Just for info. I bought a couple of rawhide dogbones to make some glue the other day. When I soaked the bone to soften it some of it just fell apart into mush. It wasn't one good piece and some mush it was one piece that was good at one end and mushy at the other. If I had to take a guess it looked like they started the glue making process and part way through pulled out some skin and rolled it into bones. It still made good glue but I would doubt it's strength for backing.
Yeah, I had the same thing happen the first time I got a rawhide bone. I was very skeptical about rawhide and hated the look if the stuff, but decided to give it a go on a less than great mulberry bow for practice after reading more about it on a few forums who cited using rawhide dog bones. The first company I bought from was like you said, mush after soaking...so it became glue. I tried a different company that didn't look so whitish and the rawhide was (is) plenty strong. After applying it to the mulberry bow I went about tillering, but wasn't happy with the bow and it had lost too much weight at that point for me to bother with, so I bent it till it snapped on the tiller tree. To my surprise, I watched as the rawhide held a massive splinter down and refused to let the bow blow up. Could have been more related to mulberry's stringy fibres, but you could still clearly see the rawhide keeping it down. I became a believer after that!
