Map Horn water scrim question

[Michigander]

I am making a map horn and would like a find a method to designate the water part from the land part. I tried to use a thin needle to make perpendicular scratched to the shoreline, but they look too light & it is very difficult to tell where I am scratching so spacing is irregular. Am I doing the technique wrong or is there a better way to make map water look like water?
Thanks for your help.
Michigander

[Randy Hedden]

I am making a map horn and would like a find a method to designate the water part from the land part. I tried to use a thin needle to make perpendicular scratched to the shoreline, but they look too light & it is very difficult to tell where I am scratching so spacing is irregular. Am I doing the technique wrong or is there a better way to make map water look like water?
Thanks for your help.
Michigander

Usually you would see short lines along the shoreline of the water, but I don't believe they were perpendicular to the shoreline.  Try making them at slight angle from perpendicular.  What did you use to engrave the rest of the horn. A needle?

I do all my scrimshaw with a knife like blade and use it for heavy deep lines as well as lighter lines.  If you feel brave and want to do some color on the horn you can scribe the small lines and then dye the edges where the short lines are a red or blue. 

Randy Hedden

[Michigander]

Hi Randy,
Thanks for replying. I use a Colter Scrimshaw tool to do the normal scrim.  It is basically a pointed machine scribe. It is very easy to make the lines too wide with it so I thought I would use a needle to try and get a shallower, thinner and more tapered line. I'll try the angled lines  but the lines I am making with the needle are too light. Maybe I need to use a heavier - stiffer needle or use the tool but go very lightly.
Thanks,
Michigander

[Randy Hedden]

Just my personal opinion, but a scribe or needle scrimshaw tool is not the best tool to use when doing horns.  Original scrimshaw artists who were sailors and had access to ivory used a large sail needle to scrimshaw on ivory.  Hence the reason that many guys scrimshaw horns with a needle or scribe. Ivory and horn are two distinctly different materials and don't scrimshaw the same.  If you are trying to make a scrimshaw horn that looks like an original 18th century scrimshawed horn, then you should be using a knife like tool that has an actual blade, (even though the blade might be small).  When inspecting 18th century horns it is evident that most that I have seen were scrimshawed with a knife type tool.

For the light lines you are trying to do you might use an Xacto knife.  Some people who do scrimshaw  horns use an Xacto knife with the blade broken off to get a shorter blade and then resharpened.  I don't remember which particular Xacto blade they use, but if you do a search of this Accoutrements Forum you will find out which blade they are using.  If you wait a little while one of the members here who uses an Xacto knife will surely let you know which blade everyone uses.

Randy Hedden

[Bill of the 45th]

Michigander, welcome to the site.  How bout a little background on ya.  What part of the state do you call home.  What other interests are you into.  As Randy said horn works different than Ivory, or antler.  What little I have done, I found one of those craft knives that have the breakoff blades works well, and has a good angle for working the horn.

Bill

[Berks Liberty]

I am making a map horn and would like a find a method to designate the water part from the land part. I tried to use a thin needle to make perpendicular scratched to the shoreline, but they look too light & it is very difficult to tell where I am scratching so spacing is irregular. Am I doing the technique wrong or is there a better way to make map water look like water?
Thanks for your help.
Michigander

I agree with Randy.  I have a couple different knives and needles, but I mainly use the knives, which are of a different thickness to do my cuts.  Now the shading for water.  I like to use the Xacto knife and cut the tip off to outline the edge of the water.  Then I go back and cut out along that same line which makes it bolder.  Kinda like what a Venier tool would do.  I like doing it my way with a knife because it brings a little of a irregular line to the shore of the river, creek, or lake.  Personal touch, thats all.  now when i shade the area I will ink the entire area to outline the shore of the water.  I wipe the ink down until it leaves a grey film over the area where I want to shade.  Then with a large magnafine glass with the light attached with it ( The kind you can get at an art store, hope that helps?) I magnafine that area and make really small cuts or scratches.  the finer the lines and closer togther makes a darker shade, the finer the lines with the lines apart from each other makes a more of a lighter shade.  I use the magnafine glass to do 99% of my scimming and by using the ink to help show your shading cuts helps especially if your horn has a good amount of white.  The White of the Horn comes through the light grey of the ink with every cut.  Hope that helps. 

Jason

[Michigander]

Hi Guys, Thanks for the input, I really appreciate it.
I live in Adrian Michigan. I am a firearms accumulator with a focus on Smith & Wesson revolvers, though I enjoy domascus double barrels. Mostly my guns are for  duck, deer, and bird hunting, so I mostly have boring utilitarian guns like Benelli M2 & Weatherby .270. I got into black powder  with an inline Knight muzzle loader, but am considering  moving to a  45-70 blackpowder cartride gun like made by Sharps Shiloh. I would like to get into a flintlock, but have hesitated doing so for $$$ reasons. If I get a flint, I want something good & reliable.
Anyway, this doesn't explain why I make Powder Horns. It's because I enjoy them-  simple. I have or am making 4 horns.
My first attempt is this Michigan map horn. I did the scrim with an exacto, but I felt I didn't have enough control. I had too many mistakes.


So my current project is for my son who lives in Traverse City. The map is of Grand Traverse Bay.

 I did the scrim with the Colter scrimshaw tool and I find I have much more control. For the water shading, I think the exacto would probably do a much berrer job. I'll try it.
Jason, thanks for the tutorial on how to do the shading. Using the ink makes a lot of sense. Can you post a picture of a map with water? I can't seem to find what I am looking for on the net. Thanks,
Michigander

[Randy Hedden]

There is a map horn shown right here in the Accoutrements Forum a few days ago.  THe pictures are not all that close up, but you can get the idea. You might even save the pictures and enlarge them. 

http://americanlongrifles.org/forum/index.php?topic=5724.0

Or, there are a couple shown in color in Jim Dresslar's horn book, Folk Art of Early America, The Engraved Powder Horn.

Randy Hedden

[Jim Filipski]

Michigander,
Here is an image from my first horn I ever did back in 1982 It shows how I put in the river.
I used an exacto curved hooked blade ( not sure  what  the # was  & a # 11 for fine detail) I did the banks as  double lines to make it stand out.
Not an exciting horn but I i hope I got better over the years
Jim


Hope it is a help

[Michigander]

Hey JW,
Nice horn and good example of the water. I especially like the double line for the shoreline! Nice job.
Thanks,
Michigander

[Berks Liberty]

Michigander,

Take a look at the post I did named "My Dixon Horn"  that has an recent map horn I did.  If you you can't see the water let me know and I'll post a better photo. 

Jason

[Michigander]

Hi Jason, thanks, I looked at your Dixon Horn. Fabulous horn. It would help if you could post some bigger images of the water, I can't reallt see the scratches. It looks like cross hatching right?
Thanks for your help.
Michigander

[Randy Hedden]

Michigander,

When I do a map horn, the creeks and narrow parts of rivers are just "lined" on an angle all the way across from shore to shore.  The wider parts of the rivers, and lakes are only lined close to the shoreline.  I would suggest that you don't get too wrapped up making all the shoreline lines all uniform, even and precise.  You need to look at the scrimshaw as a whole from a couple of feet away and see if you like the effect of the scrimshaw.  When you get to looking at the horn close up with a magnifier you lose the overall effect of the scrimshaw.

If you look at scrimshaw on old original horns, most of it is not all that precise.  You see uneven lines and "mistakes" as well as overruns where the engraving knife slipped and overran the scrimshaw lines.  Apparently this didn't bother a lot of the old makers because they often just left the mistakes and overruns where they occurred.  When you look at these old horns today you don't even notice the mistakes unless you are looking for them.

Randy Hedden

[Michigander]

Randy, Thanks for the advice. I think you are right on about the overall picture. It helps to know how something is done correctly, because even if the execution is not perfect, the overall effect is more authentic-- at least in my opinion.
I really appreciate all of the advice. When I get it done I'll post some pictures.
Thanks,
Michigander

[seesbirds]

I've done some scrimshaw including map horns and I have a couple of things to add re:water.  On one of my early horns, I used a dental tool that I modified so that it had a broad sharp edge (kind of like a miniature hoe) which would take off just the slightest bit of surface.  enough to take a little ink but only a little and that worked OK but getting it even was a challenge.  On others I used a sharpened needle and made scratches and occasionally cross hatched them if I needed it darker. 

Over the past couple of years, I have been doing mostly pixelated engraving and with that technique the darkness is dictated by dot density.  You can take a look at how they look on my website www.shinintimespowderhorns.com if you like.  Any questions you have I'd be pleased to reply to.

I work on horn, ivory and artificial ivory all the time and the post regarding the difference between horn and ivory is spot on.  Horn has grain and Ivory doesn't so they are a bit different in the way they work.  I found that if I needed to cut a straight line on a horn, trying to scratch it with a scribe or needle would cause a jagged line in spite of my every effort to keep that from happening.  Now I use a very small xacto blade that I bought from Micromark whenever I need to cut a straight line or if I am outlining something that needs real definition.  I can't get enough detail with a knife to suit my goals so after I have outlined the object or created the line I need I use a scribe point to fill in the picture with dots.

I want to emphasize that I am not going for "old" looking or "traditional" artwork.  I am doing this work under a microscope and pride my self on the attention to detail that my technique affords.

[Michigander]

Hi Mark,
I just visited your site. You are truely an artist! Those horns are absolutely beautiful. I especially like the map horns. The Great Lakes & Lewis & Clark horns are fantastic.
One of your horns has a Celtic knot, which my Traverse Bay horn has. As for the water, I have already started to use the techniques described by Randy, JW & Berks. It's coming along but it's a strugle. However, I would like to do some pixilated shading on the Celtic knots. Would you share what tools you use and the techniques to obtain the shading?
Thanks for your help, it is really appreciated. I can already see my work has improved by using the help I received here!
Michigander

[Robby]

Michigander, The pictures aren't all that good, but should give you some ideas. All the water edges are slightly undercut with a tool that looks like a small skew chisel, made from a concrete nail and mounted into a dowel. The scratching is done with pointed tools, made of the same. As the saying goes, more than one way to skin a cat, Hah!



Robby

[davec2]

Michigander,

I an not a horner, but have done a couple of powder horns with water.  As a beginner in this area, I found that making water to my liking was not as easy as it looked and I didn't particularly care for the way the water on the following horn turned out.  However, it has grown on me with time (and my nephew loves it).  This is a post from the old board:

http://americanlongrifles.org/old_board/index.php?topic=1811.0

I use a variety of engraving tools to do horn, ivory, antler, etc.  The water on the above horn was done with a traditional engraver's liner.  My part of the following old post covers some of the tools I prefer.

http://americanlongrifles.org/forum/index.php?topic=1000.15

[Michigander]

DaveC2,
The talen on this forum is amaizing.  I really appreciate seeing the tools you use. That is very helpful.The horn you show on the old forum is great. Fantastic water. How did you do that?
Thanks,
Michigander

[seesbirds]

Michagander,

thanks for the kind words.  I think you can see, although the photos are lousy (I took them and I have a lot to learn about photography) how I have done ocean on the horn with the medals on it on my site.  That is different than defining other bodies of water.  Anyway, I took a couple of pictures of the tools I use but I don't know how to post them here so if you e-mail me visionsofbirds@earthlink.net I will send them to you.
Good luck

Mark

[Michigander]

Hey Seesbirds (AKA Mark),
I wanted to thank you for the time you spent with me on the phone today. I really appreciate the critique from someone of your talent. I have already ordered some  tools that you recommended and hope to try out the techniques we discussed.
For the Forum members, Mark spent at least 45 minutes critiquing my efforts and offering suggestions and helpful tips. He may be new to this board, but he is a real stand up guy & a true artist. I hope to see more of his posts here!
Thanks to this forum for all your help.

Michigander