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Big fella into buckskin/Smoking/Lots of pics./Items made

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BowEd:
Thanks fellas appreciate the encouragement.It was very pleasant here today so I took the hide out of the frig that was inside a plastic bag out to rope a while.I used to use a hay mow hemp rope 1.25" thick.Wore that through a few times so I now just use a nylon tow rope maybe an inch thick.Used lariats before too that worked fine.Anyway on this big hide I would rope & stretch 15 to 20 minutes.Put it back in the bag 15 to 20 minutes etc. through out the day.If it was out of the bag I was roping and stretching it.It is nearly dry I would say but will leave it overnight in the bag in the frig and rope on it some tomorrow morning a while to finish it up.It's  coming along nicely overall.On these yearling hides I used to just rope it clean through in one session but am over 60 now so will take it a little easy with this beasty.
The idea in roping is to get the center portion of the hide/the neck/and the hip areas which are thickest stretched to the max.Grabbing larger handfuls of hide from the edges to stretch a shorter portion of hide in the center accomplishes this for me.The thinner edges are'nt much to stretch.
Next will be smoking it.I like to sew the hide with my singer the edges lengthwise to a tube from neck to hind legs.Sew a skirt onto the bottom or the rear of the hide.Set up a tripod and suspend it over a cut off 30 gallon barrel where my smudge fire will be inside.I use hickory bark for this.It'll force the smoke right through the leather which is what I want.I will take pics of that too.For now here's pics of the roping.
A person really has to rip into it.

Pappy:
Looking good. :)
Pappy
 

BowEd:
Thanks Pappy.I'll have to wait a while for the temp to get up there later in the day to rope it completely dry.Kinda cool here this morning.I don't think that'll dry it much yet.Hopefully show the final outcome of it this evening.The hardest part to me is done anyway.
Back in the 80's there were no seminars or work shops to show a person how to do this brain tanning except from a book so a person had to rely on their persistence to get it done.A number of disappointing attempts in the beginning.
Makes a person appreciate the effort Indians went through to get it done,but I'm sure they knew better from repitition the more efficient ways to get success.

bjrogg:
Yes one can see why they looked to their elders. No you tube, e-net, or even books. If they didn't pass it down it was lost until some one else rediscovered it. Thanks for posting and being our elder. I'm pretty sure they would have made use of even their failed attempts.

BowEd:
Yes just because the leather does'nt turn out soft as flannel does'nt mean it's useless.

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