Finishing rawhide

[bigcountry]

I am making rawhide for bowbacking and possibly brain tanning for the first time.  I have 3Hides dehaired, and on its third soak of rinsing.  The rinse is starting to get a smell which surprised me.  But the hides still are not as stretchy as I thought they would be.

Next is stretching.  I heard a guy say he salted his rawhides while being stretched and for storing.  Is this really necessary?  I don't plan on braintanning until the spring. Figured out doing all this in the winter is tough.  

On the stretching, do I just stretching until dry?  I was going to stretch on plywood.  But didn' tknow if i needed to have air to front and back.  Just what I got available.
 

[Pappy]

I stretch them on a rack,when they are really wet,then let them dry and take them off the rack
and roll them up,no need for salt. I dry scrape mine so they are already on the rack,when they dry ,I scrape the hair off and if all you want is rawhide it is done. Since you wet scraped yours you will have to stretch a it and let it dry. Hope this is clear. The pictures show me scraping and then after it is cut loose from the rack.You will need to do the same just without the hair.
   Pappy

[bigcountry]

I am going to try the dry scraping next year if the good Lord blesses me with more deer.  I just didn't know you could do it.

I was talking to another braintanner, and he said he only dehairs while fresh (day or less old) and no liming.  He said he does it because he does moose hides and a sopping wet moose hide is 200lbs. 

I am going to stretch today on the plywood.

[bigcountry]

Well, I figured out what happens when you don't demembrane after rinsing. 

One on the right is membraned after rinsing
 

One on the right is not membraned at all and one on the left is half way scraped of the membrane after rinsing.  I just had a tough time getting it all off.
 

[rileyconcrete]

Should be pretty easy to pull or scrape the membrane off now.  that is usually when I do it.

Looks good.

Tell

[JW_Halverson]

If you are just going to back bows, there is no need to do anything but get the hair off.  I've even thought of leaving hair on one for bow backing, just for giggles.


From what I hear it is physically impossible to brain tan if the membrane is left on. 

[bigcountry]

Was planning on braintanning but use only for backing.