Tools and Materials: An Update!

Hello my dearest nalbinders,

We missed you! We thought we would recap our research questions, and provide some the insight that we have gained throughout the process! 

How effective or durable are the different needles made of various materials, such as wood, antler, bone? 

Through our research we discovered that many of methods and tools we used to make our own needles would most likely have been similar to what a Viking Age craftsman would have done. Tools that we used that we found to be similar to those we have evidence for from the Viking era include: 

• saws (we used a hack saw)
• axe (we used a hatchet... safer on the fingers)
• flat and round files (we used both flat and metal files)
• draw knives (we used a pocket knife)
• 'sand paper' --there is evidence that sand was 'glued' to leather and used to smooth, pumice was found to have been used to smooth as well (we used 100 and 240 grade sand paper)
• drills (although we used an electric one)
• boiling the bone and antler (we neglected to boil the antler, but learned our lesson for the bone) 

A dear dear... and his beautiful antlers!!

We attempted to use our needles made from the three materials: bone, antler and wood, to nalbind. In the end, we found that although the antler and bone needles were stronger, the wood needles were easiest to work with. This could be because of our specific needles, but we suspect that those in the Viking Age probably felt similarly to us.

Based on our research, we have only found artifactual evidence for bone and antler needles, however we think that based on our own experiences with wood needles they were probably used often, despite what the archaeological record has to show. We think that the reason that there is more evidence for bone and antler needles is because bone and antler are durable materials that preserve well in the ground in Northern Europe, while wood typically decomposes.    


HAPPY NALBINDING!
-KA & JF

MacGREGOR, A., 1985. Bone Antler Ivory and Horn: The Technology of Skeletal Materials Since the Roman Period. USA: Barnes & Noble Books.   

Photo: http://poppygall.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/2-Antlers-photographyserved.com_.jpg