Antique Brass Cantle Sporran Restoration Project

[artificer]

Next on the work bench is a piece I've been asked to make a new bag for.

Here is the sporran as delivered to me.


It's difficult to see, but look at the lovely scalloped edge along the top of the front face. It's mostly worn away, but can still be spotted on the upper left side.



I immediately believed the bag to be much newer than the cantle- even though the bag was old enough that the leather had severely dried out.

The empty holes for lacing are a very obvious marker that there have been changes made. These holes were not drilled out by a drill bit (at least not to this size). They are irregular in both size and shape, and show tooling marks.

Also immediately obvious was that the piece had suffered a traumatic event in it's past


The slotted screw is a repair. The other arm's hinge is held in place by a peened brass rivet. It would be my guess that the original either broke or had to be cut away to affect repairs when the 'event' took place. You can see the mis-alignment of the face with the rear body.

If you look at the first picture you can see the right side of the sporran's front face is dipping downward slightly. Keep in mind that the face has a thickness of ~2.5mm.

We'll come back to this later.

On to the bag's interior:

View of the inside front


Inside rear:


Interesting ring and wire attachment.

And very exciting indeed- the texture left behind from sand casting!


There are no seams to this piece. The rear body and top are one piece, as are the arms and hook on the front face.

The only soldered parts are the strap loops on the back, the interior rings, and the steel spring for the latch.

On the interior detail shot you can see the variation in thickness along the top edge. There is more than a millimeter of difference between the thickest and thinnest sections.





In this shot you can see some of the mis-alignment of the right side, along with a nice shot of the hook on the front face. The hook is cast in place and has been shaped with a file or saw. The front face is just over 2.5mm thick.



Lastly, a shot from the bottom up, showing the amount of bending this piece has experienced - and keep in mind this is not a very malleable piece!


A few decisions are being made by the commissioner right now, and then we'll begin the process of straightening the piece as much as possible and re-bagging.

Stay tuned!

ith:

[NeightRG]

When I saw this on your Facebook page, I was wondering if we'd see it here.
Are my eyes playing tricks on me, or has the sporran belt actually managed to "grind" a line into the brass?

[artificer]

When I saw this on your Facebook page, I was wondering if we'd see it here.
Are my eyes playing tricks on me, or has the sporran belt actually managed to "grind" a line into the brass?

Good eye!

Yes indeed it has. There is a wear pattern roughly the thickness of 104lb paper in the brass which would correspond exactly with the position of the sporran strap. Interestingly, it's deeper on the left side than it is on the right.

ith:

[M. A. C. Newsome]

Very nice sporran! I'm jealous!

Looking at the back of the bag, and the fact that the sporran cantle seems to be easily removed by means of the wires holding the bag to the cantle, I'd suggest that the bag was made to be reversible.

The two holes remind me of similar holes I have seen on the front of MOD and other sporrans where a badge would be affixed.

I think the bag may have been made so that you could wear it on way for tassels, and the other way to display a badge. Neat idea!

[Downunder Kilt]

Excellent critique of the sporran as you received it Scott. I have seen photos of the sporran before, but yours are far more illuminating. I will be following this thread with great intrest to see the final outcome.

Matt re your thoughts on the bag being reversable, I thought the same thing when I saw pics of the sporran 18 months ago.

[artificer]

Very nice sporran! I'm jealous!

Looking at the back of the bag, and the fact that the sporran cantle seems to be easily removed by means of the wires holding the bag to the cantle, I'd suggest that the bag was made to be reversible.

The two holes remind me of similar holes I have seen on the front of MOD and other sporrans where a badge would be affixed.

I think the bag may have been made so that you could wear it on way for tassels, and the other way to display a badge. Neat idea!

Excellent critique of the sporran as you received it Scott. I have seen photos of the sporran before, but yours are far more illuminating. I will be following this thread with great intrest to see the final outcome.

Matt re your thoughts on the bag being reversable, I thought the same thing when I saw pics of the sporran 18 months ago.

Unfortunately the hoops don't line up front and back. When I originally saw the back of the bag I also assumed that the bag had been/could be reversed.

ith:

[davidlpope]

Unfortunately the hoops don't line up front and back. When I originally saw the back of the bag I also assumed that the bag had been/could be reversed.

ith:

I suspect the holes in the rear of the bag were for a small drawstring connected to a small pouch on the inside of the back face of the sporran. My otter sporran is constructed this way with the same decorative stamping on the back.

David

[artificer]

I suspect the holes in the rear of the bag were for a small drawstring connected to a small pouch on the inside of the back face of the sporran. My otter sporran is constructed this way with the same decorative stamping on the back.

David

Very interesting, David. If you have a photo of yours I'd be quite interested in seeing it.

On this one the decorative stamping actually helps conceal a very thin line of stitches, which secures a small pocket (through which the holes are also punched).



You can just see the top edge of the pocket in the below shot:


The stitching is coming away and the top edge is curling inward on itself.

ith:

[artificer]

Decisions have been made! Below is a graphic representation of our steps along the way.



From the initial design approval we move into material selection. Since the bag will have tooling as well as pinking and brogueing the material needed to be a veg-tanned leather. After a few emails and a dash out to my local supplier for some pictures, the commissioner decided on the kidskin.

From there we advanced onto colour tests. The colour has been decided upon. The templates are being cut right now. A small sample of my test tooling can be seen in the fourth frame (although most of the detail is lost).

ith:

[Mickey]

This is gonna be a fun ride!