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More hidework
BowEd:
Thanks Paul.I'm sure you guys had a great time.I'll be there next year.Probably with a few items to sell or trade.I miss the fish fry Jon puts on too.Delicious!!!!!He's quite a guy.Makes tons of bows into any style too.
I laid out my full length pants pattern out onto these 2 buck hides.Looks like it'll work out.Need to smoke the recent hide yet.
To get full length pants pipes the larger bucks do this.Even on leggins.It's extended body length and the wider extended necks on these that get them their.
Good winter time project.
Does' hides most times will make very nice long type shirts.Here's one of a few I made.
They can make pants or legginns also with a splice below the knee.
I should just sell this pants as I won't need it anymore.
I have many books here with information and pictures on the old and new styles of clothing the plains indian wore.
Simple but effective is usually the main theme.Some can be quite elaborate.
Here's a long type coat I made many years ago using 7 doe hides with a little beadwork on it.
I've replaced the ties with buttons since this picture.
BowEd:
Got the buck hide smoked.A little character shows on his neck from punctures of other bucks antlers fighting during the rut as I stated in reply 48 he was a fighter.
These 2 buck hides I'll use for my full length pants.The puncture scars will show on the lower part of the pants pipe.Got them matched up color wise pretty well.
The neck thickness on this buck is around 3/16" which will be on the bottom cuff end of the pants.Plenty thick.The rest of the hide is 1/8" thick.
The elk hides' thickness averages around 1/4" which is actually too heavy for garment leather IMO.
bjrogg:
Looking really good Ed.
Bjrogg
BowEd:
It's been beautiful,pleasant weather lately.Cool dewey mornings turning into warm pleasant days.I'm smoking 1 hide a day now.Finished one of the does today.She had a nice scar on the back side of here neck.Not from a hunter I don't think but you never know.
I enjoy sewing the hides to be smoked outside by the woods listening to all the bird chatter out there.We have tons of song birds around us here.Occasionally seeing deer,turkey,or quail too.The cooler it gets towards fall the more the activity will pick up with animals getting ready for the winter.
For the least amount of waste sewing by hand is the best.1/4" stitches Right to the edge with a whip stitch that are snug for a good tight seal.Thicker brain tan I sew the edges together.
Holes that are not sewn or plugged [sometimes holes close to the edge are not worth the time sealing] can be sealed with a wad of tissue paper.The smoke will go right to the edge of the hole nicely.Any smoke escaping will leave a very dark spot.Even paper thin leather from a knife slit skinning will be darker also.
A person wants to stay away from creating too much draft with this type of smoking as the smoking material can ignite eventually and your hide will get burned up in the process.Unplugged holes will create this.Very disappointing.I baby sit the process throughout.I keep a squirt bottle of water nearby in case of any flare ups.
You want to create a nice balance of just enough draft air to keep the coals hot but not too hot.Sealing the hide tube well helps slow the draft down considerably.
A small 2" high 8" circle of coals is all you will need to smoke a hide.Using too large amount of a coal pile will create too much heat and dark streaks onto the hide plus too much heat and leather does not mix well.I use osage for coals and hickory bark for smoking material.
While smoking you should be able to stick your hand inside the smoking chamber and leave it for at least 20 seconds or as long as you like.
It leaves a very pleasant smell to the hides smelling like hickory smoke.Robin loves it in the house.
Some think smoking a hide from over a stove and stove pipe could be the solution to avoiding burning up a hide.It can if the hide is quite a distance away from the stove over the stove pipe.Heat directly above a wood stove will easily get over 5 to 600 degrees.It is one way to stay away from breathing any of the smoke though and will work well if baby sat also.
My set up only takes a few minutes to set up and can be put away for later.
The buffer skirt that I sew onto the bottom of the tube I will sew on with my machine.I don't mind losing a 1/8" or 1/4" of rump leather as it's very thin and only useful far as I'm concerned for fringe or lace.
BowEd:
There are many ways to smoke a hide or in this case a deer hide.I've tried them all it seems.
Hanging in a tipi or shed or sewn into a tube.Hung from a tri-pod from their neck or from there back end.Even over a hole in the ground from a tri- pod.
That reminds me I once steam heat shrunk a circular section of raw hide buffalo hide shoulder over a hole using heated rocks in the hole with water thrown over the rocks.The hot steam increased the thickness of the rawhide by 2 to 300 percent.I was making a shield.
For the past 40 years I've used an 18" section of a 30 gallon steel barrel and a tri-pod for smoking deer hides.A 30 gallon barrel is about the same circumference as the circumference of the back end of a normal deer when sewn into a tube.
The skirt sewn along the bottom edge of the deer hide is a buffer from heat to the leather laying against the steel barrel.I overlap the 2 ends of the skirt by around 4" to create a storm flap type of closure while smoking.
Last but not least while smoking I try to keep the hide free from folds or inaccessible places the smoke won't be able to get to.I've gone to using fish hooks and string tied off on one of the legs of the tri-pod to keep the hide completely open into a nice tube.Even the odd shaped deer hides.It'll give the hide a nicer evenly smoked look.
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