Labels, true or just heaps of bull****

[Tim Simmons]

It has become clear to me that not all is clear as to the construction of this club.
Here are some more telling pictures. I it is best as a couple of reply to keep it simple. Starting with the stone. You will see it is one long stick with a stone held against the long stick. The two are bound together by a plant substance. After binding the club stone is further held secure bya melted layer of tree resin. The resin has gathered dirt and darkend with age. You can see how the colour is still much the same as the tree resin I have melted onto a small flint stone from the garden, seen next to a small lump of resin. You can see how fine the raw hide is, more like parchment.

[Tim Simmons]

I do not need to use a hot pin.

[Tim Simmons]

Raw hide and leather. You can see that the hide was wet then wrapped around the stick then bound untill drying as a hard cover. What other treaments to this I do not know. The tassel leather part is 32cm long inside the outer hide cover and stiched with a bunched and twisted hair thread. The leather has also been smoked. All very simple but looks high quallity materials to me.

[Tim Simmons]

You can see where the inner wrap of fine leather with stitching end under the hide wrap. There is a small step where the thickness reduces. I have tried to highlight this with a sudmge mark. Many of the tassels are very delicate.

[David]

Tim, i couldn't see much in that first new grouping so i applied a little photoshop magic to bring out the details.
I'm still not convinced either way. This style of binding doesn't really look like any other Native American pieces i have seen, but it does look solid.

[Tim Simmons]

The binding follows the same basic principle as these examples. In these pictures the stick is bent round the stone. In my example it is two sticks, the main long handle stick and a smaller holding stick, both bent to hold the ball form stone.

[spiral]

The last pictures you added Tim show typicle ploughed groove American Indian tools, in which the rawhide sits within the groove.

I dont say that means yours are not good, but there very different than the examples you use to illustrate.

When I have time this Ill look through my references on this stuff,looking for similar. I have heaps of stuff on this subject {as you probably would guess, }but its not been my major focus so far, so sadley cant realy add lib on it.

Spiral

[David]

Originally Posted by Tim Simmons

The binding follows the same basic principle as these examples. In these pictures the stick is bent round the stone. In my example it is two sticks, the main long handle stick and a smaller holding stick, both bent to hold the ball form stone.

I'm afraid that i agree with spiral here. The examples you show are not bound in the same way at all. I see no notching in your stone. In the new examples you show the rawhide is not bound across the stone and i see no excessive use od plant resin to hold it all together.