cleaning deer hooves

[Blacktail]

so,how do you experts clean deer hooves for tip of bows...john

[Pat B]

John, I've never used deer hooves as overlays but have used cow and pig hooves from Pet-R-Us for overlays. All I did was cut with a band saw, shaped with a belt sander. Degrease with alcohol or acetone and glue um down.

[Blacktail]

hey pat..thanks for the info...i was just wondering if i could salvage more off a deer...and for a future project...john

[dwardo]

John, I've never used deer hooves as overlays but have used cow and pig hooves from Pet-R-Us for overlays. All I did was cut with a band saw, shaped with a belt sander. Degrease with alcohol or acetone and glue um down.

I bet that stinks!

[Stingray45]

Thanks Pat, I think I'm gonna try that out.

[Christophero]

I have a couple of deer hooves, doe, that I let dry out.  Once the bone is out of them there really isn't much left to work with. 

[macbow]

I saved the ones from last season after dipping the foot in boiling water they just pull off.
I haven't found anything to use them on yet.
Ron

[sailordad]

if you tie the toes and dew claws,after they have been pulled off and dried of course,on a string you can make a rattle from it
i believe that some of the indians used these as a "door bell" on their tee pee entrances.

[finnfoto]

make sure you put some dry preservative over the cutt off and possibly consider mixing up a cup of dry preservative or 20 mule team borax with some cold water and soak the hooves for about 15 minutes init and then let dry by hanging from a wire around the cut off. This helps prevent any hauir slippage and bugs especially moths getting into a feeding frenzy..  Its usually best to cut all the hoof meat out with a scalpel and inject some liquid DP. into the leg portion of the hoof and under the skin and let dry.  once its dry you can go back with some 2 part epoxy putty and fill in the holes you removed the meat from and paint.   Just a few idea's to ponder.