Tallow Concoction For Rawhide

[Tanthathide9]

Anybody familiar with the steps to preparing the tallow conditioner for dressing rawhide and if its used while braiding or if it's just to "weatherproof" the finished product

[megabit]

I've just used it on reatas, but you could likely use it like soap?

Get some nice white beef fat like the kidney fat and render it down to tallow. I didn't add anything to it other than the rendered fat.

[curlyjo]

If I'm just greasing something, hang the rawhide in the sun to warm up and then grab a gob of kidney fat and rub it in good and then wipe off the excess. For braiding I just use a small bar of pure soap, put it in a plastic bowl, ad a little water, and use a small cheap paintbrush to get some foam up and slather it on as I'm braiding. Those little bars of soap from motels work good most of the time because they are generally unscented. At least where I stay.(cheap). Brad

[rcsaddles]

When I started to do rawhide work, my teacher, Mary Fields taught me to make my rawhide conditioner. Melt your tallow, and shave in some beeswax. The smaller the pieces of beeswax, the easier and quicker they melt. More beeswax means more water resistance. Don't use too much wax as it will be harder to apply when cool. I think I startedwith something like 6 cups of liquid fat to 1 cup liquid wax. Don't get stuck on a certain ratio, try some and adjust. This is much easier when all things are warm.

I went to a butcher shop and got beef fat from around the kidney, some places known as suet. If you don't have beeswax, let me know, I have about 10 pounds here. I can send some for teh cost of shipping and just a little more. I happen to have access to a bunch of it.

When you apply your conditioner, just like oiling leather, use a little at atime so you don't end up with way too much on.

Let us know what you do and how it works.

[Tanthathide9]

Wow, thanks everyone for all the advice, I just had a Hansen string cutter ordered for me so the fun begins

[Tanthathide9]

Will any beef fat work? Why is kidneyfat preferred?

[megabit]

I think the fat around the kidney is nice and white and that is what you want. I'd say mostly be sure to stay away from the yellowish stuff and it should work.

[Tanthathide9]

Why the yellowish stuff? Is it for color reasons or contents of what the fat has absorbed? I had the hide from a bull given to me and they said they went to the store and got tallow from local meat departments to mix with the bull meat because it was too lean so thats what we plan on rendering down tonight. Can i just render it down and add soap or beeswax later And mix it then? Or do i need to use anything at all and just the tallow...for future maintenance care and to use it while im braiding

[bucksnort]

For ongoing care of the finished product, I use a half & half mix of tallow & beeswax. I don't have any special reason for using it except that is what most of the old timers I was around used & it seems to work good. This mix does have to be warmed up a bit to apply it. One warning is that mice & rats (& dogs too) love tallow. I do use a soap mixture with a little beeswax in it for braiding, but too much will make your work sticky & hard to rewet, your best bet for braiding like Brad said is probably straight soap or saddle soap. Good luck & keep us posted. Buck

Edited February 22, 2014 by bucksnort

[Tanthathide9]

Thanks all who replied...i kept it simple and just rendered what i jad if i choose to add beeswax later can i melt my tallow (which is in a mason jar) in hot water and melt beeswax seperatley then add it and mix it later? How do i store it? I reckon in the fridge but im a newbie at this...so this is NOT a braiding soap only a maintenance product or post braiding applicant

[curlyjo]

I just started using a tiny bit of dish soap with water in a plastic cup and and paint brush to swish it around, lather it up, and slather it on as I'm braiding, especially above and it helps cinch the crosses in tight. I'm talking rawhide here. As far as kidney fat goes, stay with white as possible. It does make a difference on what the critter was eating prior to his demise. Years ago I worked for an outfit that was feeding carrots to older cows and they sold the meat to a chain that covered the Roast Beef with lots of gravy so you couldn't see the color. Brad

[bucksnort]

Once it's rendered there is no need to refrigerate. The stuff I use is about 12 years old (made a little more than I needed to) & still good.I store it in a cupboard in my rawhide shop.

[bex DK]

So despite warm temperatures the tallow is fine not refrigerated? I just rendered the suet from one kidney (which is less than half what we got from the butcher for free) and definitely got far more than we will use in the short term. But I am nervous about it becoming rancid. But if I can store it not in the fridge and it will be good for years, I can go ahead and render the rest without worrying about loss of fridge space.

We are trying to restore an older reata that has been stored in someone's attic and not maintained. So my thought is to start with straight tallow and treat it over a few days then to mix beeswax into some of it to finish off. Also worrying about whether the reata will end up smelling nasty. We're in Denmark and it is very wet weather here, especially over the winter, because we are less than half a mile from the sea. So we normally store all our tack in the house as everything molds too quickly elsewhere. Saddles that are most sensitive to the moisture are stored near the furnace. So I am a bit worried about whether the reata might end up being unpleasant in the house. Also need to be careful it isn't somewhere mice can get to it. They also always try to find things to eat in the winter...

[oltoot]

Just FYI. For beeswax, you can get it in small beads from someone who sells candle making supplies and that will blend really easily and it is also available in white if you want to preserve a natural color to whatever you are using it on

Edited August 13, 2015 by oltoot

[bex DK]

Beeswax we ordered in blocks but got in candle making sheets. Have melted it all down and made blocks. But definitely cheaper to get larger quantity from candle/bee people than from leather supply places.

Have the rawhide reata stretched and treated with tallow. Unfortunately it isn't absorbing as well as I expected, despite it being a warm day. But it feels better on the surface than it did before, so I suspect it just needs time.

How is the tallow-beeswax mix for treating leather itself?

[Colt W Knight]

For ongoing care of the finished product, I use a half & half mix of tallow & beeswax. I don't have any special reason for using it except that is what most of the old timers I was around used & it seems to work good. This mix does have to be warmed up a bit to apply it. One warning is that mice & rats (& dogs too) love tallow. I do use a soap mixture with a little beeswax in it for braiding, but too much will make your work sticky & hard to rewet, your best bet for braiding like Brad said is probably straight soap or saddle soap. Good luck & keep us posted. Buck

Ive made a mix of 1/3 beeswax, 1/3 tallow, and 1/3 extra virgin olive oil. It is the consistency of Kiwi, and I like to apply it with a horse hair brush. It has a little bit of smell in the can, but once applied you can't smell it.

[ChuckBurrows]

To prevent critters chewing on your goods - leather or rawhide - add a bit of castor oil to your mix, the critters do not like the taste.

As for using a tallow/beeswax/oil mix on leather as well as rawhide - it works fine. It's basically one recipe for the old leather treatment called dubbin. There are several recipes available for dubbin, but almost all contain tallow as a base and then oils of various types, beeswax, glycerin, etc. are added.

[bex DK]

How much castor oil to how much tallow or tallow/beeswax to be effective? That sounds like a very good idea...

[ChuckBurrows]

Try 2-3 tablespoons per quart of the tallow/oil/wax mix

[bex DK]

Thanks! Need to pick up the castor oil tomorrow then find the energy to get it mixed up. Working on a cell phone holder for my husband (just a working case, nothing fancy), so can use that to test the mix on leather. Needs something for using when haying, etc., that keeps phone safe yet accessible. And the twisted rawhide lasso is now fully usable thanks to the tallow, so just needs to get finished off with a beeswax-tallow mix. The braided one we are trying to restore is still too stiff. But I expect it will take many treatments to get it to absorb enough and time for it to work into the middle.

[Tanthathide9]

I have kept the rendered fat in a mason jar in my garage I live in texas and the fat has not gone rancid to answer ur question. I chose a mason jar to deter critters. They sure like it. This same jar has been in same jar since I started the post and smells like it was just rendered....

[dikman]

Just to add my experience with mutton tallow, I made some about 18 months ago to use with my muzzleloaders. It's stored in an open container, inside a cupboard with my other waxes, and the cupboard is inside my forge shed. This shed is a basic tin shed, which gets very hot in summer (no cooling of any sort) and so far the tallow has remained fine. The beauty of pure tallow (and mutton tallow is supposed to be the best, made from suet) is that it doesn't go rancid.