Scraping Hides

[Leatherpownder]

What ever works best for U Brad. Many different methods.

[JLD]

Hi,

A question if I may,

The greyish colour on the photo of the scraped hide is this a result of the ashes and if so is this why the rawhide in the braided reins has that same blue/grey colour.

Will it come out? and to get the creamy white colour do you have to bleach it and finally...(sorry) how would you do the bleaching.

Thank you very much for posting all the information and pictures you do I find it a tremendous help and really interesting.

Johanne

[Leatherpownder]

All the cow hides I use are the natural color. I do not bleach any of these hide but do bleach the horse hide I use. Even then the hide is not white. Bleaching cowhide weakens the hide. Traditional rawhide is not bleached.

[JLD]

So the grey sort of marks on the scraped hide are not colour from ash? I have only ever tried to get rid of hair using lime and nearly stunk the place out doing it but the hide came out quite light in colour. I never see rawhide here (Australia) that has that blue/grey colour to it.

Just wondering how it got like that.

Thanks

[megabit]

I think it is just a hide from a black skinned cow.

[Leatherpownder]

That's just the pic. The reins were actually a chocolate brown color.

[bruce johnson]

I have a pair of Bret's reins that are that color and they get a lot of comments. The color has stayed good on them. Looking forward to a two rein hackamore to complement them.

[barbiesdude]

Found a video on Facebook at CJL Rawhide of Charles Liesen scraping a hide with this method. Sure looks easy. I have a hide on the rack, can't wait to try.

[Leatherpownder]

Finally got Charly to try one. He had been scraping with a knife previous.

[Leatherpownder]

This is a set of reins from a different hide that was scraped with ashes.