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Pair of bobcats[may be graphic for some]

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BowEd:
If something comes up for an hour or so and you can't baby sit the hide stretching it you can roll it up and put it in a plastic bag twisted tightly shut to prevent it from drying too much with out stretching.

ksnow:
So you are just stretching at out and letting it air dry? Not breaking it over a cable like braintanning a deer hide? Interesting.

Allyn T:
Did you oil the hair side too?

BowEd:
knsow.....Yes mostly.I did rope it a little bit for some abrasion and stretching,but mostly stretched it different directions as it dried.Drying and softening an aluminum suplhate tanned hide is a lot easier than roping a brain tanned deer hide.A hide tanned with this stuff does not have the spring back action as brain tanned leather nor the puffed up feature of roped brain tanned hides does roped but gets nice and supple yet.It's like a flannel shirt.Good enough for me.
Pictures of how the tan looks.Egg sell white.Very soft like a flannel shirt.The tan lasts for decades.Will soften if it gets wet with a little stretching.


Allyn T....No I do not oil the fur side.My girl friend Robin had some spray foam stuff to shampoo her dogs with occasionally.I tried a little on the fur side of the bobcat.It worked very well and it's shiny clean now.Better than the dawn dish washing soap clean up.
Well that's 1 down and 1 to go.I sewed it's mouth shut and ear holes shut.I will put a rawhide or veg tanned leather cup 4" deep into it's head and face.I have thoughts of making another side cat quiver out of this one and it's a real cat this time....Ha Ha.I will do that later after I finish the next cat.It took 4 to 5 hours off and on to finish this one drying and softening.It's a native scruffy Iowa bobcat.



My idea for another cat quiver I did before on a fisher colored coon and a beef rawhide quiver.It involves using a dogwood stiffener with a portal to get the arrows from.I split the dogwood and let it dry a couple days to set to make the portal.Drill 1/16th inch holes along each side of the portal to sew it to the leather opening.The leather opening on the hide I reinforced with a strip of deer brain tan for better durability.




Might need to style it after this quiver but without the beadwork as the back end or opening the arrows go into of this bobcat is rather large.I don't want to cut up this bobcat into a tube for a cat quiver.


BowEd:
Got the other cat cleaned,refleshed,and oiled.It's a bit bigger kitty.Got the fan on drying the hair.
This one will go to it's owner to do with what he wants.

Now that the hair is dry it's back to the same process of drying as the previous hide.There is a little residual neats foot oil showing on it yet but I'm going to leave it on to soak in.


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