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Otter rawhide quivers

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mullet:
I've made several like the ones you posted. An otter has to be one of the greasiest, nasty fish smelling critters around. You have to degrease them or they will start to go rancid when they dry. I know someone will give you all of the EPA, Surgeon General's and DEP reports but, I soak them in premium gasoline for a little while, take them out and then wash it in Dawn dish detergent, (wear Nitrile gloves, and if you are realy afraid, Tivex suit and Full face respirator ::)) After that I stuff them with dry newspaper and let them air dry. But they will always smell like fish, especially on a rainey day.

sonny:
didn't read through your whole post(s) but assume that somewhere you ask about getting rid of the fishy smell,,based on what Eddie wrote.
A buddy of mine gave me a nice otter hide several years ago, which I made a plains style quiver from.
It was stiff rawhide when he gave it to me so I bought some lye soap and took it down to a creek where I hunt, washed
that hide for quite some time rinsing it well in the creek. No more fish smell after that!
I let it dry thoroughly then "broke" it, twisting the hide in every conceivable direction in order to soften it to the
correct suppleness for use as a quiver. Then applied Neatsfoot oil,,actually applied way too much oil as it never seemed to
want to dry, the hide staying quite heavy with that much oil in it. So I had to rinse the hide again to wash out some of the oil,
then when nearly dry I softened the hide just slightly more and reapplied oil.
It seems that the leather gets dry in between hunting seasons so I just reapply some oil inside the quiver whenever necessary.

hope this helps!
     

aaron:
thanks sonny and mullet for the degreasing advice. I think some lye ore lye soap would have been good. I make lye with ashes for bucking braintan, but I just wonder what effect it will have on the fur- will it cause the fur to slip ?
Anyway, the project has taken a 90 degree turn in the last day. The thing is, this is the biggest otter by far i have ever seen- too big for a back quiver. you can see in the photo above that the body alone is longer than an arrow. Also in the photo is my other quiver, made from a small otter.The smaller qiiver works great- holding the fletching over my shoulder in easy reach, but  If I were to convert the new otter into a quiver like the other one, the thing would be down to my butt and the arrows too deep in there to get a hold of. So, I think the thing to do is to spend the time to braintan the thing so i can either use it as a side quiver or just a general purpose bag.
Which is why i need more than ever advice on how to proceed.First I need to degrease and rescrape, but  should i take pains to keep the lye off the fur side or just dunk the whole thing?
Also, i probably need to create a new beam better suited to scraping a case-skinned critter.

sonny:
My otter quiver is quite long as well, long enough that I can fit the entire arrow in it fletching and all.
For that matter I had to fold over a bit of the body onto itself such that it wouldn't be too long entirely.
I simply folded over the length that I felt was appropriate and whip-stitched it together along the opening
into which my arrows go.  pics would likely help to better show what I'm talking about but I don't have any
right now.
I also used some green pigment along that part of the skin, where it's folded over, as well as on the skin
side of the tail. It came out really nice.
My quiver is really quite simple in that there's no adornment but it was made for using not for showing off.
The deer that I'm hunting don't know the difference  ;)     

sonny:
.....will go on to say that my quiver hangs by my side like a plains style quiver.
I made the strap for it from an old wool blanket that I grabbed from my grandmother's
house after she passed away. Just feels right to use such things, at least to my way of thinking.

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