Skiving Rawhide

[critter dun]

Hi.Thank you to all for taking some time out for me.I've been skiving some rawhide strings down to a 45 thousands thickness.I make my first trim cut a little wider than what i need to compensate for stretch.anyway i have the 100.00 skiver that tandy putsout and i seem to have better luck once the strings are almost dry .Does anyone have anything to add ?I really want to fine tune my approach to using this skiver...would i be better off with a differant one?or just read the moisture content better in my strings?many thanks

J.L. Brothers

[curlyjo]

Sounds like you're on the way to figuring out rawhide. The splitter you are using is probably the same one I used for years. I now have an older Osbourne that I got on ebay 3 years ago that I like better. Moisture is the key to rawhide. Split then wait to gauge, then wait to bevel, then add a little to braid or do button work. High humidity helps when you're braiding but drives you nuts making string. It just takes time to figure. Today I cut 165' of small string, stretched it along a fence til ready to split, stretched it again til ready to gauge and beveled right away. 2/32 x 4/32 for some small bosals and buttons. Practise, practise and practise and just when you think you've got it down it will bite you on the butt because a different hide didn't cut the same as the previous one. But if it were easy, everyone would be doing it. Just keep trying and write down what worked so you can look back to help along. Goodluck, Brad

[critter dun]

Sounds like you're on the way to figuring out rawhide. The splitter you are using is probably the same one I used for years. I now have an older Osbourne that I got on ebay 3 years ago that I like better. Moisture is the key to rawhide. Split then wait to gauge, then wait to bevel, then add a little to braid or do button work. High humidity helps when you're braiding but drives you nuts making string. It just takes time to figure. Today I cut 165' of small string, stretched it along a fence til ready to split, stretched it again til ready to gauge and beveled right away. 2/32 x 4/32 for some small bosals and buttons. Practise, practise and practise and just when you think you've got it down it will bite you on the butt because a different hide didn't cut the same as the previous one. But if it were easy, everyone would be doing it. Just keep trying and write down what worked so you can look back to help along. Goodluck, Brad

Yes. Thank you very much.