ANST - Interesting site... and poignant, too

[Joel Schumacher]

> > Personally, I don't think I could afford the investment in
> > time & money to go totally authentic.
>
> The Rialto (to wit, the rec.org.sca Usenet newsgroup) has had a
> discussion for some time about doing authenticity on a budget and
> without a lot of time.

All of these things are inexpensive, I'm sure.  But I doubt they are
not time consuming.  Most crafts have a startup cost in both time and
money until you know what you're doing.  Then, finally, it becomes
cheap and relatively fast to crank out product.

On the money side, it might be buying tools (sure *maybe* I can borrow,
but if I intend to repeat this, I feel better off buying).  Maybe I can
find them at a garage sale cheap (time to find this garage sale).

There's also materials.  Most hobbyists say things like "take a spare
piece of leather, an old piece of canvas, or an old crate".  I'm a
programmer, I live in the city.  I don't just have this stuff laying
around the house.  So I've got to buy it (time to find, money to buy).

Now I have to learn the craft.  IF I'm fortunate enough to have a teacher
nearby, this won't take long.  Otherwise, I might have to purchase a book
(time to find, money to buy).  Maybe I just experiment (time, mistakes,
use of materials, money for more materials).

Real life example.  My girlfriend wanted to learn to use a loom for
weaving belts, trim, etc.  She borrowed a loom, was taught how to use
it, then spent hours and hours on a project she wound up scrapping
because it wasn't turning out right (un-sturdy loom).  So, she bought a
new loom for about $65.  She gets period-type yarn for about 3.75 for
each bundle.  She buys it at a specialty shop that it takes her about an
hour (round-trip) to visit.  She winds each bundle of yarn into balls
which takes about half an hour each.  Now comes making the belt.  She
probably takes 30 minutes to an hour to set up the loom.  Finally, she
weaves the belt, trim, whatever, taking about a night's worth of work.
She does good work and now she has hand-woven, nice looking, authentic
belts.

Now that she knows what she's doing.  Now that she's got the equipment,
she's just going to get faster and faster and each one won't cost a lot,
But if all she needed was one, that was a pretty costly time/money
investment.

-Karl von Augsburg
__________________________________________________________________________
Joel Schumacher                        JCPenney Co. - UNIX Network Systems
jschumac at uns-dv1.jcpenney.com          12700 Park Central Pl
(972) 591-7543                         Dallas TX  75251
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