Primitive hide glue

[DC]

I've made hide glue and it's a fairly straight forward job. How do you think they made it before they had decent pots. Fired clay(pottery) pots would work but what about before that. If you go back to the old hot stones in a container do you think you could maintain a simmer for 5-6 hours by dropping hot rocks in wooden bowl. How would you keep it reasonably clean? I suppose you could rinse the hot stones in an intermediate bowl. How about when you want to take the stones out of the "glue". You would be carrying some glue back to the fire. Would you have any glue left after 6 hours. How about a container like Outback Bob's. Do you think you could maintain a simmer over a fire for long enough without it catching fire. This is sounding better the more I think about it. Anyone ever made really primitive glue? Anyone have any clever ideas about how it was done?

[wstanley]

If you have access to soapstone then you can make a bowl out of it. Ceramic would work too. No heat stones, simply have a bed of coals which you will need to change out for new hot coals.

Here is a picture of a bowl I'm making which I intend on making sinew glue with. I imagine when prehistoric man  did this it was a group effort in taking turns watching the fire and maintaing the proper temp. I GUESS anyways.

Heat stones in a wooden bowl and basket would work, but you would loose a lot of glue I think cleaning off the boiling rocks. Or you have a secondary vessel (holding the glue material) in the vessel which holds the boiled water like a double boiler. Again just a guess. So if you had Outbackbobs container you would make a smaller one and drop the heated stoned in the large container with a hide covering it all???

[Outbackbob48]

Double boiler, I never thought of that. Bob

[DC]

Yeah, double boiler, that's an idea. I wonder what the minimum temp for making glue is.

[BowEd]

I watched Praire Wolf [John Mcphearson] cook deer meat in a fresh deer hide on a tri pod set up before heating water with rocks at rendezvous once.The water to make hide glue needs to get at least 140F.That's steaming water then.Not even a low boil.
Thing is it takes time.The process is'nt ruined taking a longer time either.The degree of size of rawhide pieces helps.Whether they are paper thing or big thick chunks.More surface area revealed.
This fella Bob Badine on U tube reduces thickness of moose dry scraping.Those slivers would be perfect  to reduce quicker making hide glue.I've used scrapings from deer hide before plus sanded type rawhide dust.That reduces quicker too.
I watched people disinfect water to drink in a plastic bottle without burning the bottle hanging over a fire.
It's a good question about making hide glue.A large enough clam shell will heat water hot enough to make hide glue.A skull cap possibly also.Not into fire but close over coals as stated.Your stone bowl surely would work right on the fire if it does'nt crack.
Not nearly as convenient as using a tin can.That would be and is a luxury.The chances of over heating the reducing process would be reduced using a natural type container.Thing is it's still the same type glue no matter what way it's made.

[DC]

I though about using a hide bag to cook it in but that made me think that the bag itself would be turning into hide glue and I wasn't sure if that was a good thing or not. I guess the obvious thing to do would be to try it but I don't have a fresh hide, no soapstone around here, but there are shells on the beach. Maybe I'll go take a look for a big one.

[sleek]

Something about boiling the skin of an animal in its own skull cap just seems so.... well,  I don't know the word, but yall feel it too.

[BowEd]

Not at all.It's a state of mind blockage you might have.

[sleek]

Not at all.It's a state of mind blockage you might have.

Oh, I expressed myself wrong i suppose. I mean to say its awesome, but i am lacking for colorful synonyms.

[BowEd]

Cool I guess I misinterpreted your meaning.To me it's just natural.

[Hawkdancer]

I like the soapstone bowl idea!  Getting a few friends over for a glue main and cooked meat singing would help keep the fire making coals and the heat steady.  Of course, you could go to WallyWorld and get a few packages of plain gelatin - same stuff!  Still, it helps to be able to do things the old way!

Guess the class of '57 would think I'm wierd or crazy, but I've always been wierd and crazy, it' kept me from going insane!!
Hawkdancer

[GlisGlis]

I think a small clay pot would work
easy to make, primitive, effective

[sleek]

I like the soapstone bowl idea!  Getting a few friends over for a glue main and cooked meat singing would help keep the fire making coals and the heat steady.  Of course, you could go to WallyWorld and get a few packages of plain gelatin - same stuff!  Still, it helps to be able to do things the old way!

Guess the class of '57 would think I'm wierd or crazy, but I've always been wierd and crazy, it' kept me from going insane!!
Hawkdancer

And no body knows if its something to bless or to blame

[DC]

I'm not so much interested in actually making glue. I have lots. I'm just interested in how they did it. Experimental archaeology if you will You can Google "making fire" and get a ton of hits of guys making a fire exactly the way primitive people did it. If you Google "making hide glue" the first thing you see is someone heating up a stainless steel pot. I'm thinking that the use of hide glue pre dated ceramics but I could be wrong. A steady heat source and a good pot make hide glue making easy but if you take those things away a pile of little ways things could make it go west.

[BowEd]

From my point of view I guess if your focus of challenge is the use of it after it's made it does'nt matter.Then your looking for quality in the quickest way possible and testing it in actual useful situations for durability and performance at least with bows.Might be cutting out the essence of it but it's just my view point.
I think the asians have the old school process down pat.
Same with making bows.Some like self/some like laminated more than the other.Modern tools making them are the norm.
Very few of us are making natural materials bows and less around yet around a camp fire in a tipi making bows with minimal tools consistently.