cerisemoodeyart - Tumblr blog

cerisemoodeyart · 3 years

Text

Making Vellum

Materials:

Fresh goat hides

Masons lime

4 ½ gallon bucket, 1 per goat (I used plastic cat litter buckets)

measuring cup

straight edged knife with rounded tip

knife sharpener

rubber gloves

tarp

spray bottle of water

sink or hose

pine 2x4

stretching frame:

3 pine 2x4s

corner braces and screws

drill and ¾ inch bit

7/8 inch dowel rods (3)

chisel

sisal twine

many smooth glass pebbles

pumice stone

In selecting your goat hides from the butcher, choose a white goat without spots, as the spots will remain as pigmented areas in your vellum. If you are looking for thin and delicate vellum, choose a younger goat. You can also make vellum from sheep and deer.

Upon acquiring fresh kid hides from the butcher, rinse the salt and blood from the hides. Fill buckets of water and set the goats to soak overnight. The next day rinse the goats again until the water they were soaking in runs clear and no longer turns bloody. I repeat this about three times per goat.

When the goat hide was clean and rehydrated, I turned it flesh side up over a 2x4 resting upon two chairs. This was my improvised fleshing beam. I then removed as much fat and muscle from the goat as I could manage. This took between one and two hours, depending upon how well butchered the goat was.

After the goats had been fleshed, they went into the first lime bath. Since my buckets held about 4 ½ gallons of water, I used 1 ½ cups of lime per bucket for the dehairing process. I folded the hides hair-side out and put them in the buckets, one to a customer. The goats needed to be stirred at least twice a day until the hair was ready to come off. I used a wooden dowel rod as the lime will eat metal, and ruin the goats. This part stayed in my garage, as the wet goat hides smelled like, well, like a goat. As this was in February/March and the temperatures were cold, it took about 11 days for the goats to begin to de-hair.

Once they were ready, and fortunately having a sunny day, I took them outside, poured off the limewater into a patch of gravel, and spread the goat hair side up on a tarp. Wearing rubber gloves, I pushed the hair off of the hide. It came off easily, taking about 15 or 20 minutes per goat. I then rinsed the goat off with a hose, filled the bucket with a fresh batch of lime water, and set the goats to soak for another 8 days to whiten them.

If you do this in hot weather, the goat hides will begin to decompose more quickly. You can slow down this process by replacing the limewater every few days. Other individuals have had good results by freezing the goat hides when they are ready to be stretched, and thawing them when they have time to stretch them.

Getting ready to stretch a goat, rinse it off really well and let it soak in water for a little while. The frame used was built out of 2x4s and was 4x5 feet in length. Holes were drilled every 6 inches in the frame for the pegs, which I carved from 3 inch lengths of dowel rod (I drilled a hole ½ inch from the top of each peg before they were sawn apart). The ends of the pegs were tapered to fit in the ¾ inch holes of the frame, and the holes in the pegs were for the sisal twine to go through. Sisal does not stretch: it’s good for keeping tension even.

To tie the goat to the frame, the smooth glass pebbles were placed near the edge of the hide on the flesh side. (Put the goat hair side down on the ground and the frame around it). Use a larks head knot on the hair side of the goat around the pebble to secure the frame to the hide. Tie the goat every 3 or 4 inches around its edge. I started at the neck, went to the tail, then to the middle of each side in turn to keep the tension even as I placed the goat in the frame. The twine can be twisted around the pegs to tighten the tension on the goat hide.

Once the goat was in the frame, I tightened the tension as far as it would go. Using a spray bottle to keep the hide wet, I began scraping it to remove all of the fat. This took many hours. I also scraped the hair side. While the goat was wet, the hair side looked white, but the first time I did this it darkened to a light yellow when dry. On a later attempt I scraped the hair side very carefully and removed all of the discoloration.

If a very thorough and careful job of scraping is done on the flesh side the hide will be thin and clean. There tends to be a greasy spot from the tail (the greasiest and hardest to clean portion of the hide). This results in a transparent spot in the dry vellum. Chalk can be used after the scraping as a de-greaser. The middle of the hide is the easiest to clean. The legs, neck and tail have more fat on them.

Use the spray bottle to keep the hide damp throughout the stretching process. You do not want the hide to dry out while it is being scraped: it would do well not to scrape the hide in direct sunlight.

After the hide was clean, I put the frame with the stretched and scraped goat in it aside in my entryway to dry. It was ready the next morning. In the first one there was a slight amount of wave in a few parts of the hide that had not been there when it was wet. Make certain the tension is tight before letting it dry. Tightening it as it dries will result in flatter vellum. When it is dry cut the hide from the frame by cutting about 1 or 2 inches in from its edge.

Cut your working piece to size and pumice it smooth for scribing. The vellum I make is thinner and cleaner than any hide I have ever purchased. I considered my time well spent.

Scraping the vellum can take eight hours. It may do well to have an assistant to help you take turns: otherwise you can tire yourself out or strain your shoulder muscles.

If you wish to make dyed vellum, paint it well with your dyestuff when the hide is completely scraped but before you let it dry. For cochineal, boil your bugs in a sock or cloth bag so you don’t have to strain the little bug bodies out of your dyebath. Paint the hide thoroughly and repeatedly, both sides, until completely saturated with the dyestuff. For black use your best recipe for oak gall ink and paint the hide with the ink. Whichever dye you use, it will drip off the hide as you paint it on. I simply held the container with the dyestuff under the bottom edge of the hide as I painted and caught the dripping dyestuff back in the bowl. Less mess and less waste.

Making vellum is a very messy job. It isn’t difficult but it is time consuming.

Good luck with yours! May you make many beautiful things.

Historical references to vellum making:

Washing:

Hedwig Saxl(1959): “Thirty minutes in a drum”

Soaking:

Barley MS. 3915 “Take goatskins and stand them in water for a day and a night. Then take them and wash them until the water runs clear.”

Condradus De Mure – De Natura Animalium “The flayed skin from the calf is placed into water.”

Hedwig Saxl (1959) “Washed one half hour in a drum (about 16 rpm.) and then for 24 hours in clean, still water.”

Lime Bath:

Lucca MS. 490 “Place (the skin) in limewater and leave it there for three days.”

Harley MS. 3915 “After the method of the Bolognese. Then take a new vessel and put in it a weathered lime and water and mix them well together, in order that the water is well thickened; then place the skins into this, and fold them at the side of the flesh. Then move this with a rod once every day twice or three times; and in the specified manner leave it for eight days, twice as long in winter.”

Conradus De Mure - De Natura Animalium “The skin flayed from the calf is put into water. Lime is added so that it cruelly bites the rawhide. This should clean it (the hide) well and "depeel" the hairs.”

Hedwig Saxl - 1954 “A fresh lime liquor was used, which contained 30% Ca(OH) and 5% CaC03, as it was prescribed to be of a paste-like consistency. The recipe stated lime for eight days, and sixteen days in the winter. The liquor was, therefore, heated in the morning and the evening to 18-20 C by passing steam through.”

Dehairing:

Harley MS. 3915 “Then you have to take it out and unhair it.”

Conradus De Mure - De Natura Animalium “This should clean it (the hide) well and "de peel" the hairs.”

Hedwig Saxl - 1954 “On the seventh day the pelt was unhaired.”

Barley MS. 3915 “Then pour off the contents of the vessel and begin the process again in the same way taking the same quantities; and likewise place the skins into this and move them and turn them once a day just as the first time for eight days.”

Hedwig Saxl - 1954 “Liming: The unhaired pelt was limed for a second time, by the same process described above, for another week in a freshly made lime.”

Second Rinsing:

Harley MS. 3915“Then you have to place them in another vessel with clear water and leave them for two days.”

Stretching:

Lucca MS. 490 “...then extend it on a frame.”

Harley MS . 3915 “...then you take them out and take (attach) the cords, and tie it to the circular frame.”

Conradus De Mure - De Nature Animalium “Prepare the circular frame and distend the hide.”

Scraping:

Lucca MS. 490 “...and scrape it on both sides with a sharp knife.”

Harley MS. 3915 “...and then you have to prepare it with a sharp knife.”

Conradus De Mure - De Natura Animalium “Expose it to the sun so that the moisture will be banished. Take the knife which tears away the flesh and hair. It makes it thin.”

Hedwig Saxl - 1954 “The medieval parchment-makers scraped the parchment on the frame, whereas the modern method is to use a splitting machine. Parchments were made both by machine splitting and without this and they were fleshed and scudded.”

Degreasing:

Bands Patent“In the manufacture of parchment and the like, treating the skin with a bath or washing of lime water or its equivalent in which alum is present and, after intermediate operations, rubbing the same with sand or glass paper substantially as described.”

Hedwig Saxl - 1954 “Dust wet pelt with chalk, slake off and repeat several times. Let the skin dry with a layer of chalk on it.”

Pouncing

Harley MS. 3915 “...washed with water and the flesh removed well with pumice and moisture, after two days wet it again in the same way by sprinkling it with a little water and cleanse the flesh well with pumice in such a way as to make it quite wet again.”

Bands Patent “...and, after intermediate operations, rubbing the same with sand or glass paper substantially as described...”

Hedwig Saxl - 1954 ...after forty-eight hours it was washed again, while on the frame, with cold water and pounced with pumice and then allowed to dry.

Drying

Lucca MS. 490 “...and leave it to dry.”

Harley MS. 3915 “...then they have to be left for two days away from the sun...washed with water, and (pumicing). Then extend the cords better and equalize (the tension) on them so that the parchment will become "permanent": nothing further needs to be done after they are dry.”

Conradus De Mure - De Nature Animalium “Expose it to the sun so that the moisture will be banished.”

Hedwig Saxl - 1954 “The pelt was then dried on a stretching frame at a temperature of 18-20 C. It was found that drying was not very well controlled by this process at 18-20 C although it was somewhat better controlled at 37 C.”

1 note · View note