The Adventures of Stinky Rawhide: Deerskin Soup, Part 1

[Minuteman]

Well, Jack, I had to move my tanning operation outside into my covered basement stairs. The wife got a whiff yesterday while I was stirring it and adding bark. It was really stinking bad. I think I let it get too weak. I added ten more gallons of bark and some salt and vinegar and it smells like it did at the beginning again.This is day 9.

[JackCrafty]

Destructo, we have 2 "supercenter" wal-marts in Midland but neither carries pickling lime or 20 mule team borax.  Even the supply of canning jars is limited.....they only had a few cartons and only two sizes the last time I went.  (They were out of the size I like to use for my home-made paints).  And there are no united supermarkets in the Midland-Odessa area.

[JackCrafty]

Minuteman, ten gallons of bark?  ...must be cheap.  Where are you getting that stuff?  I think I'd like to try some.

[Minuteman]

A buddy of mine does the tree work for a landscaping/nursery business. So I asked him to bring me a double wheelbarrow load of chips the next time he cut down a red oak and he brought me a whole 55 gallon drum full!
 I dried it out on the garage floor for a month and stored it in a plastic barrel in the garage. I don't think I'm gonna be running out any time soon.
 I bet you could find a local arborist and get him to bring you a bunch for a quick 20 dollar bill. You'd probably have more than you need  to do a bunch hides and it'll keep indefinitely once its dry.
  Any kinda oak is good. I think all bark has some tannin in it, even willow. But I chose red oak , its supposed to have a slightly higher tannin level than many other local trees.

[stickbender]

     As for a name to this thread, how about " The adventures, of Eau De Epidermis "  That would  make some real " Toilet water"...
                                                                                 Wayne

[JackCrafty]

Eau De Epidermis .....

[Minuteman]

" Howdy ma'am , name's Stinky , Stinky Rawhide."

[JackCrafty]

OK...after a couple days in the hydrated lime the hair slipped right off.  FINALLY!   I know it was the hydrated lime that did it (and not the fact that they were getting rotten, for example) because some areas that did not get exposed to the hydrated lime were not slipping at all.

After scraping the hair off of a couple skins, I rinsed them as best I could, covered them with water, and added some vinegar to neutralize the lime.  I didn't scrape off the membrane under the hair because I didn't have time.  I'll rack them tonight and see if I can't dry scrape the membrane off this weekend.

[cowboy]

Wow Pat, I just read through all of this. It's been enjoyable reading and very commical . I used crystal drano to make the hair slip, has some kind of acid in it (can't remember which). Anyway about a half can in a #5 wash tub. Let the hide soak for 5 to 7 days stirring occasionally and the hair practically falls off. If ya mix it too stout it'll burn the skin, I'll add a pic if I can find it.
 Reading about your hydrated lime success, I may try that next. Or maybe Mullet's muliple freezing method, or dry scraping. I was going for rawhide not buckskin - great, another goal .
 Well, I'll have to figure my pictures out later.

[Minuteman]

Hey folks the deer skin soup saga continues eh Patrick?
 I went ahead and strengthened my bark solution today. the de grained hide is almost struck through already, its been 15 days in the tanning liquor. I was told on another site that you cant get the solution too strong without substantial heating and evaporation. So next semi warm day I get I'm gonna drag out the 30 gallon maple syrup boiler( stainless steel) and simmer down some strong stuff to get these things goin'.
 I'm gonna concentrate the liquor when I'm done with it as well. No sense wasting all that tannin.

[JackCrafty]

...the de grained hide is almost struck through already...

What do you mean by struck through?  Saturation?  Are you looking at the color of the hide?

Yep, the saga continues......

I've got one of the hides racked and I used the ole orbital sander to clean off the hair and little bits of membrane and junk that was stuck to the hide.  The membrane that was under the hair is still there and looks a lot lighter than the rest of the hide....so I think it will be easy to tell when it's removed.  The question is how to remove it?

I think I'll try removing the membrane with my disc sander....I know it works but it leaves an obviously "modern" pattern of sander marks.  I don't have a proper dry scraping tool so I'll either try to make one or bite the bullet and buy one online....if I feel the urge to try an authentic tanning technique.

I also picked up 8 more hides last Thursday.  Three have been fleshed and are soaking in hydrated lime solution.  The others are soaking in bleach solution (to keep down the bacteria) until I have time to flesh them.

I tried making a bowstring (Friday) with a long strip (3/16" wide) of rawhide that I cut following a straight line down the middle of the back of the hide.  I used a pair of scissors and cut the hide when it was still wet.  I hung it up to dry, put some twist in it, and it seemed to be strong enough for a 35# bow....but then my dog ate it.

If the rawhide bowstring thing works well, it will save me a lot of time.

[DanaM]

They should turn this into a TV mini series

Jack if ya have any knapping rock knock off a spall and give it try for dehairing. Ooga Booga eh

[JackCrafty]

Dana....hmmmmm.....yeah I've got plenty of spalled stone but I'm not so sure I want to get that primitive.



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[cowboy]

this would make a pretty good miniseries . I think they're looking for the dog that ate the rawhide .

[JackCrafty]

 

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