Treating Rawhide With Tallow

[bex DK]

A rather urgent question, as I have a bag of tallow in my refrigerator and need to use it before it goes bad (plus there is limited space for food, since the butcher was very generous).

Picked up an older braided rawhide riata. The rawhide looks good except for being dry and stiff rfrom being stored in an attic. Wetting it and stretching eliminated the kinks that it had had, but it only throws a good loop when slightly damp. Otherwise it is too stiff.

Can't get professional rawhide cream here and everything mentions tallow, so we got a butcher to save tallow for us and picked it up today (slaughtered yesterday).

Those of you who use tallow for rawhide, do you use it raw or must it be cooked somehow first??

[bex DK]

I should note I'm in Denmark and never did all this buthering-related stuff when in the US, so might be off on my terminology. Perhaps the fat must be rendered to become tallow??

What I have is raw fat off a newly slaughtered cow. So does that get used as is, or do I first render it?

[johnv474]

Tallow is rendered. I don't know if beef fat would work the same.

[texback]

Tallow is rendered from beef or sheep fat.

[bex DK]

Thanks! I rendered part of it yesterday so will use that. Do you just rub the rendered fat into the rawhide? Some stuff I read talked about treating with lemons first. What does that help with?

We've already cleaned it up with glycerin and I also have white saddle soap, but I don't think that gives enough restoration.