Making a Sounding Horn

[nikolaos]

Hey folks,

Since the end of the summer I've been pretty much swamped at work, and barely even had time to argue on the internet. Before free time went by the wayside I did have the opportunity to complete a nice little project for my kit, and now that things are easing off a bit, I thought I'd make it the subject of my first post now that we have a re-enactment forum.

First a little background:

When I was looking at drinking horns I was also wondering if the Greeks made sounding horns, but failed to find a single example identified as such in the Beazely or elsewhere. Then, cruising event pics on Flikr one night I decided to have a troll through the site to see if there were any interesting greek pics out there. One of my first finds was a pic of a
terracotta tile dating to 500-450 BCE from Appolonia Pontica.

[attachment=0:2ihoq8hz]<!-- ia0 HopliteTileSmall.jpg<!-- ia0 [/attachment:2ihoq8hz]

A larger pic is available at http://www.flickr.com/photos/dandiffendale/3502689902/

It seems to show an armoured hoplite sounding a hunting horn, right down to the blown out cheeks and pursed lips. As this is a project I've been interest in doing for a while, I was thrilled.

Checking my stores, I found the perfect horn for the job: thick walled, broad tipped, and with some size to it. However, up until that point my horn work had been fairly plain, and I was looking to do something a little more decorative. In order to do it right some research would be required. A little digging revealed a nice Boeotian rhyton that I liked the look of.

[attachment=1:2ihoq8hz]<!-- ia1 Rhyton2.jpg<!-- ia1 [/attachment:2ihoq8hz]

The wide flare at the end will have to be an applique of metal (at some point, and I might do the little animorphic tip separately as a stopper. But for now the main job would be the sounding horn proper. Some references for the work were:

"Recreating the 18th Century Powder Horn", Scott and Kathy Sibely (its the most acessible horn working reference I've found so far)
"Where i the horn that was blowing," http://www.bmarch.atfreeweb.com/where_the_horn.htm
"Making a functional signal horn" http://lochcairn.freeservers.com/classe ... lhorn.html

Next Post: Basic Shaping

[nikolaos]

The first step was to trim the ends to square off the mouthpiece at a point where it will be large enough, and square the other end to aid in forming.

[attachment=3:1ac1tqrl]<!-- ia3 Ends_Squared.jpg<!-- ia3 [/attachment:1ac1tqrl]

Then, in order to shape the wide end I needed a new shaping plug, as the ones I have aren't suitable to the horn. I'm shaping the end to allow for mounting a metal end down the road.

[attachment=2:1ac1tqrl]<!-- ia2 Shaping_Plug.jpg<!-- ia2 [/attachment:1ac1tqrl]

Armed with a new plug, I set the horn in boiling water. The wire steamer rack in the bottom prevents direct contact with the bottom of pot and helps avoid scorching the horn.

[attachment=1:1ac1tqrl]<!-- ia1 BoilingHorn.jpg<!-- ia1 [/attachment:1ac1tqrl]

After 25 minutes the horn is soft enough to form to the plug...

[attachment=0:1ac1tqrl]<!-- ia0 HornOnPlug.jpg<!-- ia0 [/attachment:1ac1tqrl]

Next up: A funny coincidence

[nikolaos]

Before I got back to the horn again I ran across an interesting 18th century powder horn:

[attachment=0:a7yyzgp0]<!-- ia0 web-horn-12.jpg<!-- ia0 [/attachment:a7yyzgp0]

What's old is new again...

Next up: rough shaping.

[nikolaos]

So, I have made the following design decisions:

- The neck of the horn being a bit thick, I am going to step the horn to thin it a bit, and end in carved scale engrailing to transition the design.
- A ring at the mouthpiece will also help with the thinning.
- Due to the thickness of the horn I will carve in the bell end ring.

All of this needs to be done before dying the bell ring and neck, so off I went with rough shaping.

Here are the tools with rough shaping underway:

- A marking gauge for marking straight lines
- A saw for making starter cuts to keep to those lines
- A selection of files for shaping
- An upright post that acts as a third hand for holding the horn.
- A selection of files and rasps for shaping
- A brass wire brush for cleaning debris from the teeth of the files

[attachment=3:35inczy6]<!-- ia3 Shaping_tools.jpg<!-- ia3 [/attachment:35inczy6]

Here's the neck roughed in:

[attachment=2:35inczy6]<!-- ia2 Rough_Neck.jpg<!-- ia2 [/attachment:35inczy6]

And the mouthpiece:

[attachment=1:35inczy6]<!-- ia1 Rough_Mouthpiece.jpg<!-- ia1 [/attachment:35inczy6]

And the bell:

[attachment=0:35inczy6]<!-- ia0 Rough_Bell_2.jpg<!-- ia0 [/attachment:35inczy6]

Next up: The Engrailing

[nikolaos]

First the scale ends at the transition needed to be marked in:

[attachment=4:1fe8h8pc]<!-- ia4 Scales_Marked_3.jpg<!-- ia4 [/attachment:1fe8h8pc]

Here's the horn clamped for carving. Note the plug in place to protect the horn from pressure and the thick rag for padding.

[attachment=3:1fe8h8pc]<!-- ia3 Clamped_for_Carving.jpg<!-- ia3 [/attachment:1fe8h8pc]

And a scale carved in:

[attachment=2:1fe8h8pc]<!-- ia2 Scale_carved.jpg<!-- ia2 [/attachment:1fe8h8pc]

And the horn completely roughed in:

[attachment=1:1fe8h8pc]<!-- ia1 Roughed_In.jpg<!-- ia1 [/attachment:1fe8h8pc]

And a closeup of the neck:

[attachment=0:1fe8h8pc]<!-- ia0 Scraping_Underway.jpg<!-- ia0 [/attachment:1fe8h8pc]

At this point the horn has a nice little Eleu kind of sound, and the neighbourhood dogs go berserk when they hear it

Next up: Polishing and dying

[nikolaos]

First I scrape the horn clean and smooth with a cabinet scraper, and then finish off with steel wool.

Here is the polished neck:

[attachment=2:2l3daf9p]<!-- ia2 Polished_Neck.jpg<!-- ia2 [/attachment:2l3daf9p]

and the polished bell:

[attachment=1:2l3daf9p]<!-- ia1 Polished_Bell.jpg<!-- ia1 [/attachment:2l3daf9p]

The body remainins unpolished in the dying phase to preserve as much thickness as possible to ensure that when the dye is scraped from the body the white remains.

Here is the whole horn with the dye:

[attachment=0:2l3daf9p]<!-- ia0 With_Dye.jpg<!-- ia0 [/attachment:2l3daf9p]

Next up: Dying

[nikolaos]

Here is the horn in the dye bath. There is a wire rack on the bottom of the pot again to ensure that the horn does not come into direct contact with the heat.

[attachment=2:180qvbpi]<!-- ia2 In_Dye_Bath.jpg<!-- ia2 [/attachment:180qvbpi]

I was worried for a while that the colour was going to come out too pink, but after an hour in the bath the horn turned a pleasant red. There's a bit of colour differential due to the colour of the substrate at the neck and bell, but I suspect that will be muted once the body is scraped back to white.

Note the plug is back in. I try to leave it in as much as possible both to strengthen the bell end, but also to help prevent the bell from working out of round under the stresses of the horn being worked. Also, after being dyed in a boiling water bath, the horn is plastic again, and needs the plug to keep its shape.

[attachment=1:180qvbpi]<!-- ia1 Dyed_Horn.jpg<!-- ia1 [/attachment:180qvbpi]

And the moment of truth... Would it scrape clean to white? The white layer in this horn is quite thick, so I was fairly confident, but you never know....

[attachment=0:180qvbpi]<!-- ia0 Sample_Scrape.jpg<!-- ia0 [/attachment:180qvbpi]

Thankfully, it did!

Next up: Cleanup and decoration

[nikolaos]

Here it is with the body polished. There is green painter's tape still in place. The tape is to protect the neck and bell from accidental damage from the scraper and steel wool.

[attachment=3:xvmzh71n]<!-- ia3 Taped_and_Polished.jpg<!-- ia3 [/attachment:xvmzh71n]

And the tape removed and ready for the decoration:

[attachment=2:xvmzh71n]<!-- ia2 Ready_for_Scales.jpg<!-- ia2 [/attachment:xvmzh71n]

My first attempt to sketch in the scales was fairly heinous. I tried to use geometry to lay it out, but it looked funny, so I took a different approach.

Using the natural grain of the horn as a guide, I let the shape of the horn guide the shape of the scales along its length, and eyeballed the height. The net result looked so good that my wife said, "that looks amazing!" when she noticed it sitting on the table. So, I took that as a win, and here it is...

[attachment=1:xvmzh71n]<!-- ia1 Sketched_In.jpg<!-- ia1 [/attachment:xvmzh71n]

I then set to scrimshawing it. The scrimshaw isn't really visible until its in, so this pic is post dying. Unfortunately, the horn proved to be fairly absorbent (again, as this was the case with the body previously). So, there was a fairly serious haze after the inking:

[attachment=0:xvmzh71n]<!-- ia0 Scrimshawed_and_Inked.jpg<!-- ia0 [/attachment:xvmzh71n]

Next up: finishing up

[nikolaos]

I was a bit trepiditious at this stage, as the white horn of the body had been thinned by the previous round of dying. Rather than using the fairly agressive scraper, I took it slow and used a knife for better control and accuracy. Fortunately my fears proved unfounded, and it cleaned up very nicely:

[attachment=1:2jjz7jxz]<!-- ia1 Cleaned_Up.jpg<!-- ia1 [/attachment:2jjz7jxz]

And here is a pic of it in use from our september Hoplitikon. Theron (Dan) is blowing the horn, as he has a fair bit of practice, while I look on, delighted by the sound...

[attachment=0:2jjz7jxz]<!-- ia0 ColeAndDanHorn.jpg<!-- ia0 [/attachment:2jjz7jxz]

All in all a good bit of fun, and we're going to use it tactically...

Have fun!
Cole

[jvrjenivs]

wow, thats cool! Love your horn! Well done for sure.

[Marcus Mummius]

Fantastic job!

[Kineas]

And it sounds fantastic, too. On to boar hunting!

[Giannis K. Hoplite]

It is a very nice work. I would love to hear a sample of how it sounds though. Or will i have to wait till Marathon???

[Epictetus]

That is impressive! Great job.

Is there a way to record a sound and place it on a website? I would love to hear how it sounds.

[nikolaos]

Thanks guys! I'll see what I can do about getting a recording of it being played!

Cole