bburks

Thanks again, you have been very helpful.

Thanks again for answering my questions, There is one other thing that I was curious about if you dont mind. What I have read in books or seen on this forumn, braiders seem to prefer horse or cow for there rawhide. In your book you say that you use deer and goat for braiding. I thought that they would be to strechy. Do you prefer any certain type of rawhide for certain projects or do you just use whatever you have available at the time.

enrique, I recieved your book a few days ago and I cant put it down. Very well written and informative. Thank you very much. I have two questions about the fid work that you did in the book. First you used 48 strands 1 mm wide on a 64 mm handle, giving you 77% coverage. Have you found there to be an ideal percentage to aim for, or an ideal range that you like. Is 90% to tight and hard to work, is 60% to loose to get a good look. The second question is about length of your rawhide. For round braids it is 1 1/2 x length of finished project. What do you cut your lengths to, 3x or maybe 4x length of your handle. Again, thanks for such a great book, and any answers you have would be greatly appreciated.

I was just wondering if anyone would be willing to give me a price range for a full hide from confer. I'm just looking for an idea of price before I waste his time on the phone. Thanks in advance.

I have done a little braiding so I will try to help if I can. First if you are planning on doing flat braiding, you will only be able to braid as long as the hair is, you can't add to the braid. If you are planning on doing a round braid than you can make the braid as long as you want. With horse hair all round braids come out square, they are usually done as a 4 braid , 8 braid , or 12 braid. To braid, you will have to make what are called PULLS. To make a pull take a number of hairs and hold the thick end with your fingers, then take another set of hairs and put the thin ends next to them, keeping them seperated. Tie the end together having the long ends hang over one of your fingers. Then take the tied end and twist it. Keep twisting, keeping the two groups seperated. When you get to tghe end tie it off. Putting the pulls together thick end to thin will give you a more consistant pull. Different colored hair have different thicknesses. For black hair I like to use a total of 14 hairs per pull, 16 hairs for brown, and 18 hairs for white. Braiding is done just like with leather. 4 braid is under one over one, 8 braid is over 2 under 2, 12 braid is over 3 under 3. The best way to do it is to use two pulls as a core. start braiding. After going at least one inch take the third pulls down on each side and pull them down to where the core is, these will become the core, them take the core strings and pull them up to take there place. continue braiding at least one inch. when these new core strings get short, cut them off and add two new pulls as cor strings. After braiding for an inch you can use these to extend the braid. For 12 braid always use 3rd string from top, 8 braid always use 2nd string from top, I have never tried to extend a four braid, but it would probably be the top string. I'm sorry for the rough explanation. This is harder to explain without pictures than I thought. If you are really interested there is a book called braiding with horsehair written by diane gadway and richard schneider. It is only about 25 pages, but is very informative and is only 10 or 15 dollars. you can check the web, there are a few people that sell it. My descriptive abilites are not very good. If you are interested I could try to post some progress pictures. The pictures I have attached are all multiple 12 braids sewn together.