Subject: Re: baidarka Finishing wood on a kayak frame
From: Ranald Gault (gaultr@cadvision.com)
Date: Thu Mar 16 2000 - 03:57:49 EST
Samson family wrote:
>
> Does anyone know if the red stain used on the old Aleutian kayaks was oil or
> water based? Any formulae you'd like to share?
>
Jochelson,1925, wrote in Archeological Investigations in the
Aleutian Islands, p 59 that "Red ocher and white volcanic
tuff...served as paint materials...We were told that
felsite, when powdered and mixed with oil, furnished an
excellent lasting paint." The term 'felsite' here is simply
textural, and Jochelson is just refering to one of the
common iron minerals like hematite [Fe2O3],or goethite
[FeO(OH)], and the oil is no doubt an animal product. In
Zimmerly's book Qajaq, on page 20 between two passages where
he is citing from Margaret Lantis's Atka Field Notes, he
writes that the kayak frame was "painted with blood and a
powdered red mineral mixture." He (she) is referring here
to the Lowie Museum frame that Lantis collected at Atka in
1934, depicted in his figure 17 and praised elsewhere by
Zimmerly as the finest boat he has seen. On the Yup'ik side
of the Bering Sea, Dick Bunyan, documented by Zimmerly in
Hooper Bay Kayak Construction (1979), simply used a
"powdered red ocher-coloured rock" from Nelson Island that
was mixed with a little water and rubbed into the wood with
a cloth.
Very strong reds in natural hematite or synthesized iron
oxide are available at art supply shops. A small amount
mixed into linseed or another light oil or water should work
nicely.
- Ranald
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