These are a few ball or shot flasks I have made. These are all "hard sided," and don't need a separate spout to hold the mouth open:
The two on the left were cut to the same pattern, but made of different materials and stitched using a different technique. The one on the left is of 4 ounce vegetable tanned tooling leather. It was left unfinished, but has acquired some patina from use and UV exposure. This one was stitched using linen thread and a saddle stitch. The one in the middle is of heavy rawhide, using artificial sinew in a whipstitch. The one on the right was the first of these that I made. The rawhide came from a steer slaughtered by a neighbor many years ago. She gave me the hide the day the animal was killed, and I cured it by careful fleshing, washing with Octagon soap, stretching, and drying. This hide was also left outside on freezing cold nights. It got frozen and covered with frost while it was still green, before it dried. The freezing gave the hide a really nice creamy off white color. No salt or bleaching agents or chemicals of any kind were used in curing this hide, and it turned out the best of any I did. The stitching is done in a whipstitch, using cord made of beargrass (
Yucca filamentosa) fibers. Beargrass grows in the woods around here, and I collected some while out rambling. The stopper is whittled out of cherry wood from a tree that was dropped on my property. This flask is really kind of funny-looking, but I can honestly say it is all home made!
The second photo shows the stoppers removed. The one on the right has already been described. The one on the left has just a piece of 5/8" dowel for a stopper. This was meant to be temporary, but I haven't gotten around to making a proper one yet. The stopper for the middle flask is a .69 caliber musket tompion.
The next picture shows the flasks in the same order, left to right, with the mouths visible:
For any given pattern you use, the mouth diameter can be "adjusted" to some extent by the type of stitching you use and the thickness of the leather. If you use the same pattern for two flasks and stitch them the same way but cut them from different weights of leather, the heavier leather will give a flask with a smaller mouth opening. Saddle stitching will close it up more than whip stitching.
I make these flasks by stitching two pieces of hide together, then soaking the flask until it is thoroughly wet. I then pack it full of "sandbox sand," from the builder's supply. This has really coarse grains. I have heard of using lead shot or even rice for this purpose, but I haven't tried them. You fill the flask with sand, insert a dowel in the mouth and drive it in with a mallet. Pull out the dowel, put in more sand and pack it again with the dowel. Keep doing that until you are satisfied it will hold no more and is filled out the way you want it, then put it aside and let it dry completely. You can then knock out the sand, carve a stopper to fit, and you're good to go.
Balls or shot will rattle softly in these hard sided flasks, which may be a concern if you need to go quietly. However, the contents pour out more easily than with a soft-sided pouch, and you don't need to worry about fitting a separate neck of wood, bone, glass, or whatever. It's a trade off.
Best regards,
Notchy Bob