Rawhide lace

[JayInOz]

Brian the best way would be to skin it using a tree, a chain and my truck. I'll talk to him about it next time I see him- he buys quite a few Wessex Saddleback piglets from me.

Squirrelly I see a lot of pictures of fellers stretching hides using ropes on a frame. Total pain in the bum. If you want a quick and dirty method that takes about a tenth the time, peg the hide out with hardwood pegs flat on dry ground. When you're happy with how it looks, go around the outside and slip the hide an inch or so up each peg so there's air flow underneath. Works a treat. The hide will usually dry hard around the pegs, but you can just trim off the entire outer edge, pegs and all, and job done. JayInOz

[Squirrelly66]

I use steel tarp clamps about every 5 inches and stretch it out tight as a drum because I have been known leave the hair on and scrape it after stretching, I have some customer's who will not buy rawhide that has had the hair slipped with lime even  after using the vinegar. Not my first rodeo, I've done this once or twice. I usually end up with anywhere from 30 to 50 deer hides every fall that get done up for rawhide lace. I get a few elk hides once in awhile. I got plenty of cow for now 22 hides in the shed. Just brain tanned 10 hide for making chaps , chinks and other assorted stuff. I seem to get by. The clamps do well cause I got tired of poking holes and running string many, many moons ago. Now I just run the rope thru the eye on the clamp.

[JayInOz]

I know a feller who has a drum full of clamps that came from a tannery where a mate of his used to work. He has hundreds of them- never used them once and won't sell any. People like that annoy the beejeebus out of me:)  JayInOz

[Squirrelly66]

My grandfather got these clamps from a tannery up around Chicago, Illinois back in the early 50's. The Horween tannery is still in business, I believe it's over 100 yrs old.  I have over 400 of the buggars and have used them all a time or two. Hell I've let me neighbor's borrow a few when they have a hide to stretch. They always return them in a timely fashion, too. which is nice. Yeah, I'm not thrilled about the people who hoard things just so nobody else has them. Those people get my briskets to burnin.

[JayInOz]

   Thinking about that feller with the clamps. About forty years ago he and his brother in law moved up from the city and bought a farm that adjoined our place. They inherited a couple of head of mean, nasty, wild cattle and decided to shoot one for meat. Set up a block and tackle in a big old yellow box tree which stood at the top of a steep hill overlooking the creek. They put some hay directly under the hook, then went and sat in the truck about fifty yards away and waited with the rifle.  Eventually the cattle came in and the wrong one ate the hay, so they had to put more out and wait some more. The one they were after finally put it's head down to take a bite and one of these fellers took the shot. Just like in the movies they shot it between the eyes- so the bullet went about three inches below the brain. The beast staggered backwards about five yards and then cartwheeled down the steep side into the trees in the creek. Took them all day to get it out of there.

But the story doesn't end there. These fellers were living about fifty yards apart in temporary digs while they built their houses. In between their camps they built a double ended long drop toilet- door at each end and a partition in the middle- out of second hand timber siding. They decided that the timber wall of the outhouse was the perfect place to peg out the hide of this rangy beast they'd killed, and do "something" with the leather they were going to make. I rode over on my old Harley a few days later to see them about something and stopped in my tracks when I looked towards the outhouse. The hide had dried and shrunk and rolled up, taking a heap of boards with it. The whole lot ended up being burnt in the rubbish pile. Actually those blokes provided us with quite a bit of entertainment over the years. And as you can see- I'm a man of few words:)  JayInOz

Edited June 13, 2019 by JayInOz

[Matt S]

4 hours ago, JayInOz said:

   Thinking about that feller with the clamps. About forty years ago he and his brother in law moved up from the city and bought a farm that adjoined our place. They inherited a couple of head of mean, nasty, wild cattle and decided to shoot one for meat. Set up a block and tackle in a big old yellow box tree which stood at the top of a steep hill overlooking the creek. They put some hay directly under the hook, then went and sat in the truck about fifty yards away and waited with the rifle.  Eventually the cattle came in and the wrong one ate the hay, so they had to put more out and wait some more. The one they were after finally put it's head down to take a bite and one of these fellers took the shot. Just like in the movies they shot it between the eyes- so the bullet went about three inches below the brain. The beast staggered backwards about five yards and then cartwheeled down the steep side into the trees in the creek. Took them all day to get it out of there.

But the story doesn't end there. These fellers were living about fifty yards apart in temporary digs while they built their houses. In between their camps they built a double ended long drop toilet- door at each end and a partition in the middle- out of second hand timber siding. They decided that the timber wall of the outhouse was the perfect place to peg out the hide of this rangy beast they'd killed, and do "something" with the leather they were going to make. I rode over on my old Harley a few days later to see them about something and stopped in my tracks when I looked towards the outhouse. The hide had dried and shrunk and rolled up, taking a heap of boards with it. The whole lot ended up being burnt in the rubbish pile. Actually those blokes provided us with quite a bit of entertainment over the years. And as you can see- I'm a man of few words:)  JayInOz

I just about spat my coffee. Known a few of those sorts -- "farmers/tradies/manual workers do it, how hard could it be?" The sort of people who you hear circus music in the background whenever they're talking.

On 6/7/2019 at 5:49 AM, JayInOz said:

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

You could always apply a touch of marketing wank to avoid all that "eeew horse leather" stuff and call it brumby leather... something tells me the sorts who get uppity about using a slightly different type of hooven beast's hide aren't going to know much about cattle stations.

[Squirrelly66]

JayInOz, laughed my ass off at that story. Got a few new agers around here kinda like them. The entertainment value on neighbors like these is never ending. Like that Idea about Brumby Leather, Matt S. I've got a deer I put on my stretcher back in early April, stretched with the hair on. I stretched hard and tight, I scraped the hair off in early May and put it back in the holding shed still on the stretcher. I pulled it out last week and cut a continuous 40 mm strip till the hide was gone. I did not have to split much off the skin side to get a nice 2oz thickness. This is gonna plait Purdy nice when I'm done. Not sure which projects to use it on yet. I am doing a couple riata's this weekend, got the strips dehaired and split, cut to width and beveled, got it all coiled up in a wet towel in a cooler waiting for Saturday morning.