Rawhide making Do's and Don'ts

[rgerbitz]

In the last 3 years or so I have dedicated most of my spare time, which isn't much, to learning how to braid, make rawhide, and recently have begun learning more about working with leather. I am unsure which has been the bigger challenge learning how to braid and make attractive gear or learning how to make the rawhide itself. I have asked questions both on leatherworker and through PM's and have learned that like most things in life no two people do things the same way. I was recently directed to the American Leather Chemist Assn and I believe it will take some time to get my head to stop spinning from all the info a ran across there. I am hoping to get a thread going here that discusses what you all have learned or what your thoughts are on making rawhide. And it was recently suggested that a thread should be started on the subject. What are some of your experiences good and bad, so that the rest of us may be able to keep from having to recreate the wheel so to speak when making or own rawhide. To date everyone has been very helpful responding to my requests, I am asking everyone to add more for me and anyone else who may be wanting to try their hand at making rawhide. I hope that everyone that has even the smallest bit of info to add, regardless of their experience, will chime in.

Thank you all for your time and I am looking forward to see what everyone has to add.

Rob Gerbitz

[rawhide1]

Rob

Thats a great idea. It would really help people like me out who haven't gotten around to trying to make their own yet.

Mike

[Rod and Denise Nikkel]

Rod gets the wonderful job of making rawhide. He does mature bulls and occasionally cows, with the hides split down the backbone. The process - leave them in water in a barrel and change the water twice a day for 2-3 days. (Note - we don't have really high temperatures to deal with up here.) This lets them get maximally soaked and makes them easier to flesh. Doesn't seem to affect the dehairing.

Then 1/2 a hide goes in the cement mixer with 10 gallons of hot water and about 3/4 a coffee can (exact science, eh?) or about 2-3 cups sodium sulfide and the same amount of lime. Note - wear a mask when putting this stuff in water. It is not nice and can damage lungs I would suspect. If Rod is doing this indoors in the winter, the mask is worn the whole time. It gets tumbled for one hour minimum (and that is usually all it takes unless they have a full winter hair coat on them or are deer - they take longer) to 1 1/2 hours. It needs to be agitated somehow or it all goes to the bottom. The guy Rod learned from made up a drum on wheels with a motor to turn it but second hand cement mixers work great. The hair forms this gross sludge that is easily sprayed away.

Then they are fleshed and Warren Wright in New Zealand told us about "scudding", which was new to us. Basically using what is like the back of a knife to scrape the top and squeeze out more goo and extra hair follicles etc. that didn't come out in the bath. It would be good to learn more about this. I wonder if there is a difference in the effect of it if you just use lime (like Warren does) or the sodium sulfide process.

Next they go back in the mixer for an hour with water running over them the whole time to rinse them. They get put in a barrel with water and a bit of dish soap (supposed to neutralize things a bit?) the first time, then the water is changed twice a day for another 2-3 days to get them really well rinsed before they are ready for use.

This is just what Rod does because that is what he was taught and it has worked OK so far.

Here is a link to another paper we were referred to. I am just starting to chew through it and have more questions than answers so far. Maybe someone with more chemistry than I remember can read it and explain it to me.

http://www.unido.org/fileadmin/import/user...e_unhairing.pdf

[rgerbitz]

Here is a link to another paper we were referred to. I am just starting to chew through it and have more questions than answers so far. Maybe someone with more chemistry than I remember can read it and explain it to me.

http://www.unido.org/fileadmin/import/user...e_unhairing.pdf

You weren't kidding when you said you needed to "chew" through this material. It is just what I have been looking for. I still hope that KAW, RCsaddles, Alan, and anyone else will be able to add their thoughts here. I know you all have before at some point but it would be good to see it again.

Thank you

Rob

[Opagon]

A Wisconsin opinion:

We have alot of dairy cows and beefers which are not considered the best for makeing rawhide. Hides are usually claimed and always cost something if you go to a slaughter house. I have called dairy farmers to ask if they could call me if ever they have an old dairy cow go down or if they loose a calf. I have been hung up on and looked at funny but mostly my number is lost in the trash or forgotten thanks to the hands on the clock going round. Our humidty and temparture places interesting time frames as to when the best rawhide can be made.

I have found based on Cost, time and energy it is easier to for me to buy my rawhide. The only time I make my own Rawhide is if I come across free ones (on or off the cow) during early spring or late fall.

What I have found:

Cleaning fat from the hide is best done while it is warm from the cow.

Always have the right size frame for your hide. (And built of something very strong or reinforced)

Pulling a hide from a dairy cow is best done with a truck and a bobcat/tractor.

Keep Braiding,

Heather

[rgerbitz]

Thank you Heather, I would agree that taking the fat and extra bits of meat is best done when the hide is fresh. I have tried it after it has soaked, and also after the hide was a day old. And both times it was very difficult to do a very good job of getting the fat off. Not to mention the smell after a day or so starts to get a little rank. Thank you for your input.

Rob

[Alan Bell]

I get most my hides from a butcher/slaughter house. I can go there in the morning and pick it up in the afternoon before they salt the hide. That lets me choose what I want while it is still on the hoof. It is far cheaper as the hides cost me $30 no matter the size vs $150 for a single side of rawhide already made! the butcher skins the hide vs pulling and that gets a lot of the meat and fat off that pulling leaves UNLESS you have a 2 - 3 person operation and you can pull with the tractor WHILE you are skinning with the knife! Then you can get quite a bit of flesh off initially. The slaughter house hangs the beef for skinning and the weight of the hide takes the place of the pull of the tractor. I lime alone but will try the hot water method and the sodium sulfide process just to see how they work and if they are an option for me. I've found that the more flesh and fat you get off the better the rawhide. I don't mind the hair showing in the follicle and I actually like that look on using gear but for the finer strings I want the hair to slip completely out of the follicle. I also am beginning to like the contrasting look of using string from different hides so that there are slight variations in color IF I get the strings pretty consistent in thickness and width. I have also dry scraped a hide and may try just using the hardwood ash as a brace but though it may take fewer days it is a lot more work so I will probably always use chemical hair removal but just like to be able to say I've tried all the different ways and understand them. For a frame I recommend a hoop instead of a square or rectangle. The hide pulls on the frame quite a bit as it dries and it seems a circle evens out that force better than a square shape so there is less worry about the hide drying and bending the frame. Once dry if the rawhide is kept dr you can keep it for years before you have to use it.

Vaya Con Dios, Alan Bell

[rgerbitz]

I have tried to do the dry scrape method once on my first hide I did. It looked to be the simplest method at the time. I did it in November and we happened to have a bit of a wet spell then. It took over 3 weeks for it to totally dry out. As I learn more I think that I will try that again some day but maybe only with half of a hide. And I will clip the hair off before setting it out to dry. With the hair being longer in areas than others it allowed sections to dry out quicker than others which allowed the hide to "dimple" making it very difficult to scrape the hair away without getting to deep into the outer layer. The string that I did salvage from that did turn out very cool. I would like to talk to rcsaddles a bit more about how he goes about it. There is a neat video here that gives a guy an idea of one way to do it. I would also like to try making a paste of ashes and trying that some time, maybe with the other half a hide. Thanks for you input Alan!

Rob

[Rod and Denise Nikkel]

Interesting what you all are saying about the best time to flesh them. Due to the timing and distance we have to go to get the hides, it is generally 24 hours before Rod can get to fleshing them. He has found it is easier to flesh after a couple of days soaking in water than then. If he ever gets the chance to do one really fresh he may try that out.

We also get an occasional hide from local people butchering their own. Rod always tells them to leave as much flesh and fat on the hide as possible. Yes, he has to do the work to take it off, but it sure beats having a hide that is all nicked and cut and has holes all through it because someone was trying to be helpful and get everything off but was not careful enough with their knife. Even at the slaughter house where we get our hides you can see the difference in sides at times. The guy on one side is more careful not to cut the hide than the guy on the other side.

In going through the article here http://www.unido.org/fileadmin/import/user...e_unhairing.pdf I have picked out a few interesting facts:

1.) Keratin (the structure hair and the top of the skin is made from) is really resistant to break down physically or chemically, except from sulfide which breaks down the disulphide bonds that hold it together. The more mature the keratin is – the upper layer of skin cells and the hair that is out of the skin – the more resistant it is. Immature keratin is found in newer skin cells, those closer to the basement membrane that holds the epidermis to the dermis (which is the leather and rawhide we keep) and the hair still in the root, and it is a lot more sensitive to breakdown.

2.) When you add alkali – eg. lime – it strengthens those bonds even more so the epidermis and the hair won’t break down as quickly. This process is called immunisation and the factories do this when they want to take the hair off intact and not turn it into sludge like the higher concentration sodium sulfide treatment does. But immunisation doesn’t work as well on the immature keratin, so the weakest point becomes the junction of the epidermis and the dermis. This is why when you take the hair off limed hides that top layer of epidermis comes off as well, leaving the clean rawhide behind. It seems the factories use a little bit of sulfide as well in their later steps to get the hair roots out even if they are trying to save the hair as opposed to destroying it. Using the lime first helps keep the hair intact with this little bit of sulfide.

3.) In regards to straight lime, they say that “Slow alkaline hydrolysis of the corium (dermis) – epidermis boundary layer leads to a loosening of the hair after 3-5 days. In addition, slow degradation of the hide substance occurs, attaining significant level after approximately 8 days. The optimum unhairing time is thus 4 – 6 days.” They don’t talk about temperature in this section and I expect that would have an effect on the length of time.

4.) Another paragraph says “Re-use of old lime liquors after strengthening, as often practiced, renders unhairing more effective because of the unhairing effect of the amines yielded by protein hydrolysis.” So, if you are another hide soon, keep the liquid (if you can stand the smell), add more lime and re-use it. It will work better the second time round. This probably explains why changing the water is not recommended. It works better the older it gets.

5.) They do also say “An increase in temperature accelerates the unhairing process… Temperatures up to 30 degrees C (86 F) are considered safe, whereas at 35 degrees C (95 F) the hide substance is drastically damaged, especially in the grain layer.”

[rgerbitz]

Thanks for breaking down that paper a little for us Denise. It all makes alot of sense. I just strethed out my last hide in a frame last night to let it dry. And while I was able to remove the majority of the hair there were just a few more stubbourn than the rest. I whole heartedly agree with the temp. thing. The previous hide I did I know sat in water that was to hot for to long, and that made it so that when I went to scrape or scud the hair off I could easily break through the top layers of hide. This last hide in an attempt to keep the odor down abit I added a healthy dose of antibacterial dish soap and an ounce of clorox to the lime bath to help control the bacteria, and I believe it worked at least I haven't heard my wife and daughter gaging when they walk through the barn this time. And I think ( not Know, THINK) that the soap helped in getting the surface of the hide cleaned up alittle better. I am hoping that with in the next two weeks I will be able to try the sodium sulphide on a hide.

[KAW]

Most of the time I slip the hair with clean hot water, when doing it this way you must have a fresh green fleshed hide or it doesn't work very well ,if at all. When I make my hides in lime I like to use as fresh a hide as I can and flesh them, also the naster the lime solution is the better for me and warmed to about 80 100 degrees work best for me, I try to make my hide in the summer when it is warm. when I scraped my hides with a knife I would clean the hell out of them flesh them REALLY good, brush the hair out good with a comb, streach them a tight as I could, then clip most of the hair as close to the hide as I could with a big set of clippers, then scrape the rest with a sharp knife and it is very important to get the hide as tight as you can so you dont get wrinkles in it. I like to streach them like Alan said in a hoop like these.

I like to do it with the water now because it is quick and clean and If you want to work alittle you can do more than one hide at a time once the water is at temp. These are some things that work for me depending on the hide and situation. The better the hide to start with the better the string can be in the end if everything goes well.

[rgerbitz]

Hello Kevin,

If I remember right from your tut. that got lost you said to not let the water get above 140 degrees? And what diameter is your hoop?

Thanks for your input.

Rob

[rawhidesculpture]

Hey! 

I'm an art student looking to create a sculpture from rawhide, I'm just wondering once I let it dry and mold to the shape I'm looking for should I treat it with anything? or cover it in something to preserve it? 

thanks any help would be great:)

[chuck123wapati]

yes you should. it would depend on the finished look your after on what you would use. I would test any product before applying it to your work on scrap pieces. Acrylic paints, poly sealers for wood, shellac, boiled linseed oil & beeswax,  are just some options you can try.   Good luck and post a picture of your work!! 

1 hour ago, rawhidesculpture said:

Hey! 

I'm an art student looking to create a sculpture from rawhide, I'm just wondering once I let it dry and mold to the shape I'm looking for should I treat it with anything? or cover it in something to preserve it? 

thanks any help would be great:)

yes you should. it would depend on the finished look your after on what you would use. I would test any product before applying it to your work on scrap pieces. Acrylic paints, poly sealers for wood, shellac, boiled linseed oil & beeswax,  are just some options you can try.   Good luck and post a picture of your work!!