Making a Black Jack, Traditional English Leather Beer Mug, From the Ground Up

In this project I attempt to rekindle a lost art, just what I like doing! Only so much is known about how leather mugs, bottles and pitchers were made, so the project was a relative success considering. I learned about them originally from John Waterer's book Leather and Craftsmanship ( http://amzn.to/1lqjBs0 ). The black jack is fun to drink from, light, and seems pretty durable. No, there is no weird taste. Read more details in my blog post about this project: http://skillcult.com/blog/2015/11/28/the-black-jack-project-making-a-traditional-english-leather-mug

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I used vegetable tanned leather that I made of bullskin tanned in oak bark. The leather was pounded with a smooth faced mallet while damp to make it more dense and less spongy. The forms were turned on a lathe out of douglas fir from the seasons firewood. The two clamp boards were also made of this, hewn out with a hatchet. A metal ring was also made in a simple ground forge to form the bottom of the cup over a wooded piece.

The wet leather was nailed to the clamp boards and then they were clamped together. After the pieces dried overnight, it was all put together, cut to shape and sewn with waxed linen thread.

The next day, the form was cut into pieces with a tapered central piece that could be easily removed. The cup was soaked in hot water at 85 to 90 degrees C until it shrank significantly. The form pieces were pounded back in to stretch the mug back into it's proper shape and it was dried thoroughly.

The inside was coated with pine resin and the outside with linseed oil and lampblack.

Видео Making a Black Jack, Traditional English Leather Beer Mug, From the Ground Up канала SkillCult