Rune Study Group: Making your own set

Aoife

My partner wants to explore the runes. He wants to make a set from a branch from our pear tree - would you recommend this material for a mature male newbie?

Does anyone know of a site which displays the symbols together with their names - ideally as clear as possible because mature male newbie's eyesight isn't what it used to be! I've tried earthdancing.com but couldn't find anything nor a search mechanism.

Many thanks
 

ihcoyc

Those who would make wood Runes need to either season the wood themselves --- i.e. let it dry out slowly, so that parts warped or cracking can be excluded --- or buy it storeboughten and new. What you want to avoid here is having your runes chip or crack because of flaws in the wet wood. It is not enough to go cut down a branch and then carve them fresh if you want to keep the set for a long time. Your best bet is to cut your bough and keep it outside but dry for at least six months, a year or even two is better; or to find some wood that has been exposed to the air but dry like that and remains sound.

I used a long, straight sassafras sapling trunk that I had cut down a few years ago. I cut it up into quarter inch, poker chip slices using a circular saw. I sanded the surfaces but used no finish. Then I burnt each rune into the surface with a soldering iron.
 

Aoife

Many thanks, Ihcoyc.
He's got some branches from last season's pruning he's thinking of using. He's also a lapidarist/jeweller and has a large quantity of semi precious stones he might use. He's quite a jack of all trades! He said he'd ideally like to use silver but I've read somewhere this would not be a good idea.

Sorry about the second part of my question - further reading led to sunnyway.com - brilliant link [many thanks, Umbrae].
 

Aoife

Ihcoyc, Umbrae and Joywalker,
Thank you so much for your help. I arrived home from work today to find my partner had taken the day away from business and was in the workshop, intent on making a set of runes. It's been a long time since I've seen him so engrossed and happy! He told me he'd experimented with wood but "it didn't feel right, it didn't have the weight I wanted". He'd moved on to slices of rosetta lace agate [earth colours in a crazy lace pattern] and had just finished cutting them into small tiles, each one with its own unique patterning, each a fractionally different size. He told me that he had cut more than he needed so that when he studied the symbols and concepts he would be able to find the stone/tile which "felt right" for each. He then got technical about finishes to cut down the risk of chipping and my need for a caffeine fix took priority.
I think he's just taken the first step on the road.....
 

Hummingbird

I've made sets out of clay and clay-like materials like Sculpey, as well as out of flower vase "marble stones," whatever you want to call them. They were iridescent, with a flat side to each, on which I painted the Rune. The Sculpey runes are much more versatile, you simply carve the rune into a piece of clay of your desired shape and dimension, then bake. And then paint! I made some beautiful copper-painted runes.
 

ShorTerM

Interesting Idea I just thought of...

Well I was thinking about making some runes, and got to thinking I would like to make them out of Cherry Wood, and would use cherries to dye them as well, but thats not my idea :D

What I was thinking at the time was of wrapping a wire or something around the circumference of the runes in order to sort of press the rune more tightly...

Then I got to thinking if you tie a wire around a living tree it will grow around the wire... So I wonder if it would be possible to wrap some wire around a live tree and perhaps after a year or two (if you wrapped it tight enough around the branch) the trees growth will have imprinted the runes into the wood...

Of course this would only create the runes on the sides of the runes to be, so you would then have to cut the runes to shape and you would likely be unable to sand down the sides, but hopefully peeling off the bark would be good enough...

Anywho, if I ever get adventurous enough I may do some more research into this :D:D:D
 

scheherazade

I've made my own set of runes as well... they're made of pretty blue glass nuggets, but I have limited resources and I made the symbols with... gulp... nail polish. LOL. I don't know how to engrave or cut glass... does anyone else have any ideas of how to put the symbols legibly on glass runes?
 

Rivvov

Instead of carving the symbols into wooden disks, I am trying to use a wood burning tool. The marks are darker, and I'm so much less likely to hurt myself. :)
Also, as far as oils go, almond is very, very good. I used it when making my wand/staff.
 
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