Field notes for reconstruction

Name: Sau-yi and Donna
Date and Time:

2016.11.30, 11:30 am

Location: Makerspace
Subject: Sewing

Following the instructions of the recipe, I cut out a piece of canvas that is about four or five fingers in width and sewed the two sides of it together to form a tube that can fit in my index finger. Then I sewed up one end of the tube and filled in short-grain Japanese rice. However, my sausage ended up looking like a long fabric bag. Donna sewed another piece of canvas surrounding a wooden rod and hers did look more like a tube.
The tightly woven linen canvas I used for the reconstruction held the grains of rice very well, even though I only sewed by simple, straight running stitches that did not overlap. Neither did I need to make back stitch to reinforce the seam. However, while the recipe specifies that one should use “buckram selvage”for sewing, I did not create a selvage for the edges of the canvas after cutting it out to prevent the fabric from unraveling. Therefore, the canvas edges appeared to be fraying as I sewed. After making the tube, I stitched a string of twine onto the sausage body as well as another piece of canvas that is the size of my palm (noted as “empan” in the French original) onto the open end of the sausage, which I then cut in the middle in accordance with the instructions of the recipe. However, since the canvas is the size of my palm and resembles a square shape, it does not correspond with the more slender piece of canvas shown in the image of the recipe, which is cut deeply in the middle and split into two longer strips so that they can be wrapped around a mortar.

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Name: Sau-yi
Date and Time:

2016.12.12, 12:12 pm

Location: Making and Knowing Lab
Subject: Cutting canvas strips and soaking them in vinegar-brandy mixture

Materials:
Canvas - eight strips (four ½ inch X 2 inches strips and four ½ inch X 3 inches strips)
Red wine vinegar - 100 ml
Brandy (Rodell Napolean) - 50 ml

Tools:
2 measuring beakers
1 glass jar
1 ceramic plate
1 wooden chopstick
1 pair of scissors
PPE: Lab coat, nitrile gloves, safety glasses

Further research on "eau de vie":
I read Marianne Nuij's annotation on eau de vie (from the University of Amsterdam, Spring 2015) and it's really helpful. It points out that author-practitioner distinguishes different kinds of eau de vie, such as "the best eau de vie" and ordinary eau de vie. She suggests that the better eau de vie refers to the one that has gone through several distillations and has higher alcohol content. In my case, the author-practitioner uses an ordinary eau de vie. I notice that Marianne used cognac, a kind of brandy with about 40% alcohol content, for her experiment. I didn't find cognac in our inventory. Instead, I found Rodell Napolean brandy in our inventory, which also has around 40% alcohol content according to its product description on the internet. Moreover, it's a brandy distilled from wine but not fruit brandy. That's why chose it for my reconstruction.

Safety protocol for my reconstruction can be found here.

Workflow:

- Put on PPE (Lab coat, nitrile gloves and safety glasses)
- Measure 100 ml of vinegar and 50 ml of brandy, using two different beakers
- Mix the vinegar and brandy together in a glass jar, using a wooden chopstick to stir if necessary
- Dip two of the 2-inch canvas strips and two of the 3-inch canvas strips into the vinegar-brandy mixture to moisten it
- Put the four soaked canvas strips onto a clean ceramic plate and leave them in the fume hood for drying; put on appropriate labels

Cleanup:
- throw the used gloves and chopsticks in the regular trash
- vinegar and brandy can go down the drain
- Wash the beakers and glass jar with soap and water

Observations:
The canvas strips are curled after soaking in the vinegar-brandy mixture.

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Name: Sau-yi and Donna
Date and Time:

2016.12.14, 12:30 pm

Location: Making and Knowing Lab
Subject: Smearing the canvas strips with turpentine

Material:
Turpentine (Georgia Pine, Diamond G Forest Products; CAS no.: 8006-64-2, appears to be the same as 9005-90-7) - 50 ml

Tools:
1 measuring beaker
1 ceramic plate
1 oil brush with wooden handle
PPE: Lab coat, face shield, fire-retardant gloves

Workflow:
- Put on PPE (lab coat, face shield, fire-retardant gloves and apron)
- Measure 50 ml of turpentine with a beaker
- Turpentine reacts with plastic. It is necessary to make sure that turpentine does not get in touch with plastic during the experiment
- Smear the four completely dried vinegar-brandy soaked canvas strips with turpentine by using a wooden-handled brush under the fume hood
- Leave the four canvas strips on a clean ceramic plate for drying under the fume hood; put on appropriate label

Observations:
The canvas strips look hard after soaking in the vinegar-brandy mixture and drying in the fume hood for two days. They still look curled after being coated with a thin layer of turpentine.

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Name: Sau-yi, Tianna, Naomi
Date and Time:

2016.12.16, 10:00 am

Location: Making and Knowing Lab
Subject: Burning experiments and tests of water resistance

Tools:
1 fire brick
1 glass jar
2 ceramic plates
1 stopwatch
1 pipette
Source of heat: long lighter
PPE: Lab coats, face shield, fire-retardant gloves and apron

Workflow:
- Put on PPE (lab coat, face shield, fire-retardant gloves and apron)
- Prepare a glass jar of water
- Take one of the completely dried 2-inch turpentine-smeared canvas strips. Put the strip on a fire brick and burn one end of the strip with a long lighter under the fume hood. Use the stopwatch to measure the time needed to burn the whole strip from one end to the other end
- If the burning is too fast to observe the burning process and measure the time of burning, take one of the completely dried 3-inch turpentine-smeared canvas strips. Put the strip on the fire brick and burn one end of the strip with the long lighter under the fume hood. Use the stopwatch to measure the time needed to burn the whole strip from one end to the other end
- Take one of the clean 2-inch canvas strips and put the strip on the fire brick. Burn one end of the strip with the long lighter under the fume hood, while using stopwatch to measure the time needed to burn the whole strip from one end to the other end
- If the burning is too fast to observe the burning process and measure the time of burning, take one of the clean 3-inch canvas strips. Put the strip on the fire brick and burn one end of the strip with the long lighter under the fume hood. Use the stopwatch to measure the time needed to burn the whole strip from one end to the other end
- Put one of the completely dried turpentine-smeared canvas strips on a ceramic plate under the fume hood. Put drops of water on it by using a pipette to test the level of water resistance
- Take one of the clean canvas strips that are not soaked in vinegar and brandy and not smeared with turpentine. Place it on a clean ceramic plate.
- Put drops of water on it by using a pipette to test the level of water resistance

Observations:

Burning
In the burning experiment, I ended up using three strips of plain canvas and three strips of vinegar-brandy-soaked and turpentine-smeared canvas (hereafter referred to as “VBT canvas”), all of which are ½ inch in width and 2 inches in length, to compare how the two kinds of canvas would perform after being lit by fire. Four days prior to the experiment, I soaked the three canvas strips in a mixture of 50 ml Rodell Napoleon brandy and 100 ml red wine vinegar that is of about 5% acetic acid. After leaving the canvas strips drying for two days, I coated the strips with turpentine, which is made from the distillation of resin from Georgia pine trees. Then I left the turpentine-smeared canvas strips to dry for another two days before conducting the burning tests.The results of the burning experiment and my observations are listed as follows:


Plain Canvas

	Trial 1	Trial 2	Trial 3	Trial 4
Location	SE fume hood	SW fume hood	SW fume hood	SW fume hood
Source of fire	Long match	Long match	Long lighter	Long lighter
Duration	30 seconds	1 minute 1 second	2 minutes 8 seconds	1 minute and 4 seconds
Remarks and observations	Fume hood too windy; extinguished itself in 30 seconds; only burnt a little bit	Almost burnt the whole strip; held the strip steadily and horizontally without putting it back into the fire	Burnt the whole strip, but had to put the strip back into the fire of the lighter for three times to keep it burning	Held the strip steadily and horizontally; did not put it in and out of the fire; Had to keep the strip in the fire of the lighter for the first 48 seconds to sustain the burning; burnt one-third of the strip

Vinegar-brandy-soaked and Turpentine-smeared Canvas (VBT Canvas)

	Trial 1	Trial 2	Trial 3	Trial 4
Location	SW fume hood	SW fume hood	SW fume hood	SW fume hood
Source of fire	Long match	Long match	Long lighter	Long match
Time/duration	30 seconds	46 seconds	1 minute 59 seconds	1 minute and 1 second
Remarks and observations	Extinguished itself in 30 seconds; only burnt a little bit	Extinguished itself in 46 seconds; only burnt a little bit	Had to keep putting the strip into the fire of the lighter for the first 1 minute and 10 seconds to sustain the burning; burnt the whole strip eventually	Held the strip steadily and horizontally; had to keep the strip in the match fire for the first 23 seconds; did not put it back into the fire again; only one-fourth of the strip left unburned

I had to go through four trials because it is much more difficult than one would expect to simply keep a small piece of canvas burning under the air flow of the fume hood. The windiness of the environment would make the canvas extinguish itself very quickly. One may need to put the canvas back into the source of fire for multiple times so as to sustain the burning process. It would also help if one holds the canvas strip steadily and horizontally instead of vertically.
I tried to reduce the variables of the experiment to a minimum in Trial 4, where I held the canvas strips horizontally and did not put the strips back into the source of fire again after lighting them. The VBT canvas performed better than the plain canvas in terms of sustaining the burning process. For the plain canvas, I had to keep the strip in the source of fire for the first 48 seconds to make sure that it burnt stably and properly. After being removed from the source of fire, however, the plain canvas strip only kept burning for 16 more seconds before extinguishing itself and leaving two-third of itself unburned. For the VBT canvas, I removed the strip from the source of fire after 23 seconds and the strip kept burning for 38 more seconds. Only one-fourth of the strip was left unburned at the end of the trial.

Water Resistance
Upon the suggestions of Tianna and Naomi, I changed my workflow and conducted two experiments to compare how the two types of canvas perform against water. The VBT canvas strips I used in the water resistance tests were treated with Rodell Napoleon Brandy, red wine vinegar and Georgia pine turpentine in the same way as those used in the burning tests. In the first experiment (the “drop test”), I put one drop of water on a plain canvas strip as well as on a VBT canvas strip. Then, I observed whether the surface of the two types of canvas absorb water differently. After that, I turned the two strips over and looked at the back of the canvas so as to examine the level of water penetration. In the second experiment (the “dip test”), I first weighed the two kinds of canvas strips, which are both around ½ inch in width and 1 inch in length. Then, I dipped the whole piece of both kinds of canvas into water at the same time and took them out after about 2 seconds. I weighed them again while they were wet to estimate how much water they had absorbed. After leaving them to dry for 15 minutes, I weighed them again. The results of the two experiments and my observations are listed as follows:

The “Drop Test”

	Plain Canvas	VBT Canvas
Canvas Surface	Absorbed water more slowly; the drop of water did not spread out after being absorbed	Absorbed water more quickly; the drop of water spread out after being absorbed
Canvas Back	Water penetrated into the back; dried more slowly	Water penetrated into the back and spread; dried more quickly

The “Dip Test”

	Plain Canvas	VBT Canvas
Weight before dipping	0.138g	0.130g
Weight right after dipping	0.271g	0.349g
Weight gained after dipping	0.133g	0.219g
Weight after drying for 15 minutes	0.193g	0.255g
Weight lost after drying	0.078g (58% of the weight gained after dipping)	0.094 (43% of the weight gained after dipping)
Weight gained compared to the original (after drying for 15 minutes)	0.055g (40% of the original)	0.125g (96% of the original)

Contrary to my expectation, the plain canvas performed considerably better than the VBT canvas in the “drop test” in terms of its ability to hold up against a small quantity of water penetration. The plain canvas absorbed the drop of water noticeably more slowly than the VBT canvas, and the absorbed water concentrated on a smaller spot on the surface of the plain canvas. In contrast, the VBT canvas absorbed the drop of water very quickly, and the absorbed water spread out on the canvas surface. However, the VBT canvas dried much more quickly than the plain canvas.
In the “dip test,” the VBT canvas absorbed more water than the plain canvas, which is shown by the fact that it gained more weight than the plain canvas after being dipped in the water. The VBT canvas appeared to have lost more weight than the plain canvas after drying for 15 minutes. However, when we calculate in terms of percentage, the VBT canvas only lost 43% of the weight it had gained after dipping, as compared to 58% for the plain canvas, which means that the VBT canvas actually did not dry faster than the plain canvas when it had to deal with a larger quantity of water.

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