Rawhide lace

[TwistedM]

When making the lace for a rawhide riata I'm going to be going to about 1/4" in width  my big question about it is what is the thickness I should be going down to when splitting? 

 

Thanks in advance 

[Squirrelly66]

most of my rawhide lace for a riata is 5/16 or 3/8 inch wide. a lot depends on whether you bought the rawhide or if you pulled it off the cow and did it yourself. If I've pulled and prepped the hide myself I like to split my thickness no thinner than 2mm thick, I have my splitter set at 2.5mm for the last riata I did. which is roughly between 4-6 oz on the standard leather chart. most of the time it is the braiders preference and what he's comfortable using.

[JayInOz]

":He who laughs last wins" . Squirrelly66 it's been my experience that he who laughs last gets hit first:) 

You folks ever made rawhide from horse hide? Someone told me once that the hide from a yearling colt made the best rawhide you could get but I haven't had a chance to test it yet. JayInOz

[oltoot]

South Americans use horsehide for some of their best work and skin the yearling down the backbone, leaving the belly in one piece and cut a big circle centered on the belly for string making and use the legs, back and butt for cores. Not gonna find much of this in US, Learned this from Peruvian sheepherders in Wyoming Mountains. At first, camptender thought lions or bears were getting wagon mares colts until the new bosals, reins, etc started showing up! 

[Squirrelly66]

I've used Horse leather (Horween) lace for making whips and other lacing projects. I like it quite a bit. I have not had the experience of using horse rawhide yet. I use a lot of goat and deer rawhide for a lot of my smaller projects.

[JayInOz]

Interesting story oltoot. A local feller here kills quite a few horses for dog meat- greyhound industry- and he drops the tails here for me to make stuff out of- mostly fly whisks with fancy turned handles. He's always promising to drop me off a couple of hides but hasn't gotten around to it yet- I'm a patient old fart- I can wait:)  

Here in Australia there are no native animals with hard hooves. The country is shallow and easily damaged. So the environmentalists are screaming for the wild horses in the snow country in the Southern Highlands to be culled. There are presently around seven thousand of them and they want the number reduced to around seven hundred. That's a lot of meat and hides for someone in the know. JayInOz

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Rockoboy]

4 hours ago, JayInOz said:

Here in Australia

When I asked at a leather supplier here in Western Australia, I was told there was no way they would deal with horse hide leather because of the anger and problems caused by horse-lovers. "Been there, done that" was their approximate summation.

[JayInOz]

Hearing you Brian. People seem to think that some animals have more right to life than others. I used to make an important chunk of my meagre income shooting foxes and selling the skins every winter. The anti fur mob completely destroyed the industry. An estimated 7.2 million foxes here and practically no market, so now we shoot them and leave them lay. The numbers go up and the sarcoptic mange kills a heap then repeat. I lose lambs to foxes every year. We shouldn't kill deer either because they have lovely brown eyes:)

The feller I get the horse tails from doesn't really want to give me hides simply because it would slow him down to skin them carefully. He shoots the horses in the paddock and has the chainsaw warmed up by the time they stop kicking. It's pretty brutal. I just like rawhide because it's so simple and quick to make- builders lime and water to dehair then vinegar and water to neutralize and you're good to go.  I'm sure there are other ways but that's how I do it:) JayInOz

[Rockoboy]

On ‎6‎/‎7‎/‎2019 at 6:15 PM, JayInOz said:

The feller I get the horse tails from doesn't really want to give me hides simply because it would slow him down to skin them carefully.

Any chance you can accompany him on a shoot and take the time yourself to remove the hide carefully? 'Means to an end' sort of thing.

[Squirrelly66]

I get fresh cow hides from a couple guys that butcher meat for people, also from the occasional rancher around here that has one dead in the field. If I'm gonna stretch a whole hide I slip the hair like JayInOz , then put on my stretcher and stretch it good and let it dry, Hides I do this way I use for strings for fancy projects, If I'm doing a reata I take the fresh hide and cut it in one continuous strand approximately 1" wide till it's all used up, then I stretch it on the fence, after it is dry I go out and scrape the hair and any excess tissue off with a good knife.