Beef Bone For Making Tools

[BIGGUNDOCTOR]

6/24/11

You were right! Parts of the edges of the bone, I have sadly dried out by the boiling. But there are still large areas that have plenty of grease in them. I slicked the edges of some small items a little while ago, and the bone is working fine,... quite luxurious actually, to be able to hang onto that huge beef bone with my whole hand, rather than having to clamp down on some small tool with my fingers. Anyone who's had a brush with Carpal Tunnel Syndrome will appreciate the wisdom of using a tool that's comfortable and ergonomic, rather than one that's small and causes the hand to cramp. Regarding your Boxer dogs and the kitchen bones,... I hope that they weren't trying to access the bone marrow with their tongues. My previous little wire haired terrier told me that there's nothing more frustrating than not being able to 'get at' the bone marrow.

I found that first tool, the pork bone. I'd stored it with the project I'd been working on,... which was a palm pusher. So, when I picked up the parts for the palm pusher, there was the pork bone with them. It looks tiny by comparison with the beef bone. Your neighbor who bleached the skulls on her roof was in the USA? - Vintage

Yep she lives here in Nevada. The boxers didn't have a problem with the marrow with their long tongues.

[TexasLady]

6/25/11

I had to look up a photo of a creaser, Kevin. Thanks for that idea. Are creasers for making an ornamental line on the leather? - TexasLady

You can make creasers out of smaller leg bones. Shoemaker's tools are referred to as Crispin's bones.

Kevin

[WinterBear]

Hi TexasLady. I'm sorry to hear that the edges were dried out. You might be able to salvage that though as it picks up oils from your skin and from the leather as you work with it, and it may stabilize the bone.

You're welcome! You won't need a huge amount of peroxide, and depending on the percentage, you can dilute it quite a bit, or just daub it on full strength with a cottonball to clean things up a bit, then let the bone sit in the sun for a few hours with the peroxide on it, and rinse well. Sunlight will help hasten the whitening. You certainly won't need to immerse the bone in bottled peroxide for a long period of time, unless it is an absolutely manky nasty thing...which most people wouldn't pick up anyway when it looks that gross! :whistle:I think both skulls took less than two small bottles of peroxide.

If you want to clean bones, I can recommend the National Park Service's "Conserve-O-Gram" for basic instructions (NAtional Park Sevice Conserve-O-Gram), with the following caveats--I would really avoid the ammonia soak and some of their other instructions. Greases in the bone structure react with the ammonia, and smell really really bad--as in, your neighbors will think you have a carcass lying out somewhere. And heating ammonia as the document also mentions is also a hugely bad idea, very very toxic, very very flammable. You're neighbors might suspect you have a meth lab in your workshop if you burn it up by boiling ammonia. Don't use the dermestids or the toxic chemicals they also mention--those methods are best handled in a prep facility with a fire suppression system, a confined dermestid colony, somewhere to proerly dispose of hazardous materials, and a fume hood to vent the objectionable odors and the fumes. Instead, stick to the general cleaning methods with the warm water, the soaking, simmering in warm water, and using sodium perborate (this is the BORAX! hehehe) in the soak/simmer water. The sodium hydroxide that they also mention is found in many detergents, and is also known as caustic lye, but plain old Borax does what you need it to, so avoid the lye. The peroxide methods for whitening the bone are on pages 6 and 7. Lastly, most of the methods here are going to be overkill, as a soup bone won't have been from something lying in the sun for too long and will be pretty easy to clean and won't have any odor if all of the grease is out of the bone before it spoils. In fact, anything laying around in the forest is probably not going to be good for carving as it often has a high microbial level, and you'd likely need a permit anyway. I personally stick to butcher bones or the dog bones from the pet store for carving to avoid the whole issue.

Yes, bone dust is terrible. Inhaled dust from bone/ivory/antler isn't absorbed by your body. It can cause chronic lung damage, pneumoconiosis...essentially you can give yourself miner's lung, or just flat out make yourself sick from a particularly nasty infection, or from the dust lodging in your lungs and casing inflammation and cysts that build up around the particles. If you want to work bone, try stopping into your local hardware store and look at the NIOSH approved half-face respirators with replaceable cartridges. 3M makes one that is pretty comfortable and relatively inexpensive (the cost is much less than a doctor's visit), and you can get cartridges for different tasks. Most packaging will tell what cartridges to use for particulates, or you can ask someone who works with exotic woods or antler inlay for advice, so then you'd just have to get filters for the correct particle size.

I've never tanned hide, or bird skins, so couldn't tell you if you could tan smoked turkey skin leather. It sounds plausible though, but I'd never be able to pry the cat or the dog off of it if I tried to make something with that hide.

I used to work with a fellow that did reproduction smoking pipes (mountain man pipes mostly), and I would prepare the turkey and chicken bones for him to make pipe-stems with. Occasionally, he'd make whistles and such with them as well. He also made non-historically accurate things with bird bones, like scarf slides using sections of the bone to form the center/core of the slide, and then tying rawhide knots over the outside of the bone, or making a sort of scrimshaw pattern with ink.

[TexasLady]

6/29/11

Such good information, WinterBear! Thanks. I'm proud to have started a Thread that's attracted your 'bone cleaning' information. And the same appreciation goes to the others who have contributed here. I had to laugh, though, WB, at your "but I'd never be able to pry the cat or the dog off of it if I tried to make something with that hide" comment. It would 'go to their heads' if the cat and dog knew that they had so much influence over your choice of new projects. I've used Borax for about ten years for laundry, almost exclusively, because it isn't toxic like detergent. On making whistles, I've made two, well tuned, ocarinas from clay. However, they are still 'greenware',... haven't been baked yet. I hope they will still sound good after I fire them. I'm an art major in college, so maybe I can impose on the clay teacher to fire them for me, even though I'm not in a clay class. I'm also hoping to be able to incorporate my new-found leather skills into my sculpture class, etc. Some leather straps, laced through handles of pots, for example, will give my work a lot of originality. You'll all be seeing more of me when I need help. - TexasLady

[WinterBear]

6/29/11

Such good information, WinterBear! Thanks. I'm proud to have started a Thread that's attracted your 'bone cleaning' information. And the same appreciation goes to the others who have contributed here. I had to laugh, though, WB, at your "but I'd never be able to pry the cat or the dog off of it if I tried to make something with that hide" comment. It would 'go to their heads' if the cat and dog knew that they had so much influence over your choice of new projects. I've used Borax for about ten years for laundry, almost exclusively, because it isn't toxic like detergent. On making whistles, I've made two, well tuned, ocarinas from clay. However, they are still 'greenware',... haven't been baked yet. I hope they will still sound good after I fire them. I'm an art major in college, so maybe I can impose on the clay teacher to fire them for me, even though I'm not in a clay class. I'm also hoping to be able to incorporate my new-found leather skills into my sculpture class, etc. Some leather straps, laced through handles of pots, for example, will give my work a lot of originality. You'll all be seeing more of me when I need help. - TexasLady

Well, the cat is 16, I think he's entitled to his crotchets and occasional lapses of judgement, and the hairball has a serious weakness for all things poultry. He'd nibble on it at the least. The dog, well, Mom's dog is something of a blockhead. He's a rescue who was abused and starved by his former owner. He can't help himself, he can't not eat something. If it is food, or just smells like food, or if he suspects it might be food, he eats it.

If you can't convince your teacher, a lot of small potters (those who do white-ware painting classes and have a small business run out of a small storefront) will often fire for a small fee. I've had a few odds and ends fired over the years, and the cost was minimal.

[TexasLady]

6/30/11

Thanks, WinterBear, for the idea of getting a small business to fire my ocarinas. I'll keep my eyes open. Also, I laughed out loud by the time I got to the part where you said, "... or if he suspects it might be food,...". I'm glad you've given the dog a happy 'rest of his life',... which will last for a good while, if the cat's lifespan is any indication. Might I ask the origin of your name? - TexasLady

[WinterBear]

Where I live now does not accept cats, so the cat has been living with my parents. The dog is Mom's. I don't have a yard here, and I don't think it is fair to expect a dog to be cooped up and bored all day while I am work, so I am currently dogless as well.

My name is from my graduate work, a joint study on black bears, and the first live bear I got to see and touch was a denned female.

[TexasLady]

7/3/11

Congradulations on making it as far as 'graduate work', and on choosing a field that's close to nature. - TexasLady

Where I live now does not accept cats, so the cat has been living with my parents. The dog is Mom's. I don't have a yard here, and I don't think it is fair to expect a dog to be cooped up and bored all day while I am work, so I am currently dogless as well.

My name is from my graduate work, a joint study on black bears, and the first live bear I got to see and touch was a denned female.

[WinterBear]

7/3/11

Congradulations on making it as far as 'graduate work', and on choosing a field that's close to nature. - TexasLady

Oh, I got the masters degree, but couldn't find a job. So it goes. I worked in bakeries for several years before finding a job as a technical editor for a company that does biometrics/biostatistics analyses.

[TexasLady]

7/4/11

That's good that you could get into a field that 'pays'. I'm working on a BA in Art, knowing full well how slim the pickin's will be for getting a job. 'Numbers' are difficult for me, and most jobs that 'pay' aren't of the artsy-craftsy sort,... unless the person is entrepreneurial, and I'm not. But, you've kept your love for 'nature' alive, while paying the bills with a 'real job'? - TexasLady

Oh, I got the masters degree, but couldn't find a job. So it goes. I worked in bakeries for several years before finding a job as a technical editor for a company that does biometrics/biostatistics analyses.