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What to do with deer hide

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Hawkdancer:
If you use lye, ashes, or garden lime to help slip the hair, you will need to wash the hide with warm water and pure soap such as Ivory cake soap, not the liquid.   When I do this, I take the hides to a laundromat that has a front loading machine, also saved my worn out running shoes, and throw them in with the hides to help begin breaking down the hide for stretching, speeds up the stretching staking a bit, I believe.  Also I got the cleanest bag of worn out running shoes there is >:D!
Hawkdancer

bjrogg:
I bet you get some looks when you walk in the laundromat Hawkdancer. I have my mother in laws old washer in the shop for washing old dirty greasy coveralls and I also plan on using it for hides this year.
Bjrogg

---GUTSHOT--->:
I've used hard ash to slip the hair and want do that again what a mess! I built a frame and after I flesh the hide I lace it up in a stretching frame then after the hide dries out I built a scraping tool out of a really old garden Hoe. Then I dry Scrape it and use my shop vac to clean all the hair up. I know have 5 large white tail hides ready to make raw hide out of or brain tan. Good Luck with what ever process you choose.

Pappy:
I always just rack them up and dry scrape. :) Pretty easy once you get the technique down, it comes off in sheets if you are doing it right and mess is easy to clean up. Only down side is the weather has to be right to keep the hide tight, to damp or humid the hide will loosen up in the rack and you can't scrap it properly. :)
 Pappy

BowEd:
Yes like Pappy nowadays for quite some time now I do all the work in the frame.1/2 hour to an hour fleshing with the scraper for fleshing.Not really that messy or smelly.Let dry rock hard then dry scrape the hair and epidermis off.That can take a little longer depending on size of hide.2 to 3 hours maybe.At that point it's ready to be brain tanned or used as rawhide.
The nice thing about it you don't neccessarily have to get it done in one session except for the fleshing.Dehairing can be stopped then renewed anytime you please.After dehairing then it can be used anytime you please too.No refrigeration needed.
Most hides generally take 4 to 5 hours preparing them for brains.Total time on most brain tan hides before smoking is generally around 8 hours.
A build-a-long called big fella to buckskin is viewable on this primitive skills thread.Type it into the search slot.

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