nearly ready for Kingdom University
Oct. 27th, 2022 06:41 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kareinaLife having been busy lately, I didn't start working on dropping images into Powerpoint for my class at Kingdom University till one day last week, when I should have been working on my nearly done paper for publication as part of my degree in progress. However, since my class is called: Keeping it hot: Soapstone cooking vessels and other useful objects in the Viking Age, and the class description says: A survey of soapstone artefacts and a discussion of why this material was so popular for making a variety of different useful objects, ranging from cooking vessels to textile tools, I am calling time working on the class "literature review", since, so far, I have opened every pdf I have which is even a little on topic, checked it for photos, and if it has any nice ones, copy them into the powerpoint, copy the paper title into the list of references, and make a note for myself if the photos taken have to do with quarrying soapstone, carving it, or is of artefacts (and what category thereof).
I only managed going through a small handful of those papers before last weekend's event, but yesterday was the weekly Drachenwald Sewing meeting, so I had company whilst I pushed through the rest of the pile, and now I have a powerpoint with photos from all of the papers. It would be lovely to add more photos from online museum collections, but if I don't get that far the world won't end.
In the meantime, Keldor got word this weekend that his class Some Like it Hotter: Forge Welding in the Viking Age can be done as a hand-on course. We weren't certain if that would be possible, given that the site is a Swedish "castle" (more of a palace; it isn't really designed with defense in mind) heritage building, but they decided that yes, he can do smithing outdoors. The first plan when we suggested outdoors was that we would bring the set-up he normally uses for smithing at our Medieval Days event for the public. However, that set-up involves having the hearth and bellows directly on the ground, and the anvil is on a stand to be comfortable for working at from a kneeling position. This is all well and fine for demonstrating simple knife making on a nice summer day. This is not so appealing for late autumn when the ground is likely to be cold, possibly wet, and one needs hotter temperatures to accomplish the welding.
Therefore he decided to make a stand to bring the hearth and belows up to a comfortable working height whilst standing, and another stand to raise the anvil to a comfortable working height whilst standing. So while I hung out with Drachenwald folk and finished my class yesterday, he stayed late after work and built a couple of stands--one out of metal to support the anvil, and another out of lumber. He got home around 19:00 or perhaps a bit later and we brought the hearth stand into the house to finish it, adding cross braces in the right location to support the bellows, and the platform on which the sand and clay for the hearth itself will be built on site. Then we drilled a hole in a chunk of soapstone to run the bellows pipe through to the hearth.
Now I just need to finish packing the other things needed for the event and load our normal gear into the van, so that tonight after work he and I together can load in the hearth stand and anvil, etc. Then bright and early tomorrow morning we hit the road. Google says it is a 10 hour drive south to the site, if we don't stop. We will stop. For fuel, for toilets, and, likely, for adventure.
I hope that you are also well prepared for your weekend, and that it will be a fun one.
I only managed going through a small handful of those papers before last weekend's event, but yesterday was the weekly Drachenwald Sewing meeting, so I had company whilst I pushed through the rest of the pile, and now I have a powerpoint with photos from all of the papers. It would be lovely to add more photos from online museum collections, but if I don't get that far the world won't end.
In the meantime, Keldor got word this weekend that his class Some Like it Hotter: Forge Welding in the Viking Age can be done as a hand-on course. We weren't certain if that would be possible, given that the site is a Swedish "castle" (more of a palace; it isn't really designed with defense in mind) heritage building, but they decided that yes, he can do smithing outdoors. The first plan when we suggested outdoors was that we would bring the set-up he normally uses for smithing at our Medieval Days event for the public. However, that set-up involves having the hearth and bellows directly on the ground, and the anvil is on a stand to be comfortable for working at from a kneeling position. This is all well and fine for demonstrating simple knife making on a nice summer day. This is not so appealing for late autumn when the ground is likely to be cold, possibly wet, and one needs hotter temperatures to accomplish the welding.
Therefore he decided to make a stand to bring the hearth and belows up to a comfortable working height whilst standing, and another stand to raise the anvil to a comfortable working height whilst standing. So while I hung out with Drachenwald folk and finished my class yesterday, he stayed late after work and built a couple of stands--one out of metal to support the anvil, and another out of lumber. He got home around 19:00 or perhaps a bit later and we brought the hearth stand into the house to finish it, adding cross braces in the right location to support the bellows, and the platform on which the sand and clay for the hearth itself will be built on site. Then we drilled a hole in a chunk of soapstone to run the bellows pipe through to the hearth.
Now I just need to finish packing the other things needed for the event and load our normal gear into the van, so that tonight after work he and I together can load in the hearth stand and anvil, etc. Then bright and early tomorrow morning we hit the road. Google says it is a 10 hour drive south to the site, if we don't stop. We will stop. For fuel, for toilets, and, likely, for adventure.
I hope that you are also well prepared for your weekend, and that it will be a fun one.