A LIVING HISTORY BLOG.

18TH CENTURY LIVING HISTORY IN AUSTRALIA.

Thursday 22 March 2012

My Tin Cup Project.

You will recall that I posted some information on the 18th century tin cup, and that the remains of original tin cups had been found. The handles had been soldered on, yet the cups were found without their handles. It was thought reasonable that the owners had probably put the cups on the fire to boil water or cook food, and the solder had melted and the handles had fallen off. A wire bale handle was found with these cups, so the owner had obviously made a new wire handle for his cup.
Based on this information I set about making a tin cup out of a modern food can. Modern tin cups do not have soldered handles, they are crimped into the top and bottom edges of the cup. I did the first circle and twist fine, but when I came to complete the bail handle on the bottom of the cup, the wire broke! Rather than scrap it and start again, I decided that it could have happend to anyone and cut my losses and finished with what I had. No matter what I did I was going to finish up with two ends of the wire having sharp edges, so I bound the bail handle with leather. If I ever use it on the fire, the leather will burn, but I can do that if I have to. Actually if I only place it on a rock on the edge of the fire it will still work and the leather will not burn.

2 comments:

Gorges Smythe said...

Makes it look sorta rustic!

Keith said...

Yes Gorges, well I guess it is. Among other meanings rustic also means rude workmanship, & this is definately rude workmanship! As would have been the original. I weighed the two cups today, my 18th century silver cup & this tin one, the tin one is of course lighter despit being the larger of the two. Now it remains to be seen if it will fit in my small knapsack.
Keith.