Banner Stand?

[Matsuyama Yoshitoshi]

Many, many thanks. Actually, your "instructions" make perfect sense.

Now, to find me some nice lumber ...

[Deleted]

Made myself a new banner. Sorry for the file size, but...

This isn't all the bunnies from the Choju Giga, but it is most of them. Some of the vignettes have been altered and combined with others to remove frogs and foxes.

This is all hand-painted directly on silk. I used Jacquard's "Dye-na-flow" product as ink, and their "No Flow" product as sizing (to keep the ink from bleeding). As I said in another thread, the No Flow gave the fabric the stiffness and characteristics very similar to paper. I actually used a regular calligraphy brush (my second favorite) to apply the paint. I was a bit worried soaking the fabric to remove the sizing, but it came out mostly fine.

Interesting to note that most of the dye that didn't fuse was in larger fields of color. The fine lines all came out as sharp as they went in.

[Saionji Shonagon]

You have no idea how hard it was not to buy All the Choju Giga Thingz while I was in Japan. I love this. (And may have to do something about the monkeys....)

[Deleted]

Sashimono!

It's linen, except for the tabs, which are ribbon. The tabs are sewn into the hems along the edge, and are closed using snaps that crimp into place like grommets, which saved a bunch of sewing. Not very period, but the ones that the fighters wear on the backs of their armor have to be easily removable for washing.

I masked out the mon using a water-based resist, which worked pretty well except it then took almost two jars of red "Dye-na-flow" paint to color the field. I also had some problems with the dye not fixing properly and partially washing out during the rinse, so it's kind of pre-faded.

Anyway, some problems to fix next time, but another banner is another banner.

[Mega Zenjirou Yoshi]

Jul 10, 2015 11:49:18 GMT -5 @ishiyama said:

Sashimono!

It's linen, except for the tabs, which are ribbon. The tabs are sewn into the hems along the edge, and are closed using snaps that crimp into place like grommets, which saved a bunch of sewing. Not very period, but the ones that the fighters wear on the backs of their armor have to be easily removable for washing.

I masked out the mon using a water-based resist, which worked pretty well except it then took almost two jars of red "Dye-na-flow" paint to color the field. I also had some problems with the dye not fixing properly and partially washing out during the rinse, so it's kind of pre-faded.

Anyway, some problems to fix next time, but another banner is another banner.

Very nice, Ishiyama-dono!

I'm looking to do something similar, except I will be painting gold onto a red linen/cotton blend.

Any advice on how you made your pole? Looks like bamboo, which is what I'd been wanting to use, but lashing the cross piece is intimidating me for some reason.

[Deleted]

Jul 10, 2015 15:14:49 GMT -5 Mega Zenjirou Yoshi said:

Any advice on how you made your pole? Looks like bamboo, which is what I'd been wanting to use, but lashing the cross piece is intimidating me for some reason.

For this one, I drilled a hole in the horizontal piece that was big enough for the tip of the vertical piece to slide into. The "lashing" just secures the joint and keeps the bamboo from splitting apart. It's very difficult to get lashing tight enough to maintain a right angle on its own. I was a Boy Scout, so lashing doesn't scare me, I just know its limitations.

If you're planning to wear this into SCA battles, be aware that most armor inspectors consider the sashimono frame as a possible projectile (like an arrow) and require that parts that might find their way into faces have tips that won't fit between the bars of a face grille. This bamboo frame is is for display purposes only, and would not be allowed on the battlefield. I believe that the fighters in Yama Kaminari use solid plastic rods, with chunks of plastic cylinder for the joint and at the end of the horizontal arm. They tried using wooden spheres, but the wood breaks too easily.

[Deleted]

I only recently realized that not only have I not been keeping this forum up to date with my adventures in banner making, I haven't even been updating the page on my web site that I designed to hold information about my banners and flags. Consequently, I am far behind in writing up descriptions, but I have managed to get pictures up for almost all of them. There are now about 2 dozen, many of them being part of a long term project to make banners for all of the Baronial officers for my local Barony. Here's a collage:

[Deleted]

Now it can be told! Last year after Pennsic, the Baroness of the Debatable Lands asked me if I would make silk banners for them to gift to the other Baronies of Æthelmearc as favors for the "7 Pearls Dinner" at this year's Pennsic War. I said yes immediately, and then I said yes to making stands and providing poles to support the banners. This project was kind of a secret to preserve the suprise, but the dinner was last week, so:

The leftmost hata-jirushi banner is the populace badge of Æthelmearc, then we have banners for the Barony Marche of the Debatable Lands, Barony of Thescorre, Barony of the Rhydderich Hael, Barony of Delftwood, Barony of Blackstone Mountain, Barony of Endless Hills, and Barony of St. Swithins' Bog.
The banners are all modern fabric paints on silk broadcloth, with suspensory braids by myself and Her Ladyship Hara Kikumatsu. The folding hatadai and poles were crafted by myself, Baron Brandubh Donghaille of the Debatable Lands, and the other members of the Debatable Lands Woodworking Guild.

[Deleted]

Here's an attempt at making a "5 panel" jinmaku of the kind I've seen often in illustrations.

It's kind of difficult to see in the photo, but the little black tabs that alternate above and below the middle panel are actually ties that tack the ends of wind slits.

[solveig]

The topic appears to have drifted a bit from banner stands. The effort at jinmaku is not bad, but I believe that vertical stripes were more common for hanging curtains in general. They originated as courtyard dividers and the walls of akunoya. Regardless, I believe that the loops should be a tad wider and a tad longer. Check out shots of a surviving example from the Edo period. link

[Deleted]

Dec 2, 2019 1:29:51 GMT -5 solveig said:

The topic appears to have drifted a bit from banner stands. The effort at jinmaku is not bad, but I believe that vertical stripes were more common for hanging curtains in general. They originated as courtyard dividers and the walls of akunoya. Regardless, I believe that the loops should be a tad wider and a tad longer. Check out shots of a surviving example from the Edo period. link

There has been a bit of topic drift, but the profusion of topics wasn't helping anybody either.
Vertical stripes are definitely more common for manmaku, but even your example link shows a jinmaku with horizontal panels. Sometimes there is a horizontal panel (or two) along with vertical panels. Pretty much a style thing, in my opinion.
Likewise, there's a lot of variation in the hang tabs, including in the number of hang tabs. The jinmaku we make for Yama Kaminari's Pennsic camp use 1-inch wide webbing for the hang tabs because that saves us a ton of work. Given how many of those we make every year, small variations in size and number have a large impact on overall cost. I settled into making them with nine hang tabs each, because I can place those without measuring and get all of the tabs I need out of a single precut package of webbing. Among other sins for which Kaminari will inevitably have to atone are not using enough vertical poles (could be every four or five feet instead of every five yards) and not using the nifty iron hooks at the top of our poles, as seen in this byobu image: