Tallow Concoction For Rawhide

[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.