Topic: Linen Smoother 1840 or 16th / 17th century - Gribdae Farm Kirkudbright

[flying free]

making blue dye for linen and woollens:

The Family Receipt Book - not sure what year but one I've linked right at the bottom is dated 1811

page 526 and 527

'Grind it with a pestle or iron ball, until it becomes soft as pap'

https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/The_Family_Receipt_book_Or_Universal_Rep/B28KAQAAMAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=grinding+potash+balls+wool&pg=PA527&printsec=frontcover

I can't imagine a small thin pestle would be used looking at the preceding information on the process.

Perhaps this handled 'linen smoother' was the type of pestle used?

1811 dated version
https://archive.org/details/b21526345/page/n3/mode/2up

[flying free]

Potash also used on potato fields and I read it was made into, or was sold, in balls.
Could these implements have been used for grinding potash? to be used for various reasons such as Wool lye making, potato growing?

Did they take 10 to Jamestowne expecting to have sheep and make their own wool, or grow their own potatoes?
m

Hmmm, no.  It was Fuller's earth that I think I read was sold in balls. 

And I think the pestle for the previous post must have been a metal if they recommended an iron ball alternative.

No evidence so far for handled glass pestles of these sizes being used for anything at all.  Weird.

m

[Ekimp]

Maybe a Marunnu Kallu.

https://waytoearth.com/product/natural-stone-marunnu-kallukalvambig-size-round-mortal-and-pestle-ural-okhli-masher-khal-dasta-ural-set-khalbatta-okhli-spice-grinder-perungaya-kal-herbs-spice-masher-khal-musal/

[flying free]

oooh thank you.  So - possibly -   something that might have been used by chemists/alchemists in days of yore for reducing large size quantities of edible somethings to saleable/useable quantities? (or mercury, mentioned in that link you gave, which is a scary thought).

They seem to only have been found in England and Scotland so far as I can see (iirc!)  plus those that were found in the well in Jamestowne.

Thanks so much.  Something else to investigate in down-time

[flying free]

This is a short article about sugar loaves.
https://susanaellisauthor.blog/tag/sugar-in-the-regency-period/

To get it in powder or granular form it was pounded with a mortar and pestle.  The sugar lumps (large from the sugar cone) were extremely hard.  I can't think that pounding it with a tiny thin pestle (as I commonly think of the shape of a pestle) even if it was brass, would have been sufficient or expedient.  I wonder if they were used for home use for grinding sugar 'lumps'?

Or something for grinding salt but I don't know whether salt needed grinding?

Or linked to tobacco in some way?

These are the things that spring to mind.

[Ekimp]

Maybe a Marunnu Kallu.

I had a search for this as there was a modern pottery pestle in a linen smoother shape with a small flat mortar in a charity shop. It was a studio pottery type thing. The ones made out of stone or pot would have more bite than smooth glass so maybe better for grinding than glass. Perhaps glass could be used more for crushing than grinding.

[flying free]

going back to the info about it being found on Gribdae farm and that his dad used it to grind saltpetre and sugar, recent book called Chemistry of Fireworks by Michael S Russell (copyrighted) mention that in the Middle Ages the emerging gunpowder industry used mortars and pestles to 'do the mixing'.  Obviously not suggesting my pestle is Middle Ages, but the mention is interesting.

[flying free]

Different information here on the use of potassium nitrate in glassmaking including that it was stored along the banks of the Thames:
From source: David Watts, History of Glassmaking in London
http://www.glassmaking-in-london.co.uk/limeandlead#:~:text=But%20there%20is%20no%20question,English%20glassmakers%20from%20Mansell's%20day.

Still curious as to why these were found at Jamestown in such quantities.