left needle; for several decreases, knit a new stitch and fold the previous one over.
BORDERS To obtain a supple and regular knit, here are some recommendations: take the first stitch from each row to the side without the knit and knit always to last stitch on the right side (no matter the row).
FINISHING Tilt the stitches; proceed as if decreasing, that of each stitch the length of the row.
Finishing the French way on the right side
Uses a needle around 15 cm with a curved punch.
THE CHAIN A succession of stitches
The stitch in the air: the crochet in the right hand, the yarn is tightened around the index finger of the left hand; make a noose, wrap it around the crochet, making it slide slightly.
Make a throw hook: pass the crochet needle from left to right once under the yarn.
Flow loop: pull the hook with the needle and bring it through the noose.
Once you obtain a chain stitch, continue with the chain; once the desired length is obtained, turn it over.
THE TIGHT STITCH All the points of crochet are founded on the principle of the tight stitch; the only difference is the name of the hooks and the loops; one can therefore determine the number by doing some samples and selecting a desired point.
• On a chain of stitches in the air, insert the crochet in the two strands of the second stitch.
• Make a hook and draw up the loop (this is to bring the thread with the hook through the stitch where the crochet has been jabbed with the needle); you then have two loops on the needle.
• Make a new hook and make two loops with the crochet needle, continue.
BORDERS They will be straight and supple if one respects these few rules:
• At the end of each row, make the last point inserting the crochet through the beginning stitch of the preceding row.
• Replace the first point of each row with one or more chain stitches; the number of chain stitches varies according to the point used; for the half-button loop, for example, make two for each new row.
FINGER CROCHETING
• The chain: Make a slip knot, slide the right index finger inside, holding the yarn in the left hand; pass the right index finger under this yarn and return it through the slip knot’s loop in order to shape a second loop; continue this way until a chain is achieved.
• The half-button loop: With the chain achieved above, turn the piece over, the index finger in the loop, pass under the yarn, then into the following stitch. One then has three threads on the finger, pass the index finger under the yarn and return it through the three loops.
THE LOOP To weave, one uses mainly wool and silk, but other fibers too:
• Animal origin: goat skin, rabbit fur, dog hair;
• Plant origin: juicy fibers, nettle, shrub and hemp; but only the animal fibers have the calorific value.
The loom is generally made of wood; it can be a size of greater or lesser importance with more or less perfection, but there always remains a base practice, which we describe here.
The simplest loom constitutes a square on which one plants nails, spaced normally. Stretch the wool in a longitudinal direction; the ensemble thus forms a wall—the sequence. Spread more wool in the horizontal direction, sliding it once alternatively above and under the chain and the inverse direction next. In this way, one differentiates the chain’s even and odd threads. This interlacing of horizontal threads makes the weft.
WARPING The action of arranging the chain’s thread parallel to each other in the order they occupy in the fabric, and a number to that which the material will have in its width.
The measurements: Do a quick calculation to fix the exact length of the thread to the loom. Take, for example, a chain of 30 cm wide; get two threads per centimeters—the chain then will have sixty threads. Desiring a spin of 1.5 m long (the length of the material to which one adds 20 cm, in case of falls, fastening strands, etc.), multiply this length by the number of threads; one thereby obtains 90 meters of wool.
Place the yarn around four sticks arranged in pairs. If we want a chain of many colors, measure beforehand the importance each will have in the chain and alternate them in the desired order on the sticks. The thread thus prepared, remove the sticks by sliding the arm into the first crossing.
ATTACH THE STRANDS TO THE FIRST BEAM The wool removed from the sticks creates two crossings (an eight with one more loop). So cut the first loop of the chain; they are divided into two, each pair knotted around the first beam.
Then transversely slide the wooden slats onto each of the crossings’ sides (the even threads are on the first beam, the odd are on the second).
Note: The way the first beam will be attached to the outdoor loom is very important because it must wrap the finished work and therefore be able to slide along the cords that moor the tree, the second beam must reach the fabric and will also have a special roping.
THE COMB Its usage depends on the quality of the weaving, it allows tightening of the threads of the weft along the chain; one slides these teeth between each interval.
The comb is made of four sticks joined to form a square and through which tight strings are stretched vertically; their number is equal to at least half of those of the chain.
THE BLADES The blades will help to open the chain, to separate the even and odd threads in order to insert only one passage of weft threads. They will also consist of a wooden box; through these upright wooden frames are vertically tightened. The number will be the half of those from the chain. One may also create a game of double looms, which renders it easier to share the even and odd cloths.
MOUNTING THE COMB AND THE BLADES Cut the second loop of the chain and slide one by one into the comb’s teeth, then across the loom and the gaps; the even threads will be placed in the loom’s hook, the odd thread between the looms and thus to the last blade. In the case of the game of dual looms, the even threads will pass in intervals this time through the second lath, the uneven threads in the looms. When one lifts the frame, that which will bring about the even threads taken in the loom, the odd threads will stay horizontal; the space obtained is called “tread,” it is through it that one passes the threads of the weft; when one lowers the frame, its weight will again result in even threads creating a new space with horizontal, odd threads.
Note: For outdoor weaving, one can link the frames of the lath to a rope stretched between two trees, above the loom.
ATTACH THE BLADES TO THE SECOND BEAM Tie the pair of threads to the second beam.
WEAVING Wind a fairly significant length of wool along a wooden rod pointed at the ends: a slit catches the thread. The passage of this shuttle through the treads is easier to accomplish at a slant. After each passage of the weft thread through the width of the loom, change the position of the looms and tighten the threads with the teeth of the comb.
Note: During WWII the Germans did not hesitate to use not only the teeth or skin of the departed, but also their hair, which was made into pullovers and socks. We note here the total exploitation of people considered to be animals by others (who thought themselves gods), it is quite a revenge for all the poor domesticated animals or even the wild animals whose evolution we have ended or whom we have assassinated and murdered for our pleasure or for profit.
There will be time to meditate and to act, according to the great Kant:
“We must always consider
all beings
as ends in themselves,
justified in themselves,
finding their own purpose within.
We must never consider a living being as a means to satisfy our desires.
We must respect the intrinsic values of other beings
and never sacrifice them
for our personal gain,
which is what we do when we kill animals.
We violate the laws of highest morality.”
That being said, we could very well use the old skins of animals that died as well as sheep’s wool and the hair of men without doing any harm.
THE STUDY OF SHEEP’S WOOL Wool is produced by the family Bovidae, mainly sheep and some other mammals. Unfortunately, the majority of the breeders rely a lot more on their meat than on their fleece and those concentrated on the former usually don’t give everything so the quality of wool suffers!
Wool is the hair of the sheep; when one examines hair, one notices a body and two ends, one with a point, the other surrounded by a bulge—the bulb, integrated in the skin. This bulb contains a muscle which, when it contracts, brings blood through the vessels which irrigate and, therefore, strengthen the hair. So, the animal’s food is very important with respect to the fleece.
Contrary to the majority of hair, wool has a stem devoid of a central channel, which creates its suppleness. A strand of wool seen in the microscope looks like a scaly body; these bristling scales cling to each other, and this gives the wool the property necessary for felting and spinning. Sheep fleece grows continuously—without ever falling out, it doubles in length if it is not sheared.
Note: There are special hair sheep—they lack sufficient wool fibers or their coats naturally shed. Their fleece is not desirable.
SHEARING Season—shearing takes place at a precise time of year; not too early so the sheep get cold, and not too late, so the wool has time to grow when sheep are in the pastures, sometimes sleeping outside in June. It is therefore done upon the arrival of the beautiful days of April and May. This operation was otherwise reserved for a team of shearers made up of shepherds who left their occupations in order to collect wool fleece; thus, this work was skillfully accomplished. Now, each shepherd must shear his or her own animals.
Material—One used to use blade shears, a type of scissors with two blades joined by a steel semicircle. Their handling required the use of two hands; the sheep then had to be positioned between the legs of the shearer. They are now used to polish the shearing.
The shepherds also have at their disposition electric shearers (made of the moving blades of a comb that slide one upon the other). The shepherd can keep one hand free because using them requires less force and this also allows for a more streamlined work.
Methods: Shearing is not an easy operation. One must take care to not hurt the animal. In case of wounds, disinfect with iodine. There are several methods—such as starting with the hind legs or else starting with the head …
First off, align the sheep’s hooves side by side (the two left legs, then the two right legs); the shearer must be as close as possible to the skin. Begin with the nose, the cheeks, the ears, then the face; then the neck.
Sit the sheep on his backside, the head between the shearer’s legs, and remove all the stomach beginning with the left side.
Then place the animal on its left side and shear the flanks; turn the sheep over and do the whole side together with the left leg and thigh. Turn the sheep again and shear the left leg and thigh.
These successive maneuvers allow the fleece to fall in one piece on the right side.
Shear the insides of the hind legs, then the front legs, then the belly, let go of the legs and the front legs behind the neck, finish with the hind legs—the sheep is then sheared.
The fleece removed, roll it up, placing it toward the inner legs and belly and close it with a string. Fleece is stored in a not too wet, not too dry place. It is then submitted to the following operations, which will cause the loss of 25 to 75% of the initial weight.
SORTING THE WOOL Stretch the wool on the table and take out any impurities by hand, especially that which comes from the outside (straw stems, excrement …) then that which comes from the animal’s body—wool is made mostly of grease. This hand-cleaning is done quickly because it is mostly water that will restore wool to its natural whiteness. One must know that fleece has different qualities of wool and therefore must be carefully separated. The neck and the stomach are, for example, shorter wool; the best parts for spinning are the back, the flanks, the shoulders.
WASHING THE WOOL Done with fresh, cold water; rainwater is very sensible; sometimes the wash can be done before shearing; the herd is brought to the stream where one brushes the sheep with plenty of water. After the shearing, one soaks the wool in cold, fresh water—one part of the grease being water-soluble. After this first washing, two solutions can be considered.
The wool is then spun: it still maintains a portion of its fatty matter which makes spinning easier. Stretch it out in the shade, spin it, put it in hanks and wash thoroughly.
The wool must wait before being spun: to allow its storage, there is a third operation that must be done: the scouring. The remaining grease can carry parasites.
CLEANING Based on several household recipes:
I. Water: 30 liters. Ammonium bicarbonate: 150 g. Immerse for fifteen minutes at 30° C
II. Water: 30 liters. Green soap: 120 g. one hour at 30° C
Wool, after having bathed in one of these preparations, will be stretched in the shade like earlier in order to dry. Store it then in a canvas sack with lavender to protect it from moths.
BLEACHING Even washed wool remains yellowish; to remove this coloring, one may:
• Hang it from a beam over a steam bath of sulfur vapor
• Soak it in small quantities in a bath of bleach water at 12 volumes; leave it for several hours there, then rinse it; wring and dry in the shade.
CARDING First, take each tuft of wool in the hands, stretch it, letting the impurities that have crept between the strands fall out; this stretching should always be done in the same direction, to keep the strands of wool parallel.
When wool is difficult to stretch, take teasels (a kind of rectangular beater trimmed with polished metal on the sides), place some flakes of raw wool on one of them, and brush gently five or six times; do it again with the wool on the other teasel and clear the shuttle with the hand, then roll it on a flat surface. It is preferred, once the wool is carded, to spin immediately to avoid settling.
Note: carding is done only if the strands are short and felted; if they are long and supple, they risk being severed.
SPINNING This transformation is from textile fibers to yarn; for this preparation, one uses the spindle or the spinning wheel.
The spindle: shaped like an elongated top with a device in its upper part to allow the hooking of the wool.
To spin, take a strip of wool and attach the end to the middle of the spindle, which can itself be attached to a skein. From the right hand, release the wool; with the left hand, rotate the spindle clockwise thereby avoiding its stops or turns in the other direction because the wool would then break. When the spindle is full, remove the wool and replace it with another strand.
If the strand breaks, reconnect the two pieces by stretching them, putting them on each other, making the spindle go down in a twist and don’t drop them until they are very far down.
The use of a distaff (a stick 50 cm long, having at its upper end a cutout portion, where the wool is hooked) is not necessary, except for with flax.
The spinning wheel: The main components are the big wheel driven by a pedal or a crank and at the left, a little wheel. This latter one is crossed by an iron bar, which has an opening: the eye; a bobbin and a fort are threaded on this from front to back.
The fork is solidly attached and turns at the same time as the spindle so that the bobbin is mobile. On the fork’s left branch are ten small hooks (pins), which guide the wool in perpendicularly to the bobbin. The same series of hooks is found on the right branch of the other side. A belt joins the two wheels, another passes through the big wheel and in through the bobbin. The ensemble of these pieces is attached to a frame in different shapes.
Take a strand of wool 20 cm, put it in the hollow of the pin, making it reappear in the eye, and then slide it through the hooks so it is solidly hung on the bobbin; then pedal, holding the wool between the fingers. (The spindle and the bobbin are independent.) After weaving the wool a bit, move it over the pin so that it wraps around the length of the bobbin. When the bobbin is full, remove it from its belt, then roll it in a ball or the skein.
Handling the wheel is a delicate process, as with the spindle, and good practice requires several tries which, at the beginning, risks discouragement; once the technique is well in the hands, the output is much more satisfying. The wool’s smoothness depends on the spinner’s skill, such that the wool spun in an unsmooth way will also have a specific quality.
Other fibers of plant and animal origin:
It is also possible to spin with fibers other than wool:
• Animal origin: goat, rabbit, some dog hairs
• Plant origin: jute, shrub, flax, hemp, nettle (ramie)
Ramie is the most common nettle, of tropical origin (Boehmeria nivea), and the most popular for spinning and weaving. Harvested four times per year, the fibers come from the stems. Recently, a process was discovered to treat it industrially. This plant possesses many qualities and its affinity to dye is very high.
RETTING The flax and hemp stalks are spread over a meadow and harvested for their seeds. Grouped in small bundles, they are then collected to be ground. This is washed in river water, four to six days for hemp (so the bark is easily removed) and three to six weeks for flax. The aim is designed to remove the resinous gum that attaches the stem to the bark. To dry, spread them out in a meadow, then put them in the oven at a temperature less than 50° C to 60° C.
SCOTCHING For this procedure, one uses a kind of long-handled mace, the stem’s bark thus pulverized is removed. After these two procedures, the flax and the hemp are combed with the help of carders, then spun; the more dry and the tighter the wool, the more difficult it is to twist the strands; it must be then constantly wet with water.
WHITENING These two textiles are not white until after weaving; their whitening is done by the Sun, spraying them with water. But all whitening is a beginning of wear and tear and so it would be better to perfect them with washes.
Silk is a stringy substance secreted by some Lepidoptera, and it is essentially made of two proteins (sericin and fibroin). It is used as a textile material. To obtain this precious thread, man raises silkworms (Bombyx or Sericaria mori). This insect eats white mulberry leaves (Morus alba). The white mulberry was imported from China to France with the goal of feeding the larvae of this insect, which one finds on leaves. It is preferable to obtain the eggs in March and keep them fresh (+9° C or +8° C). One places them in simple boxes where they are submitted to a slow raising of the temperature: 22° C is the optimal temperature. After ten days of incubation, a multitude of caterpillars will be born from 2.5 mm long that one may place in racks. One feeds them for a month on chopped-up white mulberry leaves. They will eat so much that their skin will not be able to contain it and they will have to change four times. At birth, they cover only a few decimeters squared; now, they cover one hundred meters squared.
Each day, one must clean the worm’s habitat, removing their excrement, surveying the temperature and the humidity; for thirty-two days of their larval life, the silkworms consume from thirteen to fifteen grams of leaves per day. On the thirty-third day, after the last molt, the worms refuse all nourishment; they then attach to racks and small twigs and the prisoner worms go in search of a place to do their spinning.
Each worm disposes of a small case, which assures a perfect calibration of the cocoon. They attach these threads a bit in all directions, then after a while the precise shape of the cocoon is formed, their head depicts the movement of a figure 8 and the thread is deposited on the entire inner surface of the cocoon. And this in several layers. The key thread can reach 800 to 1,200 meters, but hardly 300 to 500 meters is used. Then the worm numbs and shrinks. A fifth molt is prepared for the formation of the pupa or chrysalis. The cocoon with the pupa is then placed in hot air so as to kill the chrysalis. If allowed to, it will transform into a butterfly—the insect wanting to break out of its cocoon, it would then be difficult to unravel the thread made of such a true skein. The reeling follows by pulling the cord and winding a coil while the cocoon jumps. Often this thread is so fine it takes three to ten cocoons reeling at once to get the desired size. Silk is a living material and its use requires a lot of patience and caution; rot-proof, it possesses high absorption power and thus has many dyeing qualities; it offers equal protection against external moisture and perspiration; in dry air, the slightest friction electrifies it and this acts as a valuable insulation.
Note: Sometimes silkworms working side by side make a double cocoon. These cocoons make a silk that is less smooth but thicker and stronger.
Note: Actually, the white mulberry is in danger of disappearing in Europe because its excellent fruits are no longer sold as food and synthetic silk has displaced natural silk.
GATHERING PLANTS This must be done with caution: nature, as generous as she is, is having a harder and harder time reproducing due to those who use plants without any considerations. Here is Goethe’s thought:
“To know and to describe a living thing,
we first seek, above all else,
to hunt the soul, taking the parts in one’s hands,
Alas! all that is missing is the spirit that ties them together!”
When and how to pick plants? A general rule to observe is to always leave enough space for future reproduction.
Berries and fruits are gathered at the beginning of their maturity, in good weather; the roots, in fall at the end of the day; tree bark of fruit and resinous trees, in the spring and those of the leaves, in fall and winter; the lichens, after a period of rain at the end of winter; the flowers and the leaves of different plants will be taken at the beginning of blossoms; the whole plants and branches, before the blossoms.
DRYING PLANTS To store them for the longest time, place them after the gathering in a dry, ventilated and dark place. Take the plants, top down, in a bouquet; the bark and the wood can be stretched out in the sun. Once dried, plants are kept in dry paper and stored that way, and maintain their dyeing properties for one to two years.
PREPARING PLANTS FOR DYEING The flowers are put to soak completely; the leaves and the whole plants are chopped finely. The roots and the wood are ground by pestle directly in the tub of dye; the lichens are reduced to powder (once dried, they crumble very easily between the hands); the commercial vegetable powders are poured in a bit of water so they swell.
These different manipulations are made in order to facilitate the extraction of the colorants of the different plants.
WHAT TO DYE WITH VEGETABLE DYE? Vegetable dyes are particularly effective with natural fibers:
• Animal base: wool, silk
• Plant base: cotton, flax, hemp
These are more resistant to the dye; they are in effect composed of cellulose which is surrounded by fatty acids and a waterproof wax; also, to facilitate their dye, several boiling baths, adding different products, are needed.
THE DIFFERENT STAGES OF VEGETABLE DYE
Preparation of fibers: this goes from a simple soap washing (wool) to boiling baths containing washing soda or ammonia (flax, cotton).
Mordançage: this procedure allows the colors to attach. Boil the fibers in water containing mordants (products whose goal is to open the fibers in order to render them more sensitive to the vegetable colorings).
Use either potassium alum or iron sulfate or copper sulfate or cream of tartar, or urine that one will have left to ferment in a container. Some bark contains tannin, also used as a mordant—the gall has it (gall is an outgrowth in the shape of a cherry that one finds on the leaves and stems of oaks because of an insect bite).
The mordançage can be done before, after, or during the dyeing.
The dye: Reduce the dye plants into small pieces, let them steep in cold water (12 liters for 500 g of skein), boil for an hour or more according to the plant used. One can then filter this decoction but that is optional. We prefer the method of mordançage before dyeing; soak the fibers having undergone mordançage in a warm bath, heating it slowly while stirring until the maximum temperature indicated for each fiber is reached (50° C for silk, 90° C for wool, cotton, and flax). The fibers must always be covered in liquid, and the color obtained should be stronger that that which is desired, due to rinsing and drying, which diminishes the intensity of the coloration. Cover the container with a lid.
For the dye bath, use an enameled metal bowl (the enamel being neutral); after each usage, clean them well with Marseille soap and with a fiberglass buffer. To stir, use very smooth sticks and replace each time as they become impregnated with dye.
Once the fibers are sufficiently dyed, one may either leave them to cool in the bath or plunge them into water of the same temperature after having removed them from heat.
• Rinsing: this should be done in warm water, cold for wool, warm for silk, cold for plant-based fibers.
• Drying: this is done in a dry, well-ventilated, shady place; the fibers are pressed or made into a skein to drain without twisting.
Note: Uniformity of the dye cannot be totally achieved and two identical dye baths cannot give the same results; this is the interest of the plant dye. In effect, the various preparations are made with natural fibers whose properties are yet unknown so sometimes surprises occur in the discovery—as with nature and life!
DYE SPECIFIC TO WOOL Take the skeins of unbleached wool, not weighing more than 100 g—some berries and bark give dyes that don’t require mordants, but the majority of plant dyes need a supplementary product to better penetrate the fibers. As an example, we take a potassium alum mordançage:
• Dissolve 115 g of potassium alum and 30 g of cream of tartar in a bowl of warm water.
• Pour this mixture in 15 liters of cold water while warming it slowly and stirring: when the water is warm, add 500 g of already moist wool.
• Never rise the temperature above 90° C, wool should never be boiled; one must maintain regular heat under the container for one hour.
• Turn off the heat and let cool; drain without rinsing—to have a good quality dye, wrap the damp wool in old terrycloth towels for a few days, keeping them moistened with the mordançage bath, then dry them.
One can also dye on the following:
• Prepare a dye bath (as indicated above); the quantity of dyeing plants used varies according to the intensity of the desired color; plunge 500 g of wool into the warm bath and let the water swish for a half-hour to an hour.
• Once the color is obtained—remember, it’s always lighter after rinsing—leave the skeins to cool in the bath; thus the wool will not undergo sudden changes of temperature … if you want to obtain nuanced colors, take out some skeins during the dye bath and plunge them into fresh water of the same temperature.
• Rinse in warm water and light soap then under running water, first adding some tablespoons of vinegar until the color no longer bleeds.
• Press the skeins and stretch them out in a ventilated and dark place.
Note: the mordançage may be made during or after the dye but the process we just described (mordançage after the dye) gives more intense and solid colors.
WHERE TO FIND PLANTS FOR DYEING? A simple Internet search will render quite a few options. Research the ethics of the company to ensure a sacred exchange. And reach out to the community of activists, dyers, herbalists, and spiritual teachers in your area.
CALENDAR FOR COLORS AND PLANTS
The human body has a great need for air and sunlight—to be contained in tubing through which nothing can penetrate is a frightening punishment … at least for those of us who suffer from it for the first time (“civilized” man hardly seems to suffer)… we say “seems” because any breach of the laws of life must be paid for. The absence of air or sun are synonymous with bad moods, bland or foul odors, illnesses, degeneration of the race and sadness to living. The sui generis odor of a well-nourished body, given fresh, living, pure foods that come from the farms, is very delicious and enlivening … the body then senses what it eats: fruits, herbs, flowers … if the body’s skin sweats and is not asphyxiated under pants and vests.
There are some very simple suits, obedient to the rules of life. It follows, of course, that they will be fashioned with noble material: cotton, hemp, flax, wool, ramie …
TOGA A piece of fabric the Romans draped over themselves; the outer ends rest in the crook of the arm, therefore giving nobility to gestures and attitudes.
SARI A very long piece of fabric that the women in India wrap around their bodies and which are draped in a million different ways; the beginning of the roll is around the hips and legs, which the sari will cover completely in one or several layers; the rest of the fabric will be draped around the shoulders, the torso and the arms.
SARONG Draped by the inhabitants of Malaysia, rolled from the waistline to the lower leg; the torso remains naked.
PAREO A rather large square the Polynesians knot under the arm, above the chest, and which falls to mid-thigh or mid-leg.
LOINCLOTH Simple pieces of fabric hung from a band around the waist and only protecting the sex and the buttocks.
TUNIC Shirt falling to mid-thigh and tightened around the waist by a belt; hardly more than dancers wear them now.
DJELLABA Originally from North Africa; adjusts well to cold as well as hot seasons; it is generally in wool; in the summer, one can wear those made of flax, hemp or cotton; it is worn like a skin to cover the body from shoulders to forearm and to the calves; its tailoring is very simple:
Set a piece of fabric lengthwise and folded at its middle, it will cover the body from shoulders to calves (or ankles). The width of this double fabric is separated, arms crossing the two forearms. Together, cut the two halves of this fabric at the decided length and drawn in chalk, the fabric always remaining doubled. Cut it at the middle and, at the top of one of the sides, cut a triangular opening: the opening for the head; sew the edges of the fabric keeping an opening for each arm; hem the three openings.
It is ample clothing and very easy to carry; it allows ease of any gesture; to work leaning forward, one avoids the annoyance of the folds in the fabric, putting around the waist a simple rope or belt.
Note: We don’t know when this started, but today we consider the dress a bit uncomfortable for working, yet the priests of the Middle Ages absolutely engaged in all kinds of work (even as soldiers) without ever removing their dresses, in the same way as women have for millions of years!
(By Bernard Soleil, a ceramist from Coaraze)
Alex Brongniart said, “Potters find their material on the soil’s surface. The weakest of men, the most isolated, can extract these materials and immediately mold them and even give them away without tools or science, with enough shapes and durability to satisfy his needs. The products made of this very simple material, so abundant everywhere, so easy to gather and to work with, may be accomplished by all manner of employment, all amenities, all luxuries and ornamental riches, in a variety of bright colors, and a strength and durability greater than any metal, that the most beautiful stones cannot so easily provide nor with such variety.”
Clay is largely the result of decomposed feldspar rocks, a phenomenon that takes millions of years. Feldspar and silica make up 75% of the composition of the Earth’s crust, that is to say: it is abundant in clay; few regions in the world are without it.
The erosive action of water on rocks is the most important: it has to do with, firstly, mechanically stirring finer and finer particles, often far from their place of origin, which often makes other minerals become mixed with clay in varying amounts.
Iron oxide, the most widespread, gives this color, which goes from a light, tannish-yellow to red in the majority of terracotta. Clay is a hydrous alumina silicate and is remarkable, containing the main elements forming the Earth’s crust and in nearly in the same portions:
Clay that becomes pottery has an aspect of compact rock but is brittle (if very dry); it is so soft to touch and its initial color is always different than its color after cooking. White clay while cooking is gray, except for China clay, which is white or yellowish from its composition and from its specific utilization: it is the staple material of porcelain. The other clays, the most widespread, are always colored yellow, brown, red, green or bluish by iron oxides.
Before undertaking any manufacturing, one must be assured that the clay does not contain limestone in measurement greater than some tenths of a millimeter: the sediment will turn into quicklime upon cooking then it will swell by absorbing the humidity of the air until it causes holes in the pottery even if it is covered in enamel.
• Some clay can be used only after adding water in order to obtain a malleable paste.
• If the clay contains rocks or plant debris, it will be necessary to eliminate that by sieving the clay rendered fluid enough by adding a great quantity of water (barbotine) or by letting it settle: the most dense rocks then are placed at the bottom of containers. This liquid earth will resume a firmer consistency until it can maintain the shape that the hands give it.
Different methods are used in order to eliminate this excess of water, in relation to the quantities prepared. Drying by air takes a very long time, except in the strong sunlight, but spreading barbotine over porous matter will make the firming process quicker. The most effective support remains from the thick plates or plaster bowls, making sure that the fragments of plaster do not mix with the clay; terracotta without enamel (tiles, bricks …) can also work.
The plate thus obtained should be carefully kneaded in order to obtain a consistently homogenous material, and free from air bubbles just before making.
Another method, also very effective, consists of taking in each hand two pieces of clay 500 g and projecting one piece on the other, forcefully, repeating the operation ten times.
All clay, upon drying, shrinks during the evaporation of water (around 30%); this withdrawal is due to the coming together of the clay’s molecules, which therefore take the place of the evaporated water.
The shrinkage should be between 5 and 10%. If it exceeds 10%, the drying process can become rather tricky and poses a risk of excessive deformation, especially for larger pieces.
Clay with too much fat (an important removal) can be modified—mix it with lean clay, non-calcareous sand, or grog (terracotta reduced to powder).
This grog is prepared without a crusher, in cooking dried clay then crushing it. The grog is very useful for making large pieces and sculptures whereby the excessive thickness would break during drying or cooking. The size of the grog seed is proportional to the thickness of the parts to be produced and may go to several millimeters. The appearance given is rugged and has the most beautiful effect.
THE COILING TECHNIQUE consists of mounting a wall with balls of clay; the shape of the pottery evolves at the placement of each coil and, once the piece is finished, it is impossible to change it. Each coil is securely welded to the preceding one by folding in a bit of clay. The inner wall will be smooth, preferably progressively, and the outer wall smooth according to the degree of finishing desired. Once dried, the piece can be sanded with abrasive cloth.
Note: before the invention of the pottery tower, all pottery was made by coils or shaped by terracotta moldings and basketry. Much pottery from the Neolithic period carries marks of basketry; this leads us to believe that the wicker molds were support for applying the clay.
THE TOWER Invented 2,000 years before Jesus Christ, in the Middle East, the potter’s tower became the method most used to make all kinds of pottery. Various mechanical systems have been practiced to set the wheel in motion, notably the foot pedal. This is set in motion by the foot tapping a big wheel; a big, wooden wheel crosses through the axis, at a height at which it is attached to the wheel where the potter makes the clay.
Since the appearance of the electric tower, the turner’s mark is found reduced in spite of the fact that work by hand is identical no matter the system. In all cases, it is necessary to turn a circular plateau of about 20 to 30 cm in diameter (the wheel) at a speed varying from zero to 200 turns per minute, according to the volume of the pieces produced. For very little pieces very quick speed can be used, but that must be reduced in relation to the importance of the piece, the centrifugal force having always a tendency to push the mass of clay off the tower’s axis.
Master shaping requires several months of practice and even several years; it essentially has to do with developing a tactile sense compared to that which is required in the practice of playing a musical instrument.
It is essential to prepare the clay to be used correctly; soft enough for the small pieces, firmer for the more voluminous pieces, and always to have a very homogenous consistency. The soil will be put then in very round balls. Throw the ball hard in the center of the wheel so that it will adhere well. During the whole duration of making a piece, constantly wet the clay in order that your hands don’t get hooked in it; for this purpose, provide a disposing container that is large enough and placed at the side of the wheel. Throw the tower into a high enough speed, wet the earth well, and squeeze in equal pressure with two hands—each hand is placed opposite the other in order to match the shape of the ball. Continue this lateral pressure until the ball takes the shape of a cone.
Bring it down by supporting it vertically while maintaining the sides to keep it as close as possible to the center. Keep raising and lowering the ball of clay until it is perfectly centered. Then dig in by pressing with both thumbs, while leaving the desired thickness at the bottom. Then, with the left hand (or both hands if it is a thick ball), broaden the base while pulling it toward you. From this moment on, each hand must remain opposite the other—the left hand inside and the right supporting on the outside. The clay compressed between each hand is forced to rise. For a little ball, pinch with one finger of each hand. For the right hand, the folded index finger provides the most support. For a big ball, use the palm to begin the mounting and polish the walls. An exception applies to the open shapes; one must first build up a cylinder from which the desired shape will be formed.
The diameter of the base must be given before beginning the mount. The pressure should operate from bottom to top and very regularly so that the piece does not fall off balance. If one wishes to erase the traces of the fingers, pass a wooden or metal (ribbing tool) plate over the piece.
Sponge the bottom because the water accumulates and could cause slits during drying. Separate the piece from the wheel with a thin wire then lift it from the tower with dry hands or by placing it atop a spatula.
Pieces of large dimension (difficult to lift from the tower without damaging) will be turned on plywood or plaster and left there to dry.
TURNING It is possible to rework the turned pieces once they take the consistency of the cooking in order to retouch the base and hollow it. The piece is again centered and attached by some pieces of earth. One might also glue it to the wheel by wetting the edge. The thickness of the earth will be left in thin chips thanks to a firmly held trimming tool.
MAKING PLATES One can make some simple shapes (plates, tiles …) from an earthen plate. The thickness is given by two wooden forms: sprinkle on a board thin sand or talc, spread out earth with a pastry roller until its two ends come in contact with the forms. One may put plaques together for a larger one by preparing one or two days in advance so the earth is harder. The gluing is done with barbotine.
MOLDING The earth can be stamped into timber, terracotta or plaster forms (this last one offers the best possibilities). One may apply the earth to a plate or crush it by pellets. A design inscribed in the mold will appear as an embossed relief on a stamped piece.
Another technique consists of refilling a thick, plastic mold with barbotine reduced to fluid by the addition of a little bit of carbonate and sodium silicate; return to the mold after several hours; a part of the water, having been absorbed by the plaster, will remain on the walls as a layer of hard earth.
DRYING Small pieces can dry quickly without bothering to put them near a heat source or the sun but the bigger the pieces, the longer the drying must be—conducted slowly in order to avoid any deformities and the cracks that would prove difficult to repair. An air current that quickly dries one side of the piece first is harmful. The pieces are never put to cook before drying completely in order to avoid the risks of crumbling.
On a purely practical note, sandstone and porcelain (whose paste itself is vitrified by a strong cooking temperature) have lost all porosity and cannot be enameled. One of the functions of enamel is that, because of the vitrified pellicle that coats the piece, it is sealed and contains liquids. It also adds a richness of material and color, creating pottery that will be used with joy.
Certain pottery that is not enameled can be sealed by plant gum and resin. A very reductive wood cooking (with excess smoke in the oven) makes the carbon clog the paste’s pores to become impermeable, taking on a dark hue that can become black. If it contains iron, the enamel is comparable to glass or crystal: it is always silicate. Silica is the main compound even if some varnishes are made without silica; they take it from the contents of the clay; this is the case with glazed stoneware when we throw salt into the oven at the end of the cooking. The soda combines with the silica of the earth to make a pellicle of sodium silicate; to volatize it, the oven must be at a temperature of at least 1,200 degrees.
Lead can be toxic in pottery when it is not sufficiently cooked and when there is too much of it. Dairy and other acidic liquids can free a bit of the lead from the enamel. It suffices to incorporate other oxides in order to render lead enamel stronger, making it impregnable to acids and even for culinary use; these additives are mainly lime (chalk or white Meudon), boron (boric acid or borax), alumina (in clay, China clay, feldspar)…
EARTHENWARE A very simple enamel (melting at between 900° C and 1,000° C) may be composed of two parts lead oxide, one part fine sand or silica, and clay. The clay carries alumina, favoring a good fusion of lead and silica, all to maintain a thickness that prevents the flow of the enamel. This enamel will be very bright, transparent, a light yellow color and tending toward red if the slivers of clay contain a lot of iron.
To obtain transparent and colorless enamel, one must replace a certain quantity of lead with borax or boric acid. This powder can be colored with one or more metal oxides and rendered opaque thanks to the tin dioxide or zircon (which is not dissolved in the enamel).
To get a matte finish, one must either decrease the quantity of melting (lead, borax, soda) or add silica. Certain oxides cause a matte or satin finish without diminishing the enamel’s fusibility and the glaze—these are mainly titanium and barium, zinc, lime, alumina, which melt in small quantities and have an inverse action in larger quantities.
STONEWARE AND PORCELAIN Ovens with reverse flames, of Chinese origin, allow the greatest concentration of heat and reach temperatures of 1,200 to 1,300° C for stoneware and up to 1,400° C for porcelain.
At a high temperature, the compositions can be simpler: the feldspar becomes enamel at 1,250° C. The most beautiful enamels on Chinese stoneware are only combinations of three common mineral materials: feldspar, silica, lime. The art of cooking is essential to the success of wood firings.
The wood and straw ashes are also material of top interest for the stoneware enamels. They contain silica, soda, potash, alumina, lime and iron, in portions varying with their origin.
An enamel for porcelain differs little from the paste itself: composed of China clay, silica, feldspar and a little bit of clay (to give it plasticity), it becomes an enamel by adding 20% of the feldspar and 10% of Spanish white (lime).
MAJOR MATERIALS USED IN THE COMPOSITION OF ENAMELS
Silica (SiO2): necessary in all enamels no matter what the cooking temperatures. The other components only serve to lower their melting point (pure silica melting at 1,750° C).
Alumina (Al2O3): plays an important role in the agreement of the enamel with the silvers. This renders a stickier glaze fusion and (to a certain extent) prevents its running. This also makes the enamels harder.
Sodium Oxide (Na2O): a powerful base. The glazes with high amounts cook at low temperature and have a very high expansion coefficient, which causes the crazing (cracking). They will be fragile, scratching easily, and will deteriorate (being slightly soluble in water and acids). You can find this, together with potash, in an insoluble form in feldspar. For low temperatures (under 1,200° C), one can only use this in the form of frit, a procedure that requires melting a mixture of silica, soda and potash in a pan. This kind of glass will then be crushed finely and will serve as a base for a number of enamels.
Potassium Oxide (K2O): the same properties, advantages and inconveniences as sodium.
Lead Oxide (PbO): the most frequently used for low-to-medium temperatures. It really brings out the color of the oxide stains. Its expansion coefficient is low enough that it agrees well with the majority of soils. The lead glazes may have a great variety of appearances (shiny or matte, transparent or opaque) by adding other oxides. It is very toxic and one must avoid breathing or ingesting it—this inconvenience disappears if one uses it in the form of frit. Some enamel containing a lot of lead may remain toxic if it is not cooked sufficiently. Lead enamel, if it contains a bit of lime and alumina, and if it is fired at least at 950° C, will make the glass perfectly stable, very hard and insoluble.
Calcium Oxide (CaO): melts under any temperature (although its melting point is very high: 2,572° C). It renders low temperature glazes (with a high content of lead) firmer and less soluble. If it is found in very elevated quantities, the glaze will be matte and rough. The glazes of some stoneware enamels (celadon) need an important amount of calcium.
Barium Oxide (BaO): its function is close to that of calcium and acts more powerfully to give a satin finish.
Magnesium Oxide (MgO): used only for high temperatures and as a basis. Its interest resides in its ability to modify the coloration of certain oxides.
Zinc Oxide (ZnO): not often used below 1,100° C as a basis; it changes the color of the oxides a lot.
Boric Oxide (B2O3): frequently used in combination with lead as a basis at low temperature. It intensifies the effects of the oxide stains and diminishes the crazing.
STAINS Having developed a basic enamel for a given temperature (it can be transparent, opaque, gloss, matte), all metal oxides added to this enamel will make a great variety of colors: iron, copper, cobalt, chromium, manganese, nickel, vanadium, rutile (containing titanium and iron), ilmenite (analogous to rutile), uranium, cadmium and selenium.
APPLYING THE ENAMEL The mixture of powder added to water must be sifted finely enough that it can mix the enamel compounds well and to facilitate the application, specifically if it is applied with a brush.
The density of the enamel-water mixture is determined according to the thickness of the layer of enamel that the pottery will receive (an average of .5 to 1.5 mm).
It is possible to enamel on still-wet earth and only fire it once but, if one places enamel on dry earth, the piece will absorb the water and break. It is in making trials on smaller pieces of varying thicknesses that one judges if the enamel on dried earth is possible. An initial firing at low temperature is always preferred; moreover, when the earth is dried, it facilitates the handling of the already very fragile pieces.
Enameling made by soaking requires preparation of a great quantity of enamel— the piece should be completely submerged in it. Enameling by brush allows for enamel on only some of the piece or for designs. Earth rapidly absorbing water must, to slow down the drying, add certain gums or glues to get enamel that is thick enough. The compressed air from a paint gun allows for interesting effects superimposed on some enamels but we must protect ourselves from the enamel dust that is harmful to breathe. A special machine to suck up this dust is almost essential.
SOME TYPICAL FORMULAS FOR ENAMEL
840° C to 945° C. Lead glazes
PbO: .7 – 1.0
KNaO: 0 – .3
ZnO: 0 – .1
CaO: 0 – .2
Al2O3: .05 – .2
SiO2: 1 – 1.5
945° C to 1,110° C. Lead glazes
PbO: .7 – 1.0
KNaO: 0 – .3
ZnO: : 0 – .2
CaO: 0 – .3
Al2O3: .1 – .25
SiO2: 1.5 – 2
945° C to 1,050° C. Alkaline glazes
PbO: 0 – .5
KNaO: .4 – .8
CaO: 0 – .3
ZnO: 0 – .2
Al2O3: .05 – .25
SiO2: 1.5 – 2.5
945° C to 1,050° C. Lead-colemanite
PbO: .2 – .6
KNaO: .1 – .25
CaO: .3 – .6
ZnO: .1 – .25
BaO: 0 – .15
Al2O3: .15 – .2
B2O3: .15 – .6
SiO2: 1.5 – 2.5
1,135° C to 1,180° C. Lead glazes
PbO: .4 – .6
CaO: .1 – .4
ZnO: 0 – .25
KNaO: .1 – .25
Al2O3: .2 – .28
SiO2: 2 – 3
1,135° C to 1,180° C. Colemanite
CaO: .2 – .5
ZnO: .1 – .25
BaO: .1 – .25
KNaO: .1 – .25
Al2O3: .2 – .28
B2O3: .3 – .6
SiO2: 2 – 3
1,135° C to 1,180° C. Lead borosilicate glazes
PbO: .2 – .3
KNaO: .2 – .3
CaO: .35 – .5
ZnO: 0 – .1
Al2O3: .25 – .35
B2O3: .2 – .6
SiO2: 2.5 – 3.5
1,225° C to 1,350° C. Glazes for stoneware or porcelain
KNaO: .2 – .4
CaO: .4 – .7
MgO: 0 – .35
ZnO: 0 – .30
BaO: 0 – .3
Al2O3: .3 – .5
B2O3: .1 – .3
SiO2: 3 – 5
The clay objects must not begin to cook before completely drying or else they will split at the beginning of cooking. All clay begins to cook after turning a dark red (500° C) and is very fragile at this temperature. 800° C to 1,000° C is the minimum for obtaining a solid enough material. The maximum heat that the clay can tolerate depends on its compounds; a lot of earth begins to warp and melt between 1,100° C and 1,200° C. Only certain stoneware clay (containing some iron oxide and of course lime) can be cooked at 1,300° C or more; they will be vitrified in their mass and have few deformities.
FIRING WITHOUT AN OVEN Some South American and African people still cook their pottery in a simple pit 30 cm to 50 cm deep. Their pottery is placed on a bed of brushwood or dried herbs; dung cakes provide excellent fuel for this kind of firing. One makes a small fire first, then adds only a very little bit of fuel so that the pieces don’t crack. When the temperature begins to rise, one adds more and more wood until all pieces are surrounded by embers. It is impossible, with this method, to go over 700° C to 800° C. This pottery is not enameled; being stacked one atop the other, it is stained during the melting of the enamel. Sometimes it is painted with different colored clay and the contact with the embers can give them a beautiful appearance. Certain pottery cooked with very smoky wood has a beautiful shiny, black complexion and is not porous (the carbon having clogged all the pores).
ANTIQUE UPDRAFT OVENS The Greek and Roman ovens differ little in their aim from certain updraft ovens still used today. They were made of adobe brick (mixture of clay and straw) or cook bricks; they consisted of an oven, above which a perforated bottom allowed for the flame’s passage. In the cooking room, full of pottery, the temperature can reach 1,050° C.
ORIENTAL OVENS The ancient Japanese ovens dug in the sandy ground contained clay that may have already reached high temperatures. Kept extremely isolated by the thickness of the ovens themselves, they condense heat very well and it takes the flames longer to escape through the chimney because of their shape and incline.
The Chinese ovens function in the same way, are better for the circulation of a more twisting fire, and use very fire-resistant material found widespread in China (refractory clays and kaolin). They can reach to 1,300° C and 1,400° C for porcelain firing.
The multi-room ovens force the flame to go back down again before penetrating the second room. One therefore obtains a good balance of heat in all the parts of the oven. They can be up to eight rooms, several square meters each. They are furnished with a main oven and openings in each room through which wood is dropped. When the first room reaches the desired temperature, one stops the fire in the oven and throws the wood into the second room and so on until the last.
Wood must be very dry and split into sticks not more than a few centimeters thick if one desires to obtain a high temperature. The resinous trees, like the birch, burn with a long, clear flame and are preferred. Hardwoods (oak, beech, hornbeam …) give more embers and less flame. The poplar and the chestnut are avoided because they are often wet.
Coal has been used with success. It needs a special oven furnished with a melting grill.
Electric ovens are very easy to use but do not have the proper qualities comparable to firing under open flame. They remain useful for firing earthenware at low temperature.
Propane or natural gas ovens function a bit like the wood ovens with a long flame. Their great attraction resides in the ability to switch from an oxidizing atmosphere to a reductive atmosphere by adjusting the air inlet on the burners.
Today, the majority of ovens are equipped with a pyrometer permanently indicating the interior temperature. It is an expensive device and not at all essential: fuses in the ovens indicate with precision the temperature at the end of firing—the only thing necessary to know. The fuse is a small cone of a composition calculated to melt at a given degree (through a 20° gap of 600° C to 1,500° C). With the experience, one can judge the flowing of the oven where one is firing. Before the existence of watches, one placed small pieces in the oven that were removed at the end of cooking with an iron rod.
Many applications for terracotta
Terracotta has been used since ancient times to make all kind of containers destined to hold and store solid food and liquids. The big jars that one finds today in ruins constituted an important industry in antiquity—these containers served to transport oils, grains and wine. The vases in all shapes and sizes, often magnificently decorated, as well as the statues, had more of a ritual purpose than a utilitarian one.
Terracotta can be used for many objects of daily culinary use: pots, plates, platters, bowls, cups, goblets, teapots, vases … we can also cite flower pots, art objects, all containers possible and imaginable (soap dishes, candlesticks, storage boxes …).
Bricks and tiles made of terracotta can be used for the building of shelters. One can cover them again in enamel and have sumptuous decorations.
The clay coatings can also be added to bas-reliefs, which has been done with very beautiful sundials.
Don’t forget also chimneys, stoneware piping, the electrical insulators, the porcelain dentures, etc…
Macramé is a technique with a knotted or braided thread used to create various objects.
MATERIAL All kinds of fibers are used: wool, flax, twine, cotton; to hang the thread, a stick attached at the right height suffices.
PREPARING THREAD FOR MACRAMÉ There are two kinds of thread: the work thread that is twisted widthwise, and neutral thread—thread that doesn’t move. Thread rotates between neutral and work.
To predict the length of the strands to use, measure four to five times bigger for each of the threads’ desired length. The threads that are quite long, the more they are fitted in duplicate. For easier management, mark the middle of the thread with a loose knot and shorten each end by folding them between your fingers.
To avoid measuring the threads one by one, build a warper. This consists of a wooden square with anchors spaced meter by meter; one can then quickly cut thread that is several meters long, and mount a number of the threads according to the desired length keeping in mind that they should barely touch.
MOUNTING THREADS
Front lark’s head knot: take a doubled thread at the center between your hands for a knot and shorten the two ends, undo the knot, put the hook shapes by the crease of the knot on the thread holder (this can be a stick placed horizontally at the length of a wall for example), pass the two ends through the holder then in the loop.
Back lark’s head knot: this time place the loop under the holder, pass the two ends on top of the thread then through the loop.
THE MAIN KNOTS The macramé technique sits on four base knots.
The simple knot: take a thread, make a loop the length of it and slide one of its ends through it, thus formed.
Square knot: Mount two doubled threads (four strands) in a lark’s head knot, take the right strand and pass it though the middle strand by sliding it through the fourth strand. Take the fourth strand, pass it over the strands to the middle and slide it through the hoop of the first strand, etc. The two strands take the same journey independent of their position.
Bar knot: Mount two doubled threads, so three strands; take the first thread and put it on a bar, which is to say in a right angle to the other threads, make a double festoon knot around the thread holder with each of the other strands; then place the second strand in the bar and do the same thing this time finishing with the first strand, etc.
Continuing this way, your work will shift toward the right. To bring it back to the left, present alternatively the right-hand threads (thread no. 1 having taken its place); this knot therefore allows the augmentation or the regularity in the work.
• The festoon knot: mount a thread, doubled; distinguish the working thread to the right from the neutral thread to the left
• The festoon knot (right): rolls around the second
• The festoon knot (left): rolls around the strand on the right
The alternating successions of the right festoon knot and the left festoon knot makes a chain knot.
KNOT THE LAST KNOTS VERY TIGHTLY One may then sew them onto a ribbon or finish with a series of simple knots, festoon or chain.
MACRAMÉ HAMMOCK
• Prepare four carrier braids 2.3 meters
• Mount 160 threads, doubled, 15 meters (this serves as a warper), in lark’s head knots or 320 single threads 7.5 meters; the hammock runs in width.
• Execute five rows of tight square knots, one behind the other, the length of the two-meter plait (the 30 cm serves to attach it to two sticks placed perpendicularly to this plait); one obtains therefore several plaits of four threads.
• At the sixth row, leave two threads on the left and macramé the two remaining threads with the two threads from the pursuant plait; make five rows without changing the thread.
• At the eleventh row, macramé the threads in the same way as the five first rows, begin then with the two remaining threads to the left. These knots are called square knots on a stick.
• At the fifteenth row, tighten the second carrier braid, hook their ends to the sticks and make a row of knots on the bar the length of this braid (this time, one does not take any work thread to put at a right angle).
• Macramé fifteen rows alternating as with the first part.
• Tighten a third carrier braid and this time make another row of knots.
• Macramé fifteen rows of square knots alternating all the five rows.
• Attach the fourth braid: to end, make a row of knots then a second very tight (this time the carrier thread is taken amid the worker threads), knot the threads by eight.
• Drill four holes in the sticks and slide in the four braids that one then attaches to a coil itself tied to by a cord to a tree. The cord may be made of chain knots. For more security, slide each stick lengthwise, a thread that one hooks to the knots. The hammock is ready.
Words by Emile Verhaeren:
“I will weave my verses like the foundations of villages
Under the low, wet shed the old weavers
mix wicker, white and brown, into baskets
honest designs taken to enamel tiles.”
MATERIAL The basket weaver’s work combines weaving and braiding. One uses different plant fibers according to the environment: rattan, cane, wicker, straw from wheat or rye, flat chestnut splint, birch or ash, long dry leaves of iris, bamboo, raffia, blackberry, various grasses, reed or palm leaves …
One can plait many objects: hives, baskets, bins, grills, hoods, bags, bowls, suitcases, furniture … Some architecture has been wholly built in basketry, even a big restaurant in the Baghdad region, built thanks to giant reeds originating in the swamps on the edges of the Tigris and Euphrates.
WEAVING TOOLS An ax to cut down the poles, a sickle, a handsaw, a peeler, a stamp (sharp steel rod)—straight and curled, a clipboard, a bat (like a mallet), a cleaver made of hardwood (boxwood) with one side ending in fins in order to split the material to braid, a reamer, a closed iron, an attached iron, and a large oval tub for soaking strands. There are many basketry techniques and it is not possible to study all; we only present as an example the different stages of making a basket.
THE BASKET
Material: Sticks or strands from willow or wicker. Take care to soak before using.
The cross or base: cut eight short but strong sticks to serve as the base framework (the length is an important function of the basket); with a sharp knife, split four of them in the center but two-thirds of their thickness to prevent them from opening to their entire width; fill the holes with the four rods, not split but previously beveled.
Bottom ligature: Take a flexible strand, fold it onto itself in order to obtain a perfect “U” then wrap it around branch D of the intersection (fig. 1).
Pass the top strand (l) over the post A and the strand 2 under the same post A then on B (fig. 2).
Take the strand 2 and pass it under C so that the strand l will first pass under B then on C (fig. 3).
Make the strand 1 successively pass under D then on A, then the strand 2 will pass on D then under A (fig. 4).
Repeat the same operation of the weaving of strands 1 and 2 on branches B, C then D. We are therefore returned to the beginning.
Separate the lines and plait until the fifth turn; finally, separate each strand and continue the braiding, making sure perfect distance is maintained between the strands.
Stop the plait once the desired diameter is achieved. Return to the ends and cut the sticks that go beyond the circle.
Stitching the support: take two strands of a medium thickness and around 50 cm long; trim the base bevel and thread the supports on each side; fold sixteen supports at a right angle to the base and attach it to their ends.
Closing (vertical closing of the basket): begin a torch at three strands that closes on itself at the end; plait to the desired height.
Border: Stitch the supports leaving only 10 cm; complete three rows, with which one CAN make a folded border with the sticks (fig. 5).
The loop: Take a somewhat thick stick, cut both ends and press each side of the basket; braid three thin fibers, pass it under the folded edge (from one side of the basket) and braid it around the loop; stop by pressing in the folded edge.
The preparation of skins with different products in order to make them rot-proof and make leather out of them.
Each artisan has a technique, and they do not divulge their guarded secrets. Yet we submit, by way of experience, several tanning methods:
TANNING FRESH SKIN Skin the animal—for this, open it lengthwise on the ventral side. Spread it out.
Clean: remove the impurities from the outside (blood, mud, straw, etc.) by hand or with the help of a cloth soaked in water; if one must wet the skin, sprinkle it first with plaster then brush it in order to dry it; remove the impurities coming from the animal’s body (flesh and fat) with the help of a scraper or knife.
Dry-cleaning: to dissolve the skin’s gelatin, soak it in a warm bath with a bit of detergent; rinse without twisting in cold water and submerge it in a tub of cold rainwater for twelve hours; you can then continue.
Prepare another tub of rainwater containing 50 g of salt per 60 g of alum (ordinary alum is drawn from the mineral aluminite) and 5 g of borax (sodium borate). Boil, then let cool to around 30° C, then plunge the skin so that it is entirely covered in liquid, stir it with a stick and leave it for the necessary time (when the duration of the bath exceeds three days, it heightens the compounds by 10%); remove the skin from the bath, rinse in cold water and stretch it on a cord in the shade. The time in the bath varies according to the nature of the skin.
The softening: when the skin begins to dry, coat the flesh side with a layer of oil or unsalted lard and roll the hair toward the inside. With the help of a board and the angle of a table (the board keeps the skin flat), stretch it out toward the exterior by scraping on the edge, lengthwise, widthwise and across. This goal of this operation is to break the skin fibers. Once suppleness is obtained, talc the flesh side, polish the hairs with fabric soaked in gasoline, brush it with the help of a metal brush; all that is left to do is comb it.
TANNING DRIED SKIN Proceed like above.
If you don’t require a perfect finish, remove the skin after the rainwater bath and nail it under a board in the shade, whether fat or skinny.
Then mix 250 g of salt in boiling water, with enough alum and flour to form a paste fluid enough to apply 2 cm thick to the flesh side with the help of a spatula.
Let this product sit for four days; softened, finish by brushing it.
ANOTHER METHOD, TANNIN-BASED For the tanning, one uses the appropriately named “tan,” which is ground-up chestnut bark or the tannin which is derived from the tan; it takes 500 kg of chestnut bark to have fifty kilos of tannin; with this quantity, one can treat 100 g of skin.
Other plants and trees like the mimosa, the elderberry, the birch, the willow, the fir, the sumac also contain tannin.
Grind chestnut bark thinly, prepare a solution of tannin in which you soak the skin; this soak can last from four months (for little skins) to twelve months (for big skins). At the end of the allotted time, turn the diluted solution into a mixture that is more and more concentrated in order to obtain better results. You can also, after having left the skin for a month in this solution, put them in a hollow hole in the earth, separating each of them with chestnut bark; cover them again in water and wait six months.
HISTORY AND MAKE-UP Five thousand years ago, Phoenician merchants made breads with sodium carbonate by hanging their pots above a fireplace; they noticed how the sand on the shore where they cooked, under the action of heat and when mixed with niter, became fluid and sticky and, upon cooling, remained hard and transparent: glass was born.
The oldest recipes for glass advise using limestone, sand, and alkali. The alkali was an Egyptian plant that, by boiling, evaporation and decanting, gave an acrimonious salt. The alkalis were then extracted from the ashes of the salicornia, fern, fir, beech … The essential vitrifying element of glass is the silica that one finds easily in the sand, flint, quartz.
The analysis of glass found in Pompeii revealed: silica 69.5%, soda 17.2%, lime 7.4%. The composition of ordinary glass today has roughly the same percentages: silica 72%, soda 19%, lime 7.5%, impurities 0.5%.
TOOLS AND THE ANCIENT FABRICATION
Resistant earthenware pots: These were in the shape of buckets of four feet high and two to five feet diameter, from three fingers thick; they were mounted on columbines in lightly splayed fir molds; they were left to dry slowly for several months before being fired in a small oven, then in a big oven at a red temperature so that they do not alternate under the action of molten glass.
Pot ovens: these were circular or oval rooms with vaulted ceilings made of refractory bricks; a worker kept the ovens fueled with wood. Six to twelve pots were placed on a stick along the inner walls. One could completely seal the little dormers, openings that were shortened by the moons, with lids; batch matter was poured in the oven’s closest pot through the opening; when it was melted and flushed out, one poured it into the pot furthest away.
Jean-Charles Gateau describes the operation in his beautiful work, La Verrerie (Bonvent): In the oven, the pulverized mixture liquefies; at first sticky and irregular, it becomes perfectly liquid at 1,400 degrees. The balls of carbonized gas, produced by the reaction of the silica on the carbonates, rise to the surface, the product “refines.” We accelerate this refinement through various processes to enhance the movement of the melting mass, rendering it more homogenous. Sometimes the mixture is stored with steel rods; sometimes a bit of arsenous acid is tossed in and sinks to the bottom, volatizing the mass and oxidizing sulfides and excess carbons but giving off very toxic arsenic! An old recipe, the “spud,” consists in maintaining at the bottom of the pot with a bar of iron, a potato or a wet log: the water vapor that leaks energizes the mass. Finally, one oxidizes and colors the ferruginous glass with the help of “glassblower’s soap,” or manganese oxide, whose abuse confers a purplish hue to some ancient glass. The longer the flames, the cooler the mass. Towards 1,100 degrees, the viscosity of the glass is sufficient to adhere to cane; around 700 degrees it ceases being malleable. It is in at this point that the glassblower must work. Hard glass is called “metal” and is worked between 1,100 and 800 degrees. Wet glass is worked at the lowest temperature; dry glass is worked in intervals, hard or soft, and shorter.
Note: These ovens can reach a temperature of 1,700° C; oil, methane or propane burners replaced the wood ovens.
COOLING Here is another description by Jean-Charles Gateau: “Only a slow cooling process allows the glass to solidify harmoniously in all of its thickness, with a balance between the peripheral and center layers. This annealing process takes place in a gallery warmed by the heat lost from the oven, the annealing arch, or in a special oven. One places the finished pieces here, in 500°, on a series of trays made of sheet metal and run by window, or on conveyer belts; they progress the length of the oven tunnel, slowly, to reach, in around six hours, the ambient temperature and then exit, where workers watch for them and wash and scrub them.”
THE GLASSBLOWER’S TOOLS It is important to know that this operation (blowing glass) requires teamwork.
Cane: A hollow, long, iron tube 120 cm to 180 cm (according to the nature of the work), from inner diameter 1 cm; one of the ends draws in the pot of melting glass, passing through an opening a little ball of paste. The other end blows, giving the paste its shape.
Marble: A melting table to roll the balls of melted glass in order to balance it, round it (work that is done by the apprentice).
The mallets: Wooden (beech, pear), concave tool of very diverse shapes that is dipped, in intervals, into a bucket of water so that it is not carbonized; this kind of melting serves to round the ball with heat which cools and then recharges the melting glass (work done by the aide on a work bench).
The irons, scissors, or shears: the aide uses these tools to thin down the gob, hollow a neck (which facilitates detachment, thereafter, from the cane)…
The pontil: a steel stamp the same length of the cane which allows the deposit of pellets of molten glass on finished piece.
Note: All of the operations often need reheating in order to become malleable.
STAINED GLASS “The chaos of light where the idea moves” remains the adage from the Middle Ages. The usage of colored glass in lead was first reported in the tenth century, in Italy. The monk Théophile gives the recipes: One uses two parts beech and fern ash (which gives potash from which our grandmothers made their soap), one part sand from the river, washed well … Letting the glass paste cook for a long time, it turns purplish. The colors are obtained by adding metal oxides mixed to the molten paste. Some come from rare minerals, conceived in Sugere, at the Abbey of Saint-Denis, that were precious stones …
One obtains blue with copper carbonate, green with manganese oxide, yellow with sesquioxide added to manganese dioxide, red with copper dioxide …
Augustin Cochin describes the fabrication of window glass: A worker approaches the furnace with a hollow rod and pulls into the pot a bit of melted glass, he pulls it out quickly, balances it and, bringing the tube quickly to his mouth, he blows air into this delicate substance. The glass flares with the heated air. The glass swells and the worker, taking the quickly rocking burning globe, stretches it out and transforms it into a sleeve with a thin, transparent surface. Then he separates the rod, cuts it, cools it again, with a red fire and another worker carries it in a second, slightly heated oven, where the sleeve opens, it expands, spreads out and flattens. The glass is finished.
Very quickly, one paints on this glass with the help of powder enamel that is melted by a new heater, and the glass finally resembles tables. They are assembled with the help of lead grids.
TOOLS
• metal ruler
• set square
• a brush to remove the stone chips
• an alcohol level which allows the verification of the plan horizontally
• wooden mallet
• bulrush: a hammer with a long handle
• pumice
• sand paper
• chisel: a piece of steel with a tapered end
• toothed scissors
• a scissor with a flat end
• trimming scissors with a narrow end
The heads of these different scissors are flat because they are used with a wooden mallet; the heads of the chisels tend to chip because of their use with a steel hammer.
MATERIAL Stones from sedimentary rocks are the easiest to work; they have been stratified by the sun in horizontal layers. Slate, a metamorphic rock, has a structure that was modified by different pressures and temperatures—its original strata have been replaced by those that come at right angles. In general, slate splits easily along its lines.
To build, one can use the unlevelled rocks and plug the intersections with clay or limestone, but it is always preferable to have rectangular rocks for the doorsteps, chimneys, and lintels of doors and windows.
WORKING THE STONE
• With a point: in order to remove the thickest roughness—the chisel is inclined on the stone, hit regularly with the steel hammer.
• Cut: take the scissors; to direct them, keep the thumb toward the top without turning it, hit regularly at the same position.
• Polish: take the toothed scissors, give them a dry tap with a mallet, lift the scissors and mallet and do it again.
• Split a block of rock: split it in the direction of the layers—place the block on wooden boards and place an iron bar on the rupture; make a mark around the block at the place of future separation, pierce it on the sides with a deep notch. These holes are done with the chisel hit with a hammer with a light turning movement. One might add a bit of water to remove the debris. In these holes, deepen the sides. To break the block faster, place steel needles in each side in the holes and deepen from the corner to the middle; when the rock makes a mute sound, it will soon split.
• Prime a rock: to obtain a smooth surface—work with a punch, remove the larger rough patches, scratch with the toothed scissors from the edge toward the interior, then with simple scissors; there is then only very little rock to remove; wet the block and pass the pumice over it in a turning movement, then use the sandpaper, which is above all used for marble and granite. For the unequal blocks, one must establish level lines; for this, choose a horizontal plant and work two parallel lines at the top of the block in a way that it will rejoin at a right angle (the angle is made with the trimming scissors and the help of the set square); make a triangle that one can then split according to the importance of the surface to level; to remove the interior of triangles, use the chisel first, then the scissors and hammer, then, in order to obtain the smooth angle, carve, gently, the sides of the block.
• Carve a rock: trace two parallel lines spaced 1 cm from the break’s future position, with the help of the trimming scissors; trim a groove in the shape of a V with the same scissors, 2 cm deep between the lines.
ATTENTION: a block always breaks at its weakest point; one must assure that there are no imperfections at this breaking point that would risk spoiling the break.
Set the rock up (with the breaking point horizontal), support it against the shoulder (the wave of shock will pass through the rock without repercussion through another wall), but it is preferred that it be very well vertical, another person can then hold it; take the chisel (the bull’s tongue—like a small shovel) and taper around the notch until the two parts separate.
Boards are stacked in ventilated warehouses; each is separated from the other by strips of wood which allow for good ventilation and an accelerated drying time.
None other than the tree is aligned with the evolution of diverse civilizations; it has provided, forever, the essential elements for human life; from the first shelter under its branches to walls and rooftops for homes to boats and tools to paper and textiles to oxygen that it continues to purify to fruit to its protective source of life that it accords all predators to its fantastic logs to its thought that is reborn in the souls of poets … it is responsible also for the climate.
In modern times, trees are unfortunately hunted. But, if we have stopped being a respected friend to trees, and indeed we have stopped being an accomplice to everything alive and sweet, the trees have not ceased being our friend, and carpentry can still retain some nobility.
Words by Michel Kieffer from Le Travail du Bois (Scouts of France): “For my friend who knows each of my thousands of faces, who knows my heart and my sapwood, to the worker who sees the elm, the okoumé and the teak, feels their grain and their chips, and masters its destiny, each according to its qualities, I am the relative of these one hundred miracles, the promise of a masterpiece, the humanized earth in two hands. I am the creation at your reach.”
SOFTWOODS
• Fir and pine (furniture, domestic arrangements)
• Poplar (parceling, boxes, crates)
• Linden (small sculpted objects)
• Alder (sculptures, toys)
HARDWOODS
• Oak (carpentry, sculpture, cabinetmaking), precious wood
• Ash (tool handles, ladders, support columns)
• Beech (furniture, winding objects, work benches)
• Hornbeam, elm
EXOTIC WOODS imported wood, very hard, resistant, rarely works after drying: teak, okoumé, mahogany, sipo, niangon, rosewood, idigbo … suitable for all uses.
Standardized timber and chipboard: Normalized trade wood: fir, pine; plywood, slat, novopan, masonite
PRODUCTS FOR PROTECTION To preserve the wood and protect it from destructive factors, one can incorporate antiseptic materials; injection of coal tar, creosote, phenols, salts, sulfates … or there are coatings: xylophone …
PLOTTING TOOLS
• The folded meter stick in wood
• The carpenter’s pencil: flat, long
• The carpenter’s square to trace 90° angles, and the false-square to trace angles other than right
• The ruler: simple, very straight, flat
• Box of tabs—for maintaining the laths and moldings and allowing the cutting of angles from 90°, 60°, and 45°
• Carpenter’s compass with screw and two metal tracer spikes
• The level, to control the plan, horizontally, perpendicularly and its incline
THE BASIC TOOLS
• The hammer and the mallet (preferably in the shape of a trapezoid and in elm)
• Pliers and screwdrivers
• Grater: semicircle, flat and rat-tail
• Clamps: serve to assemble tenons and mortises without having to hit on the wood, which attaches the work pieces (if one does not possess the workbench), which keeps it tightened during the work—there are many models
• Plane: A blade with two handles for polishing and smoothing
• Nails, screws, sandpaper, screwdriver, glue, etc.
RABBETS They are irreplaceable for rendering perfectly straight surfaces, reducing thickness, straightening a warbling surface, reshuffling a chamfer … They must be heavy enough, have very sharp blades, very straight soles. They can be in wood or iron. Here are the most necessary models:
• Jointer: very long body, for raising long surfaces
• Scrub plane: a slightly rounded blade, for thinning
• Scraper: often replaces the grater
• Spokeshave: short rabbet with two handles that one pushes in order to smooth out curved or hollowed surfaces; one of the main tools for a wheelwright
• Rabbet joint: a very narrow barrel, to execute the rabbets or raise the straight parts.
THE HANDSAWS A very large family. We mention the most common:
• The tenon saw: A blade attached in the square rises to make gashes, cut tenons; the usage is limited in depth by the cross frame.
• Ripsaw: With a two-handled blade that allows it to pivot and to not be limited by the cross frame—for cutting lengthwise
• Curve fretsaw: similar to the above, a thin blade, for curved cuttings
• Handsaw: with a single handle, without a frame, for cutting paneling and chipboard
• Keyhole saw: similar to the previous one but the blade is very straight, with very fine teeth, for cutting openings
• The Sterling saw: the handle is a prolongation of the blade, a precision tool (for delicate work: guitars, models …)
• Fretsaw: for thin cuts in plywood
• Backsaw
• Drill saw: for very fine cuts in thin material
CRANKSHAFTS Three main models exist; all serve to give wood bits the necessary rotation for drilling; they are in the shape of a crank:
• Simple system: handle and pear in a mandrel square housing with screws to attach the bits
• Perfected model: chuck wheels and threaded clamp
• Ratchet model: same as the one above but its ratchet lets the return empty; to work in places that don’t allow for the crank’s complete rotation
Wood bits: All shapes exist and all sizes according to the work to accomplish; they are not split like tendrils.
WOOD CHISELS AND GOUGES The wood chisel has a beveled blade on two sides; these are preferred. All lengths exist, from 8 to 45 mm.
The sculptor’s tools: these are actually rounded scissors. They make gorges, molds, spherical calottes, by pounding … One uses them, above all, for work as a sculptor.
CHISELS AND RABBETS The tools blunt with contact with the wood and need periodic sharpening. This operation needs:
• Rock plate (oil stone) or else a long stone or false rock
• The stoneware bench grinder (not the emery wheel)
• The three punch: a small triangular file with thin teeth and sharp edges
• Bevelled stone: special for gouges
Note: Never sharpen an iron chisel or rabbet on the bench grinder but on the stone grinder which often enough restores the tools.
SAWS Carpentry saws loom in right triangles so the woodcutter can design in isosceles triangles.
There are three rules to observe for the sharpening to be a success:
• Maintain a vertical ridge and keep a ridge at a 60° angle.
• Maintain a 90° angle in the working direction with the three-punch, with respect to the blade.
• Don’t grind the teeth too much—all their points must form a continuous line.
SWAGING This operation consists of giving the way to the saw so its passage in the wood is made without too much fiction. For this, tilt a tooth to the right, a tooth to the left and so on. Necessary tools: either swaging pliers or a sharpener tap wrench or a simple screwdriver.
Note: The blade must be well-kept and as close as possible to the teeth of the two chamfered boards at their upper edge and tightened together by a few bolts.
The most common is what is called mortise-tenon; the tenon, the male part, penetrates the female part, the mortise. The mortise is hollowed by a chisel, the tenons are cut with the saw. It is necessary to calculate the assemblage well and trace it with the help of a setsquare and marking gauge.
Note: One also assembles the gudgeon by a variant of the mortise-tenon, the dovetail.
The minimum width must be 40 cm and length 160 m. One uses wood, preferably beech, elm, hornbeam, platanus, but railway crosses or recovered beams will also work. The required tools are: saws, chisels, mallets, rabbet, glue, screwdriver, bits and crankshaft.
BARREL A very irreplaceable container and it is always good to have several because of their many uses: one can store wine in them, or vinegar, cider, beer, salted meat, beans, one can prepare sauerkraut there …
Choose, preferably, oak; cut into blocks and split into thick planks; stack and cover with leaves to dry slowly; cut the planks into staves with an ax; thin with a plane and give it a good inclination in order to adapt it perfectly to the assemblage.
For a big barrel: boil the staves. For a small one: soak them for some time in water. Cut a groove in the end of the staves so that the bottom and the curve of the barrel (shaped by saw) can adapt; put the bulrush into the groove to better seal it.
The hoops are in wood or iron: where three hoops are needed, one iron one suffices. Keep the staves edge to edge at the ends by depositing the boards at the bottom and the first hoop; push the board as far as possible to make a circular shape; place the barrel on top of a brazier in order to soften the staves, in order to be able to bend them to form the curves; place the second and third hoops; return the barrel and begin again with the same operation in the other direction.
Fill the barrel with a mixture of salted water and soda ash in order to dissolve the oak’s tannin; let it marinate for three days; rinse in fresh water, refill with still water, let sit for one day; rinse again. Clean the old barrels in this way, also. Sometimes it is necessary to shave the staves two to three mm thickness if the barrel is too dirty.
LADDER Cut the two posts for the future ladder from the same piece of wood—preferably a very straight piece of ash, pine, fir, cedar or gurmari. Roughly work the posts with the ax then thin it with the plane: round outsides, flat insides.
Pierce the posts with holes 23 cm. For the rungs, split the wood and shave the oak, carve their ends with the plane. Place a post in the ground, push it in, then repeat with the other. Attach iron rods to each end and through the posts in order to keep it well supported.
Do not ever throw away the droppings or the chips, etc. from your work. You can use them for small wedges, or even just to feed the fire. Wood is a noble and living material that one must in no way waste!
There’s no better way to introduce this section than a quote from Michel Kieffer from his Fer et Cuivre (Scouts of France): “We don’t let one more generation pass without transmitting the beauty and truth of the deeply human blacksmith work—just as with all the other artisan works … We are loyal to this work! There is a relationship between the pair of andirons we have forged and the stone wall with which we come face to face. Man dominates his creations and his joy and no one can take that from him.”
• hacksaw
• files: they are differentiated by the size of their cuts
• teasel: metal brush for cleaning the files
• riveting: matrix tool for giving shape to the heads of rivets
• burin, chisel: for cutting and carving iron
• throttle: to trace the center of pierced holes
• scribe, drypoint compass, angular setsquare: tools for blacksmith design
• keys or clips
• hammer (600 to 1,500 g)
• stamp hammer: for the hollow hammering
• scroll shears
• cone anvil: for square orifices (for bending iron)
• tranchets: to cut hot on the anvils
• poker and squeegee: for the fireplace and its cleaning
• and of course: a rack of tools, storage boxes (screws, nuts, rivets, washers, small instruments) and very good lighting …
The weight varies between 35 and 180 kg, but one can make the work well enough with an anvil starting at 55 kg. Use a wooden chopping block 80 cm high. The anvil’s round horn is found to the left of the blacksmith (if s/he is right-handed). Keep an emergency stash of coal near and a reserve of water (for the mop and to cool the irons).
Place this near the anvil at a quarter turn to the right. If you work outdoors, see that the smoke is not pushed toward the anvil. If one places a cast nozzle and a ventilator crank (can be replaced by an electric ventilator), the construction will cause fewer problems. The below is from Michel Kieffer:
• The table is made of black sheet metal 2 mm thick cut in a rectangle 70 cm × 100 cm
• Begin by tracing the rectangle 60 × 70 cm
• Hollow the four angles, after tracing with a rule and a point, set square, the punch and compass, to arrive at the center (take the measurements from the nozzle, four holes for the bolts and the middle hole for the admission of air) then trace with much precision the holes on the four corners to serve to render the base and the table solid.
• To fold the sheet metal, tighten it between the two corners.
• The center hole is determined by measuring from the boards and tracing to the sides according to the blueprint—a punch marks the center; around the center, one traces with the compass two circles. – The bigger is a defined, definite diameter, the second, smaller, will be the line of drilling for the small holes. Once pierced, one cuts the rest with a chisel. The orifice, thus obtained, is in the shape of teethed curves. This is equally recommended to avoid the curving of the thicker metal planks. The base of the forge is in a small angle 25 mm, the flat iron spacers 5 × 20. One can assemble with steel rivets 6 × 20 but the use of mechanical bolts with the washers (groover) allows for the disassembly for eventual transportation. Mark the flat, iron reinforcement square 4 × 80 which waits on the assemblage for the effort due to the crank’s movement. The wall at the crank’s side is higher than the others. It protects from the heat. From this side, the corners are equally bent to give more stability to the forge.
In the form of 2 cm3 grains. The coking coal in small grains and the wood coal are not enough to supply a sufficient heat to work the forge: they cannot reach the required temperature of 1,000°.
Inside a room, the forge and anvil cannot be installed on the first floor, and if the floor is wooden, one must put down concrete or stone or terracotta. A chimney hood is necessary just under the forge to allow the smoke to escape. The best installation is outside in the shade of a shed or hangar.
A forge is lit like this:
• With the tuyere clear, open the valve beneath the table to allow the small pieces of slag to fall out; close the valve, remove any slag that is heavier than the half-burned pieces of coal used to light the fire.
• Place crumbled paper on the tuyere; light; put the other coal pieces together with the half-burned or the wood coal.
• Slowly activate the ventilation by gradually covering the center of the fireplace slightly—do not add more fuel while the fire is going.
• The hearth should resemble a volcano with its central fire reduced to a minimum spread (for this sprinkle water on it with the mop).
• Wait for the ventilation to have turned the hearth center red-hot before placing the piece to be fired in the best part of the fire; cover the fire while leaving the piece being fired visible.
The first product of the fusion of minerals.
• Black cast iron: obtained in the high furnaces where one employs more coal than mineral; this retains a lot of coal; its color is dark; it collapses under the hammer
• Gray cast iron: comes from good mineral and from a well-conducted fusion; it has a remarkable solidity and tenacity; one can turn it, drill it; when there is an excess of carbon, one calls this mottled cast or mixed cast: it is a passage of the gray cast iron to white.
• White cast iron: from white silver, fibrous, very hard; cools quickly through sprinkling with water. Refined, it gives pure iron.
• Molded cast iron: for use with all kinds of utensils, pieces of machinery, grills, balconies, chimney plates … All these objects are tossed into the sand molds.
This is a metal substance formed from pure iron and very small quantities of carbon and nitrogen. Under this particular form, the iron acquires new properties. After having turned red, it should be quickly cooled by plunging it in water; the steel becomes very elastic, less dense, less ductile, harder and very brittle. Not heating the hardened steel until the moment where the surface is colored, and leaving it instead to cool slowly, gives the object a degree of durability and variable elasticity, appropriate to the genre of fabrication to which it is destined. One can distinguish the steel of the iron designed for the surface from the polished metal by putting a drop of sulfuric acid on it—with the steel, the mark will be black due to the carbon while on the iron the mark will be greenish.
The differences are:
• Natural steel: taken directly from minerals.
• Steel from the forge: obtained by partial refinement, by submitting gray or white cast iron to the action of healing and to an air current; it loses its superabundance of carbon and other subordinate substances. Used to make sabers, knives, saws.
• Carburizing steel: obtained by heating iron bars to near dust composed of coal, ashes, and Celtic salt. Used in the fabrication of files and ironsmith hardware.
• Thin steel: obtained by the fusion of other steels. It acquires, by soaking, strong hardness and tenacity. Used to make chisels and scissors capable of cutting casting and other steels.
• Indian steel: used in the Orient to make excellent saber blades. By blending small quantities of certain metals (platinum, silver, palladium) with steel, it is possible to recapture the quality of Indian steel.
We never want to sleep on something hard or too hot. We want to sleep comfortably. Only light sleep is truly a repair for the body and the tree of life (the spinal column) and this is impossible in sluggish, uncomfortable positions. The bed must be oriented head to the north. Avoid the circulation of electric wires around the room of rest.
The mattress is forbidden and will be advantageously replaced by two wooden boards 2 cm thick, from 15 cm to 20 cm long and spaced from 5 to 8 cm. These boards can be mounted vertically or horizontally on a stretcher made of wooden boards of the same thickness and length or on two wooden planks, to permit the circulation of air from below. Add a thin wool mattress and a feather cushion or a simple, polyester plastic foam.
Note: Straw or dried herbs also make very good mattresses, especially if the herbs are aromatic.
Until the middle of the last century, paper was obtained from hemp, flax, and cotton: heap it up in a basement (retting) and let it ferment for six weeks. Then, cut it up into tiny strips before heaping it into wooden, oval bins 50 × 100 cm.
Today, it is crushed wood that makes paper; resinous trees are used. Wood makes up 95% of the world’s paper production; the other 5% is distributed among straw, reeds, esparto (from North Africa) and bagasse (sugarcane). Cloth no longer enters into the equation, except for .5%.
One can make paper with all kinds of crushed fibrous plants: hemp, nettle, cane, flax and of course with recycled paper!
A recipe: Let the plants rot by soaking them in water. Cut them into small pieces of 1.5 cm. Pile into a vat and cover with a solution of caustic soda (a tablespoon for 1 liter of water). Let it cook until softening. Put it into a thick, spinning sieve. Hold the sieve under a cold tap, plunging it several times in a tub of cold water. To obtain white paper, soak the fibers in a solution of white detergent. Crush it forcefully with a mallet to wring out the water. Put a bit of this pulp in a glass kept in sunlight: if there are lumps, continue to crush it.
Take simple wooden frames and cover them on one side with fabric. Stretch out a thin layer of pulp and return to the mold on a bit of wet felt so that the pulp attaches. Raise the mold and begin again to cover each leaf of felt. Then crush under a press (one can make this with a car jack) and keep it well pressed for one or two days. Raise the felt and only press again the paper. Handle it gently and leave it to dry.
After the drying, glue the paper if you want to prevent it from drinking the ink: to do so, soak it in a gelatin solution with alum, starch glue, or resinous soap added.
Note: One can also obtain paper from filamentous fibers like starch, lichen, bamboo, potato stalks, residue from beet pulp …
MATERIAL Candles were made, until the last century, from beeswax or tallow (animal grease). Nowadays, one uses, above all, paraffin wax (residue from the distillation of oil from tar, wood, peat, shale, lignit).
During the last war, the prisoners often used the fats from their rare packages for purposes other than food: butter or margarine was often used to light the barracks—one could prolong the hours of the day and read, write, or paint, sculpt, or simply meditate by the light of a shaky, flickering flame.
To make candles according to our desires, we have at our disposal the following material: paraffin and stearin (mixed), colorings, a cooking thermostat, soluble essential oils, sand (for molding), sealing wax, clay and plasticine.
The wick’s thickness should depend on the candle’s height and diameter, and should be a cotton cord previously discolored by soaking in boric acid.
THE SOAK This comes from a very ancient process and it is the easiest for making candles. Using the hot water bath, where the wax must reach 82° C, soak the wicks (attached on one end to a stick) at regular intervals; take them out and dunk them every thirty seconds until they obtain the desired thickness; hang the candles to let them cool, then cut the attached ends.
Beehive candles are obtained simply by rolling sleeves of beeswax around a wick; the base must be very uniform and a lateral edge of the cylinder must be obtained by lightly pressing it so that it doesn’t roll.
Note: The portions for the mixture of paraffin and stearin are 1 kg of paraffin for 100 g of stearin; these two elements are mixed only after they have been heated separately.
Any vegetable oil is excellent fuel; pour 1.5 cm to 2 cm into a glass container, make the cotton wick pass through the center of a piece of cork wrapped in aluminum and with a diameter smaller than the container; the cork makes the wick float and be consumed calmly.
Note: A true terracotta oil lamp serves well, too.
THE SIMPLEST TYPE OF BROOM is made of a shrub, scotch broom (Cytisus scoparius), a plant found in most regions of Europe and western North America, and used for cleaning sidewalks, urban gutters, streets.
Cut its stems into equal lengths, tie them tightly, aligned, with a wire around a very straight, solid stick of a good length (from 1.10 to 1.30 meters).
FOR MAKING OTHER BROOMS OR BRUSHES You can use soft fibers (sorghum, palm petals, coconut fibers …) and hard (couch grass).
To make them, you need:
• tools for measuring
• hand drill
• nylon thread
• wooden planks 1 cm thick
• cone shape tool
Prepare the fibers:
United in bunches, section them in order to obtain packets 22 cm long for the brooms and 12 cm long for the brushes.
Prepare the wood:
• Cut the boards 1 cm thick, to a shape that fits well in the hand. Pierce sixty holes in it for the broom and thirty-two holes for the brush (small base: 4 mm; big base: 1 cm). The periphery of the holes of the little boards will be turned so that the brush hair will open up.
• Make the patterns to justly mark the position of the holes and their incline.
• Take the noose, tuft first; pull the thread forcefully in order to get it through the conical hole.
• With the help of a hook put on the little finger, make another hook in the next hole until, after many moorings, the wire is in the last hole.
Note: Obtain the blockages with two turns of wire around the peak. Thanks to this same closed peak, the coil unwinds, allowing a firm traction on the wire. For brooms, make preparations for a mounting hole for the handle.
These are shoes made with the advantage of being constructed out of only one piece of hollowed-out wood, properly insulating the feet but only allowing short trips.
The preferred wood must be dry, hard, and light all at the same time: the best will be the alder (Alnus glutinosa) because it is very resistant to humidity.
To avoid quick wear, repair the clogs with pieces of rubber (old tire), scraps of leather, or pieces of iron, nailed.
There is always interest in making them a bit larger than the foot size, so they can be slipped on “hot”—in other words, with thick socks, or even slippers. One can also cover them with straw or paper.
One can make needles and buttons with wood. For the needles, choose shards of hard wood like boxwood or olive. Sandpaper, a knife, a small punch, and files are adequate tools for their manufacture.
To get hot water from a hose, it is sufficient to choose the longest one possible and thread it through glass bottles whose bottoms have been broken off—they will act as a magnifying glass under the sun.
A yellowish resin that comes from the trunk or branches of the mastic tree. But one can easily make it with a mixture of linseed oil and pulverized chalk or else also a mixture of asphalt with a bit of pine tar.
When necessary, one can make a good simple rope from the fibers of the stem of the spear thistle (Cirsium vulgare).
• Split a thistle stem in two; raise the stringy membranes from the skin;
• Separate some fibers; and roll them into a strong cord.
Note: The sticker leaves and the dismembered stem of the thistle can be eaten raw or cooked.
Some prefer green manure (uniquely based on plants) without wanting to add anything. However, our composts can be assorted. In this case, the recovery of our defecation is very useful and it is natural—it’s even better if we are vegetarian.
• Hollow a hole 50 cm deep with a length the size of your toilet, a masonry wall; on this bedrock, exceeding the surface of the earth by 20 cm, prepare the cabin, a windowed door in a heart shape, as required.
• Extend the pit outside the hut so you can enter from behind and make a mobile partition.
• Above the pit, anticipate a movable floor to facilitate cleaning and emptying; make a hole 30 cm in diameter: for the constipated, we give a seat more precisely called “Turkish”; it is good to anticipate two holes: nothing here offers privacy, but it encourages conversation, especially if one is claustrophobic or an exhibitionist.
• Have a terracotta pail close by and, after each usage, clean out the excreta.
One avoids foul odors this way, and the material decomposes very easily.
• Empty the pit in order to avoid its overflows from holes that can drive into the immobile planks.
• Pour out the contents of the compost.
Hollow out a hole one meter deep, fill with big rocks, then with small pebbles; cover this sump grating. With the help of three poles three meters in height, build a kind of teepee; on a wall, attach a shelf which can hold your cup, soap, etc. On another wall, place two horizontal poles at 2.5 m and 40 cm from the ground, respectively; the highest pole will support the cord attached to the lowest; hang a pail at the free end of the rope; attach there the lever to easily upturn it; anticipate an emergency water tank; attach tarpaulins around the teepee in order to avoid air currents.
For centuries, making knots was the main privilege of sailing ships. Now, so-called “civilized” man, very knotted in himself, is entangled more and more in his Gordian knot that no Alexander seems capable of slicing through. And there are other knots: his scarf, tie, and shoelaces. Here are some other very useful knots:
BOWLINE KNOT Used mostly by the alpinists for roping up: this loop does not slip, and it especially resists when the traction is strong and easily defeated.
REEF KNOT It serves to unite two ends of the same diameter.
DOUBLE SHEET BEND KNOT Allows the union of two ropes of different diameter.
8 KNOT Thanks to this knot, one can attach a rope with the help of one hole.
SINGLE LASHING KNOT This keeps two pieces of wood together without using screws or nails.
LADDER KNOT This allows for the construction of a simple ladder best to attach to the ground to avoid movement produced by the climb or descent.
HEDGE Plant thorny bushes 15 cm high; place them in lines or in rows with a distance of 23 cm between the lines and 45 cm between the plants. Adjust for size and count four years ahead. But, animals being very fond of these bushes, also adjust for sheep and goats.
A WALL OF DRY STONES Trace the foundation 80 cm long by 30 cm deep; place two rows of large stones, thinning the wall progressively and making a good approximation to create a space between these two rows so we can fill it with soil to plant bushes at the top.
THE FENCE It is important to anchor the corner posts of the fence space so that the voltage of the wire is not uprooted. The best anchor is the double anchor: plant two posts 80 cm from one another: one is notched at the top so one can pass a wire through and realign it to a big stone buried behind the other post; place the post between the top of the two posts; the ensemble won’t move anymore.
Note: If you do not have tension wire, take a slightly curved stick 60 cm long; attach a nail 15 cm with metal staples just under the bend; pass the thread under the nail by rolling it at least two times; tighten the thread by turning the stick; the curvature is used like the head of a faucet; apply more tension by using the stick like a lever on the corner post.
THE GATE Choose a wood that splits; make straight posts; hollow the mortises to attach the crosses, vertical mounts, the blunt ends; maintain the fittings with the help of pegs or small nails; pierce the holes at the placement of the braces so that the wood won’t chip; place the braces in a reversed V with a vertical brace in the middle of this V.
The fences have the advantage of being nailed immobile—one attaches pegged posts and puts them in the ground with the help of simple twine. Their transport from one point to the other is easy: one can transport several on just one shoulder.
THE FARM GATE One uses the same principles above but the posts of the frame will be bolted such that the crosses, the hinges and the braces (this time placed diagonally) and the base of the vertical posts are no longer blunt. Chestnut is preferred.
Note: One can also make gates and woven fences with hazelnut or wicker.
After the seeds or fruits (olives) have had their impurities removed, one can extract oil by grinding, mixing, and using a cold press.
In the past, oil was extracted by treading, grinding in a mortar and pestle, or by a grinding wheel, driven by human or animal force. Today, certain equatorial people place oil-producing seeds beneath absorbing fabric that is exposed to the sun; the fabric is then twisted to extract the oil.
The most simple, archaic method continues today:
• crush the seeds or olives either in a grinder or mortar
• put the crushed seeds in sacks of cloth that you heap into a press; if you do not have access to a press, place this same sack in a container where the oil can be collected by an opening at its base; cover with a plane, a resistant and hard surface over which you could move the press progressively by a simple car jack solidly placed (the steel beam of a platform, for example).
This is the action of splitting the bark of pine trees in order to obtain resin.
This operation is very simple:
• remove a piece of bark 10 cm long and 1 m high
• make an opening with an ax at its base
• in this opening, place a metal gutter on which the resin will flow
• place an iron box under this gutter to collect the juice
• make another opening every five days some centimeters under the preceding one
• while all the sap is collected, do another collection
• continue this way along the trunk
The tapping cannot be done between November and February. If one heats the resin and uncovers it, the first vapors will be turpentine; the residue of this distillation is used for paint and varnishes. If one burns the wood of conifers in a hollow hole in the ground, one obtains the plant tar used a lot to paint boats.
One of the finest that inspired all the others and is available to all—the human voice. Reaching the vocal perfection that is the privilege of some classical singers takes years of work to develop the voice, learn harmony, and train the ear. That said, one can make, in difficult times, makeshift musical instruments that can perfect our musical leanings.
MUSICAL GLASSES The thinner the glasses, the more beautiful the note (for example, crystal). The more the glass is filled, the deeper the tone. The glasses can be hit with a cover, a stick covered with felt or cork, or simply tapped with the fingernails.
• Place eight glasses side by side in such a way that one can arrange an octave: do, re, mi, fa, so, la, ti, do. The lowest note will come from the glass furthest left (like with the piano).
• Put the water in the first glass and take out or add to it until you have the “do”; do the same with each glass in the scale.
• If you don’t have a musical ear, get help from a flute.
Note: One can color the liquid with vegetable dye in order to memorize, visually, the notes each represents. The evaporation of the water will force us to fill up the glasses: to the guitarist who has difficulty with this order, think about the singer or actor who is constantly adjusting their voices!
CASTANETS Open a nut carefully so you don’t break it; empty it; pierce each side with a hole at the narrowest end; unite them together with twine where you can introduce it with the fingers; place it in your hands and open it and close it.
THE TRIANGLE Hang an iron horseshoe and tap it with a nail.
CYMBALS Rub two pot covers one against the other: the thicker ones sound best, while the aluminum gives too thin a sound. One can also hit them with a mallet wrapped in cloth.
INDIAN SHAKERS Take two empty tins (smaller are better for the hands); fill one with raw wheat or rice; put paper clips or nails in the other; unite the two with tape; tap or shake it.
Note: You can also make a soft flute with a piece of cane or a stalk 31.5 cm long; a harp with wire, shoelaces, and an old cigar box; a drum with whatever container you can stretch skin on with the help of thread …
The sun reflected by the white surface of a field of snow or a lake or even a white page from a book can tire out your sight or even blind you. You can make a simple pair of sunglasses with bark from a birch tree giving the appropriate shape and hold it in place with wire.
Make a mixture of vegetable oil (preferably linseed), vinegar, treacle (the syrupy residue of the crystallization of sugar) in one-third portions. To obtain the black color, add the smolder collected from the top of an oil lamp, lit (without the glass) by means of an inverted funnel.
Note: This chapter is obviously incomplete and related material could be the subject of several strong volumes. It is only indicative of all the possibilities offered by our imagination and dexterity.
In case of need, man knows how to be inventive and creative. A multitude of objects can be born of the spirit, primarily out of need, but also, sadly, for other reasons that are harmful to nature’s balance and the dignity of the human species.
It is up to each person to enlarge this mini-catalogue of “personal” finds.
