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New to the site, I am very interested in making a reata. I watched a video on YouTube just for fun, and the guy cuts the rawhide wet and hangs it on the fence then scrapes it then throws it in a tank and fleshes then sizes it down into strings. What I would like to know is all the tools I will need to start this project.

Hello, Im Mac recently ive been renewing my interest in attempting to make some plaited rawhide objects, got some cow rawhide made up and have been wrking on dehairing it. so while im casing a smallish circle to cut into string, figured id introduce my self and slip a couple questions out there too... ive read both "braiding rawhide horse tack and a good portion of bruce grants book...and spent the last week going threw old post on here and while it has answered alot of questions it has created some new ones as well either from contradictory statements or etc... sooo when plaiting rawhide hair side out or in? ive heard it both ways does, is it different for reatas than for bosals, reins, hobbles etc? once i have my initial rough string cut from the hide, the "BRHT" book says to stretch the string, then jumps into making string cutters etc then comes back to string, does the string "NEED" to be stretched and left to dry and cased again or can if at the right temper it go straight to final sizing and beveling...? the book says some folk like to omit the stretching leaving to dry and then re casing as it "takes the life" out of it... well thanks hope u all will be able to help with these and the other questions ill be posting in the near future! Mac couple practice pieces to get the plaiting and knot wrk rolling in my head, yea plait got a weee bit twisted on this "RAIN DAY" bosalita but eh is only paracord... double loop lace stitched the nose button cause plaiting it was just WAY to bulky for a bosalita and the plain spiral wrap was just to Plain looking.... this was 3rd piece i made of paracord....6 plait cheeks over 3/16' rope rolled in athletic tape has a surprising li good feel to it considering the materials... 8 plait hobbles 6x7 TH made into pineapple knots... 2nd piece i made... plait came out way more straight on this bosalita...1st piece ive made

My husband recently got his hands on a two strand twisted reata. Well, most of it is two strand twisted, but a short section (about a meter or so) up to the honda switches over to a 4 strand braid. We're in Denmark, so who knows where it comes from and how it got over here. The person we got it from got it from someone else. The person we got it from was a bit of an idiot and treated the whole thing with leather oil! ARGH. So far my husband has cleaned it thoroughly with glycerin and tried stretching it for a while like he's used to with rope lassos. But despite his stretching, it still seems to "remember" a lot of the twist from having been stored a really long time. So when he tries to make a loop to throw, the loop shows multiple twists and he can barely catch a post (this is not a problem with his usual lasso). So is there anything he can do to make this thing usable again or do we have to resign ourselves to having it as nothing but a wall hanging? I would really appreciate any advice you can give.