Processing Cow Femur

[wolfsire]

Processing Cow Femur

I bought a couple of cow- probably steer- femurs yesterday to make into some bone knives. As at least half of the money went into the joints, and the pair cost me about $30 at about $1.50/lb, I want to get the most I can out of them. I had the joints in a big pot simmering low all night. Because they are so big, I think they will be simmering tonight too.

I figure I can get stock. Maybe I can make that into bone glue. Would that just be filtering and simmering low, being careful not to hard boil, until almost all the water is gone?

I figure I can get fat. Is there something I can use to improve the smell and or prevent rancidity? Something girly. This is for my wife. I though I would rub and heat the fat back into the knife, maybe mix it with bees wax.

I figure I can get marrow. Yummy. Recipes would be appreciated.

I might be able to get a point or two out of the joints, but I'm guessing probably not, wrong shape and weakened by the long heat and coligin extraction.

For the middle sections, I plan on only giving them a quick boil to cook the non-bone bits before scraping them off, so as to keep in the coligin. I know bone dust is dangerous, so I'll cover my eyes, nose and mouth when cutting and grinding.

Any thoughts or advice would be appreciated. 

[mullet]

  Knox is easier if you want the glue, and probally equal to or better quality. I just pick the bones up from the dead cows, I never had to buy them.

[Justin Snyder]

Find a local butcher.  They kill a lot of cows and throw away a lot of bones.  You can usually pick up all you want for free.  Justin

[wolfsire]

No dead cows.  This WAS the local butcher.  Aparentely there is a demand by big dog for the femurs, they had it priced out.   Here LV there are some cattle, but not much.  Tried to get some sinew too, but no luck.

[El Destructo]

next time you need bone......you just email me......I live in Texas Cattle Country..........I can most likely get all you want form the Slaughterhouses....

[wolfsire]

next time you need bone......you just email me......I live in Texas Cattle Country..........I can most likely get all you want form the Slaughterhouses....

Thanks, Ill keep that in mind.

[stickbender]

     Wolfsire;
     If you want good clean bone, just go to petsmart, or any pet store.  you can get nice clean, white, non smelling bones, they're a lot cheaper than $30.00!  I used to make jewelry out of it.  It is nice material to work with.    I used to buy soup bones, and make soup, and then put the bones in an ant mound, and let them do work of getting out any of the remaining tendons, etc.  Usually not much left for them, though.  I would let them sit in the sun for awhile, till I learned that hydrogen peroxide worked pretty well too.  Any way, Clean them up, and you can bleach them, too.  Yeah, wear a mask, and eye protection.  It polishes up very nicely.  If you have a hand piece, or a dremel you can polish it with white polishing compound.  You can get it at jewelry supply stores, or go on line for it.  Just sand the bone down, to a nice smoothe finish, and then use the compound on a felt wheel, and then finish with a clean cloth wheel to buff it.  I used to be a Dental Lab Tech, so I used my hand piece to work with it.  It really does take a nice shine.  Yeah, you can pretty much toss the knuckles.  Maybe toss them at political gathering......But they would probably figure that if you could afford to throw away soup bones, then you can afford more taxes......

Enjoy.                                             
                                                                                Stick Bender

[stickbender]

  Oops forgot to say that like the others said, you can use dead cow bones also.  I used to get a lot of them from a dairy.  When one their cows died, they would haul it out in the pasture, and let buzzards enjoy.  I would get those that were a couple of years old.  I would then boil and bleach them to kill any remaining baddies, that might still be living in there. Saw the ends off,and then stock pile them, till I needed them for something.  The front leg shanks, are nice also.  A bit thicker, but shorter.  I have made arrow heads out of them.  If I knew how to use this #$#@*&%!!computer, I would post a picture of one.  Anyway, I thought I would add this, and again, bone is really a neat medium to work with.

                                                                                           Stick Bender

[wolfsire]

I made some yummy albondigas soup from the stock this week.  No rice in the meatballs but equl parts beef, pork and lamb.