A Leather Waterskin Project

This basic design of leather waterbottle seems to be popular nowadays, although the more I look the more I begin to wonder if it has any great historical basis. Leather water or liquid containers certainly seem to have existed throughout antiquity, but leather, and perhaps especially boiled hardened hollow leather bladders aren't particularly hardy, and their remains not trivially identifiable like shoes.

Nevertheless I decided to make one and try it out. Using a peice of cow horn as a spout and two medium weight peices of cowhide saddle stitched together made the body, which was then slowly filled with sand through the spout. I chose sand for it was convenient and the length and narrowness of the spout made larger particles seem like a poor option. After filling it up (and dampening it and filling it some more) I briefly placed the bottle in boiling water, and then allowed it a few days to try out.

When boiled the leather somewhat expands, which I expect helps seal the stitching and also tighten the grip of the leather about the spout. It might have been a good idea to look at clamping the perimiter of the seam so as to prevent it from spreading, but this didn't turn out to be a terrible problem.

After a few days to dry it was easy to pour out nearly all of the sand, and so I prepared to seal it.

There seem to be a couple reasonable sealants but I opted to use beeswax because I had it in good supply. It was neccisary to heat the bottle and the wax both, for the wax cooled too quickly with the bottle at room temperature. I just turned my oven on briefly to keep it warm as I poured in more wax and spread it around. It took quite a bit of wax but in the end there was a small surplus inside which I poured out to use somewhere else.

After letting it start to cool, the seal could be tested by gently breathing into the spout and finding where bubbles began to occur. Unfortunately there were several places but careful reapplication of wax was able to solve the problem, and soon no new bubbles began.

Comments on use

The bottle is entierly useable. It remains full and doesn't even leak on fairly hot or warm days, though I've avoided leaving it out in direct Sunlight. When filled with cool water it remains so for a good long time.

It should be said it has a bit of a distinctive taste, this seems to mostly be an effect of the wax, though I am sure the leather plays its part. The water does run clear and fine good to drink. The way I made the spout forces the water through a channel both long and narrow, making it slow to fill, but I think nice to drink from.

When left for more than a few days with water inside the leather began to soften slightly and cave slightly inwards, casuing a bit of a weird shape and small loss of volume capacity. It also seems to have freed a certain small amount of sand that had been evidently trapped in the walls, and now comes out in the last few sips from each filling of the bottle. I suppose in latter efforts I can try better to blow out the seams, or use something other than sand. It occurs to me also that many of these are skin side out, but perhaps would be done better opposite, the skin side gripping less sand inside from filling, and giving less surface area for the stored water to interact with, and the suede side holding more moisure outside for cooling.

A perfectly functional bottle, overall.

The finished bottle, as it is now after a few months of light use.

Closeup of the stitches on the bottle after boiling. I used two rows in the assumption that one wouldn't so easily seal the edge.

Closeup of the horn spout and handle area. The handle stitching caused some leaks near the spout and should have been done on the same peice of leather as the body.

The full bottle before waxing.

The hot wax quickly darkened the leather when poured in.