I was part of a small group that sat down and did some feather curing and cutting them into pens. The sand method of curing was agreed up for the first try and it turned out successful. We didn't burn or blister any of the feathers. When it came time to do the cutting, we only lost a few feathers to cracking under our unskilled hands, but each of us turned out three quills that we thought would have a chance to write. And, write they did. At first the letters were heavy with ink, not really a blob, but readable, and they took a long while to dry. We then did some more trimming to the quills and they wrote even better. Much more like a typical modern dip pen that were use to. It was nice to have such good success after a few hours of work. Time to order more feather to practice on and I would love to get a more period looking pen knife.
I've also started work on a leather penner. A penner is a pen case that is attached to an ink pot. The image of a tailor below has a penner hanging on his belt.
The penner is pretty common from the 14th century onwards. I have read that Kungliga Bibliotek, ms. A. 144, folio 34, in Stockholm, from the 12th century, shows small boxes hanging from the belt on a group of small figures, but I haven't seen the manuscript page for myself.
I finished the inside layer of leather last night. I'm using a wooden block that's 1" x 2" x 10" as a form. The outside layer of leather, I plan on doing some sort of carving decoration, just not sure what yet. The cords that I plan on using I made with a Lucet. The ink pot is going to be one of the ones I purchased from Griffin Dye Works.
Isaac
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