Went a little nuts

[Mogorilla]

Coconuts that is.    The musket is a little early for our timeframe, but recently obtained it in pieces, including a broken stock.  I got things back together.   I had long had the coconut flask planned.  It came from a conversation with my oldest sister and we remembered her taking me to see Swiss Family Robinson (paired with the 101 Dalmatians) circa 1971.   I was only five and the movie stuck with me, especially the coconut bombs.  Well, the conversation got me looking at the internet, always scary, and I found a coconut powder flask.  I had to have one.  So off to the store.   This one has a 40 grain spout, capped with mesquite and pinned with bamboo (skewers).   So, more ahoy than trappers, but maybe a flask like this could have made it north from Mexico way.

[Mogorilla]

The original I found on line

[Coffinmaker]

MOGO!!

That is just entirely TOO KOOL FER SKULE!!!  Wowzers!!  Yepper and all that stuff.  OUTSTANDING!!

[Mogorilla]

Thanks!   Best part was how cheap it was.   I have more in the brass than the rest of it.    Coconut was cheap.  I had the hole saws for my drill, inherited from Dad.   The bamboo skewers were around the house and the wood, while mesquite, was left over from another project.   I did set the two pieces that form the loops with epoxy, and used a Chicago screw on them.  I sealed the inside with tung oil, same as out.   Best part (since I like it) was I still got to eat the coconut.   

[dusty texian]

I like it Mogorilla , it's a one of a kind probably like most personal belongings  were way back then . Remember watching that same show as a kid , it gave me plenty of ideas to go out and try . See Ya on the prairie Amigo  ,,,,,DT

[Blair]

A Friend of mine showed me a gourd he had bought at a yard sale. It had a stopper in the neck of the mouth.  (He thought it might have been an old water bottle/canteen)
Had some kind of leather material covering it, that was rotting and falling off. He cleaned that off and found 1824 scratched in the surface of the gourd. No other markings were found.
It still had something in it that we were able to get broken up enough to get a sample. It was black powder! A powder flask made from a rather common gourd. (perhaps a bit more common for most of North America than a coconut?)
I never got a chance to see any of the covering that he had remover. I suspect it was leather, perhaps even raw hide. This would have added strength to the body of the gourd and allowed a way of attaching carrying straps.
Just offering another idea to this subject.
My best,
Blair  

[Baltimore Ed]

Knowing that I like old gun stuff an older friend of the family gave me two gourds that were supposedly for gunpowder. Ones neck is broken but the other is intact. Neither has any marks as I remember. I don't know where she got them.

[Mogorilla]

Now you gave me more ideas and I have about 5 or 6 gourds in the basement.  I made a couple of water bottles a few years ago, then made a couple of bird houses and feeders for presents.  Was at the greenhouse fall of 16 and they had a big table of gourds for a couple of bucks each.  Wife rolled her eyes mightly, but I walked out with 6 and dried them in the basement.  Yup, plan is already formulatin.

[Coffinmaker]

Oh Yeah,

Were I a more accomplished craftsman ..... after drying and sealing the gourd to carry powder, I would be very tempted to use deer skin as used for pants and such, cut to fit the gourd and completed with a Baseball stitch.  But, I would have to ask a seamstress or Taylor to do that part.  Once we get past fix a button, I'm useless with needles and threads   

I think a soft deerskin outer covering would be just ..... Beez Kneez

[LongWalker]

Once, years ago--at the Western Nat'l rendezvous in '84--I decided to sew a rawhide cover on a gourd.  How hard could it be?  I've sewn covers on powder horns and bottles, and sewn rawhide repairs on probably half the MLs I've owned over the years. . . . 

There's two approaches to getting a well-fitted cover.  You can wrap the item to be covered and try to snip a bit off each edge, so your seam is mostly straight, or you can keep one edge straight and do all your trimming off the other edge: this results in a classier-looking spiral seam.  Not that I'm saying anything bad about folks who try to have all their seams in a straight line--I'm sure some of 'em are nice folks--they're just lacking in aesthetic judgement. 

So anyhoos, there I was.  Got a nice gourd, got a good hank of sinew (elk backstrap, if I remember right), got a nice chunk of well-scraped mule deer rawhide, scraped as fine and thin as parchment.  I commenced to cuttin' and fittin' and occassionally stabbing my fingers with the awl.  Took the better part of a day to get it to work out right, and the seam line went entirely around the gourd three or four times.  But it was a nice job of fitting, no gaps between the edges, no saggy-diaper-lookin' spots.  I was right proud of myself.  I set the gourd out overnight to take in the morning dew and slow the shrinkage of the rawhide.

Got up the next morning, checked the gourd--looked good!--and set it in the shade with a piece of canvas to cover it and slow evaporation.  Long about late afternoon (after the afternoon rain shower) I went to check on my gourd. 

Rawhide shrinks.  Gourds don't have a great deal of structural integrity.  I wound up shaking flakes of gourd out of the weirdest-shaped rawhide box anyone had ever seen.  They did all comment on the nice sewing work, and said the spiral seam was classy. 

I later sold the box to some greenhorn, who was puzzling how anyone could shape rawhide like that.  I've never had the inclination to another.

[Coffinmaker]

You have no idea just how glad I am I had set my afternoon cup of Coffee down BEFORE I read your last three lines.  Trust me, I wasn't laughing at you (sometimes I embellish the truth) I was laughing at the circumstances.  I have done something quite similar.  Unfortunately, several times   

[Tsalagidave]

I keep getting visuals of Ollie blowing up Siamese Pirates with coconut bombs.

-Dave