An egg stretched the brain mixture because I was treating other hides. At this point I could have stretched the rawhide out and let it dry. A little hot water is sprinkled onto the hide as it is dehaired to help the hair keep slipping. This worked amazingly well on my goatskin. A rock set on top of the hide keeps it submerged. It generally takes two hours for a goatskin. The hide is placed in a bucket and covered in hot water and left until the hairs pull out easily. Hot water at about 120 to 150 degrees loosens the hair in an hour or so. Chickens are also scalded for easier plucking. Photo 4: Dehairing after hot water soak.ĭehairing is usually accomplished by soaking the hide for several days in a lime or lye solution, or a water soak of several weeks. Photo 3: Scraping while pushing downhill. What a difference! The hide was undamaged after both sides were processed. I used it to flesh and dehair my most recent goat hide. Not having one, I split a hickory stick into a square length about 20 inches long. Recently I learned that traditional scrapers were made out of leg bones. However, scraping the meat and membranes off thinner hides often damaged them. I have always used a draw knife to flesh heavy hides. Photo 2: The hickory stick fleshing beam and wet hide. I made an apron out of a feed sack and a length of twine for a neck hanger and another for the waist tie. A fleshing knife or draw knife is used to scrape the hair and flesh off the hide by pushing downhill each stroke. The fresh hide is draped over it and held in place by my belly pressing the hide to the high end of the log. It angles down to the floor with the bottom end jammed against a wall so it doesn’t move. My fleshing beam is a six inch log about six feet long with two legs attached to one end. Photo 1: My upgraded fleshing beam with folding legs and feed sack apron. It is possible to make thin rawhides, such as rabbits’ and goats’, into finished hides in one day. This is the simplest, fastest way to produce a usable product and uses only farm sourced supplies. The way I do it is not technically tanning but treating hides. Another downside is that bugs will eat the acid tanned hides but ignore the brain tanned hide sitting on top of them. I experimented with battery acid, which is inexpensive, but somewhat dangerous to use. Several years ago I regained the itch to tan hides. But even though the chemicals were safe, I still wanted something simpler. I really learned how to flesh and dehair hides there! It was smelly, heavy, wet work. We used lime to dehair the hides and glutaraldehyde as a tanning agent. Many years ago, when I spent time in the far north, I worked in a tannery that produced smoked moose hides. Soon I will have rustic leather for my upcoming winter projects. Smoke oozes out of holes in the worn tarp. Half rotted branches gathered from the woods smolder in a shallow pit below. Brain tanned goat and rabbit hides are hanging on a rusted tomato trellis beneath a tattered blue tarp.
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