rawhide question

[crow]

hi

The books explain, that you cut about 2" strip around the hide , make it wet and tighten it between some trees until dry. Then you get nice straight 2" strip to cut laces from.

I tried it with 3 m strip and it totally curled up. It is like a solid tube now. What did i do wrong? Was the tension too much?

best regards

Crow

[rawhide1]

Crow

I haven't had the chance to cut my own rawhide from a hide yet. But I would think you could case it and get it to lay flat. I also wander if ya had it to wet or it dried to fast. These are just some thoughts. Maybe some with some know how will chime in. I wish ya luck.

Mike

[rawhide1]

Crow

I forgot to add I was told by a fella that knew what he was talking about to cut my strips 3/4". Maybe that would help. Mike

[skinner]

crow, I from trial and error that when you use a strip wider than 2"wide in a long piece it will roll alot. try a narrower piece. you get alot of stretch with a long strip. it has to give some where so it rolls.

skinner

[Alan Bell]

You can cut it to what ever width you want. make sure when you stretch it you get it stretched pretty tight. It needs to dry fairly slowly so preferably it is in a place where it receives a fair amount of shading. You will have to re wet it in order to make lace so you can re stretch it then to try and remove some of the curl. A lot of times it is the difference in the way the flesh side dries compared to how the grain side dries that causes it to curl (grain side dries faster and curls grain side in) Flesh the hide very well before cutting strips. Some braiders feel that in all the pulling through the splitter in order to even the thickness and remove all the flesh that enough stretching is done so they forgo stretching between fence post. Personal preference. Do it both ways and see what you think. Some also cut 2' - 3' diameter circles out of the hide instead of going around the whole hide that way they are not dealing with the differences between the thickness of the neck vs the flank vs the hip. Another factor is crossing the spine. Now a days a lot of cattle goes under the fly rubs and they now have a fly jell type that gets squirted onto the cows back along the spine. This gets absorbed by the skin and affects the hide along the spine. I think it ruins the hide along there and the string you get is terrible. If you were to cut strips out of the whole hide you will have places that are very weak and stretchy in your string so I cut large circles out of parts of the hide and I try and avoid the spine unless I know how the cattle was managed.

Vaya Con Dios, Alan Bell

Here I am walking down the street and children, everything is so sweet!

Bob Marley - Caution

[skinner]

Alan, Good advice. I spent some time with a great old man in wyo. who died in 1981 or so at the age of 82. Was an old time rawhider and would cut a hide in a circle 1and a half wide and tie one end to a fence post and stretch it full length to dry. Then would scrape the hair . I tried the same with mostly good results, but as you say some areas as the flank, spine, or neck areas or if there was flesh or fat left on would tend to roll in. If the strip was too wide it would roll past itself and make scraping hard. Still a good way to dehair rawhide but where I live we have too many coyotes and thy take it apart before I CAN SCRAPE IT.!!!!

Fun to talk about, Skinner