Making Rawhide Lesson

[flaxfilly]

I have been using deer hides for many years now... I finally told the hunters to let me do the skinning, with a little extra time, you wont need the fleshing beam!! Lime and water works ok for de-hair.... but a running creek is awesome! I took some old field fence, kinda sandwiched the hide where it would lay flat in the creek, 3 days in the spring and the hair was slipping nicely, no smell and no nasty lime! The draw backs to deer hide is you never know what you get till the hair comes off, ticks and barbed wire will leave scratches and small pit's in the skin, the part that is most important!! I just cut my rounds in the good spots and give the dog the rest!

who has any info on "cooking" the hides, what temperature and how long?? inquiring minds want to know!!

[kgee]

Hi I am another newbie here looking for answers. I am looking to repair some snowshoes and needed some rawhide lacing. Finding it expensive and hard to come by thought I would make my own. Long story short the fellow that was going to help me spoiled my hide but gave me some lacing that had been cut off the hide initially but nothing else ever done anything with it. This was all last year but now when I am going to use the lacing and trim it down it has a strong odor to it and as one of the other posters said it is not real white but discolored. My question is can you remove the odor now or is that supposed to happen in a previous step.

[rgerbitz]

If it is just the fat and left over meat that has gone off, most of the odor will go away when you remove that. If it has been like that for awhile the odor will stay with the rawhide for a long time. Unless you plan on bleaching it.

Rob

[kgee]

Thanks Rob

Is one year a long time? If I coat the lacing with a varnish will that mask the odor? It might not matter as the snowshoes are worn outside but while they aren't being used I hang them in the garage. I am in the process of making KAW's splitter and hopfully that will get rid of what ever is causing the problem.

[rgerbitz]

I would think that varnish would help, but I have no experience with that. I had some string around here that had gotten pretty rank. I left it in the barn for 6 months or so then brought it in to work with it. My wife recommended that I remove the rawhide from house or look into another living arrangement. Once the string got up to room temp it did have a pretty strong odor. A guy I braided with once told me about another man that had braided up a hackmore out of some really rank string. He put it on a mule and said that they had a heck of time getting it off the mule before it killed it self. Apparently the mule took offense to the smell. Not alot of usable info, sorry.

Rob

[Tanthathide9]

I'm not sure if I De fleshed my hide good enough I just finished my first hide and it's been stretched for bout a week humidity is horrible on the gulf coast of Texas, anyways, it just don't look right there's like a white fibrous substance idk exactly how to explain it but ithe hide isn't opaque or translucent in some areas it is mind you, but I would 90% if not more of the flesh side is not translucent/opaque. Hides stretched tighter than all get out so my thought was not enough fleshing, any suggestions to what my problem could be and how can I correct it.

[KAW]

What breed of cattle did you use, how old was it and what type ot feed was the animal on?

[Tanthathide9]

Brangus, several years old, grass/ hay fed, well what grass we still have in tx....the hide looks great I stuck it in garage away from humidity and the rain we got wasn't helping so I sheltered it and it finished drying in there and it looks great, what I was concerned about jut flakes off now , but please continue with ur comment