Logbook

Finished the main machining on the big Viking tent fly. There are 4 little seams which would be improved by sewing, but are survivable if not (they still aren't finished on the big Viking tent...). What is left is 8 kick-arse eyelets of doom (needing harpoon needles and hands of steel), 2 top ties, and splicing the ropes onto the 8 eyelets of doom (which I can help with later).

But the big machining is done and the rest is worst case hand sewing that can be done at the event.

Last 3 wax tablets have been carved out. This gives me 12 tablet blanks or 6 pairs. Given there were requests for 2, I may want to cut up some more and continue carving tomorrow night and bring spare wood with me to CF. But that can also be worked on at the event (suspect most of the wax casting etc will be anyway...).

And cause everyone wants cool distractions while trying to work on CF stuff or when needing to work on anything else for that matter, check out this blog, as she posts and links to some very cool odd medieval stuff, including period manuscript info on faking jewels (including down the base "To make a window of goat-skin parchment which will appear to be real glass.") and a link to a sundial spoon.

So, today was a bit of an improvement.
Morning - one side of the Viking bed jigsawed out, people mucking around with tent poles. Tried sewing machine again with better luck, so now have two main triangles for one end - should be able to make more progress tomorrow. Lunch, more wax tablets, such that there are now 8 pairs of big tablets and 6 pair (and one spare) of little tablets carved out. Pictures here and here. Next will be sanding and finishing - pairs of holes in the sides for lacing pairs together on the large ones. May make small leather pouches for the thin ones ala the wax tablets from York*. Not managing quite as thin and fine as those though.

And for other very nice wax tablet links check out the ones here.

Other progress for the day was on cutting out the other Viking bed frame bits for slotting together - only bits left now are the legs (unfortunately the more complicated bit) and the holes for wedging.

And there was a pretty doco on TV about the sun. The warm fuzzies were a bit annoying but they had some really nice satelite movies from SOHO in the far UV and X-ray - great detail of everything from solar granulation to sunspots and coronal mass ejections. I may have spoiled it for Z by being that annoying person who says it is due to blargh (in this case magneto-hydrodynamics) and has the presenter catch up up a sentense or two later (or 5 min later when they are being mysterious and attempting to build things up).

And Ruapehu managed to lahar away nice and safely - some nice piccies off here on the NZ Herald site (not certain how long they will stick around for).

* Though while looking for those, found the York Archeological trust Online Picture Gallery. Very pretty pictures but not certain how to link directly to particular artifact images. They also appear to have a lot on various of their excavations in some bastard only work with IE and need Adobe SVG viewer... Would be nice to find out about:

Anglo-Scandinavian and Roman remains at
28 - 29 High Ousegate, York, UK
Principal Authors: Neil Macnab and Jane McComish

The site at 28-29 High Ousegate, York, was the subject of an archaeological watching brief and excavation in the summer of 2002. The excavation took place in the site of a new lift shaft in the basement of the building, which is currently Waterstones book store. The excavated area measured just 2.6m by 3m and was investigated to a depth of 1.9m below the existing floor level.

The excavation uncovered evidence of deposits of Roman to Anglo-Scandinavian date; all later deposits had been removed by the insertion of the present cellar. The Anglo-Scandinavian deposits were of particular interest and included a number of pits, dumped deposits, wattle fences and a stake- and post-built structure, in addition to an exceptional collection of artefacts, well preserved in the highly organic deposits. These artefacts provide evidence for craft industries on the site including leather working, textile production, antler working and horn working.