Specialization is for Insects
December 6, 2010 10:25 AM   Subscribe

 
This is really neat! I know some of these skills (the spinning and other yarn-related ones), but anything to do with metal is a total mystery to me. The video about enamelling is beautiful and fascinating.
posted by bewilderbeast at 10:36 AM on December 6, 2010 [3 favorites]


No, yes, no, yes!
posted by Mister_A at 10:57 AM on December 6, 2010


Would love if someone would do a video version of the Foxfire books.
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 11:01 AM on December 6, 2010 [6 favorites]


Yes, yes, no and yes. Thanks for posting.
posted by Sailormom at 11:12 AM on December 6, 2010


No, no, no, and no.. but now I kinda do!
posted by LordSludge at 11:16 AM on December 6, 2010


900 hours to make a riveted chain mail shirt. So much for being able to afford a bad-ass motorcycle jacket.
posted by maxwelton at 11:18 AM on December 6, 2010


Goddamnit, I'm trying to get work done here!!
posted by Melismata at 11:22 AM on December 6, 2010


The most time-consuming thing about the corset is hunting the friggin whale. Could I substitute condor or snow leopard bone, I wonder?
posted by Mister_A at 11:30 AM on December 6, 2010


I now both know what pleaching is and wish I had a fiefdom in which to do it. Gee thanks DU.
posted by rudster at 11:41 AM on December 6, 2010


Hee hee, niddy noddy.

So now I know how to make charcoal. Neat. I'm enough of an insomniac to keep watching the pit for three days, but the stage of production where you have to jump up and down on top of a smoldering pile of wood leaves me a bit nervous.
posted by justsomebodythatyouusedtoknow at 12:21 PM on December 6, 2010 [1 favorite]


Awesome! Two out of four! Now I'm off to build a mansion out of cloth that I've woven myself to complete the set.

Actually, looking at the videos, I'm more than a little surprised at how many of these things I've done or tried to do at some point. I don't know what strange energy possessed my in my youth, but apparently at some point, in the distant past, I was quite crafty.
posted by quin at 12:49 PM on December 6, 2010


I know how to pleach, and I know that I have to make sure not to disturb the bluebells!
posted by francesca too at 12:59 PM on December 6, 2010


This is really awesome! Weaving cloth and sewing a corset I knew how to do (technically at least), but I am really loving stuff like "how to make a hurdle fence" and "how to forge split a piece of steel". Thanks!
posted by lriG rorriM at 1:08 PM on December 6, 2010


The "How To Make A Copper Rivet" guy is entertaining.
posted by Robin Kestrel at 2:46 PM on December 6, 2010


Thanks for the firefox link RobotVoodooPower, I'm definitely going to get those.

For our friends not in the UK I suggest keeping an eye out for the BBC series Edwardian farm, the follow up to the Victorian farm (and the even older seventeentrh century version, tales of the green valley). It's a wonderful series, and recently did the one I've been wanting to try for years, quicklime.
posted by ciderwoman at 4:19 PM on December 6, 2010


I wish to sculpt marble like the masters. Sadly, no video. :(
posted by pashdown at 7:25 PM on December 6, 2010


...Ooh, they have yarn dyeing.

(Have recently started to get into that.)
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 7:38 PM on December 6, 2010


Olden people only did it the hard way because Minecraft wasn't invented yet.
posted by -harlequin- at 8:10 PM on December 6, 2010 [1 favorite]


So yeah, I've just lost the last four or five hours in these videos. Even the stuff I know how to do, because, hey, someone might do it differently and better.

The riveting ones were particularly interesting, as I've used rivets for years, but I honestly never thought about making my own. That's going to be something to try this spring.

And the charcoal one is really long, has terrible sound issues, and is absolutely fascinating. About 30 minutes into it I started thinking about whether or not my neighbors would object to me starting a nine day long fire in the middle of our subdivision for the sake of trying to make my own charcoal.
posted by quin at 8:14 PM on December 6, 2010


I love that site.

I just constructed an oak inkle loom (I had the oak, and maple's too damned expensive) to do a bit of card-weaving, so I could weave about 8 feet of trim for a new tunic I'm sewing to accompany the antler-hilted scramsax and leather apron sitting in my leatherworking shop. I've a friend teaching me nalbinding so I can make a hat and socks over the winter from wool I've combed and spun myself - the same friend that, about a month or so ago, with whom we helped pick and press apples so that we could collectively brew about 10 gallons of hard cider.

I love the SCA. (And the Tudors can build their own damned mansions.)
posted by FormlessOne at 8:50 PM on December 6, 2010


neat!
posted by LobsterMitten at 11:35 PM on December 6, 2010


I'm a little disappointed there doesn't actually seem to be a video on building Tudor mansions.
posted by 6550 at 7:23 AM on December 7, 2010


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