wet scrape deer hide?

[trail walker]

so i wanted to try a wet scrape deer hide without using any lie or wood ashes. I let the hide soak in the bucket for 2 1/2 days, i have been changing out the water once a day. and today i pulled it thinking there was barely starting to be some hair slippage out to dehair it and it kind of stank. is that normal for a plain water wet scrape or did i leave it in to long?

[Pappy]

Yep they stink, you have to remember that to wet scrape you have to have the hide just short of spoiling for the hair to slip.
 Pappy

[BowEd]

Yep like Pappy said and that rot line is fine.Past it and the leather is compromised to get weaker.If brain tanning it later you will notice it through the strenuous stretching and pulling to soften process.

[trail walker]

Awesome thanks guys!

[bjrogg]

Great to see you here again trail walker, hope school is going good. Did you leave that cowhide hair on rawhide, or did you tan it?
Bjrogg

[BowEd]

trailwalker....I should mention a little concentrated lysol in the water can combat the bacteria wanting to grow.The degree of stink your smelling will tell you just how far gone your rawhide has deteriorated.

[Zuma]

Walker are you somewhere warm? Or inside where it is warm?
Did you flesh the hide on the inside first?
Zuma

[Outbackbob48]

I think some of the stink is also from how much dirt and blood is in the hair, wet scraping is definitely a controlled rot. About 3 to 4 days in warm water and about 6 to 8 in ice cold water hair will slip, grain will not noticeably  swell with just water. I just finshed graining two hides that have been  soaking in KOH( lye)  and water for 4r 5 days in a heated building. Once rinsed and returned to neutral or  slightly acidic condition  bacteria stops and also smell is pretty well gone. Four more to go with graining, rinse , membrane and dry and I will have 15 ready for either rawhide or braintan, looks like a busy spring for sure   Bob

[BowEd]

I assumed trailwalker fleshed the hide before water soaking.
Cool Bob.You should have enough leather and rawhide for plenty of projects.It's alot of work for sure but pretty darn rewarding.Back in the 80's and 90's I did the same assembly line type of prep of numbers of hides in a wood stove heated basement of my farm house throughout the winter.In warmer weather outside.Knew friends at a local rendering plant that supplied me with road killed deer hides.Many people and outlets for selling them too.Birds of a feather do hang together.....lol.
All dry scraped though/cut out of frame and hung ready to be baintan.I've made more than enough projects out of braintan to satisfy myself and others when heavy into buckskinning.Back then the excess I sold as soon as I wanted to then.
I've seen braintan go up in price since then of close to 5 to 8 dollars more per square foot too.
Nowadays I just braintan or make rawhide just from the deer I kill with the old self bow which for me here slows the numbers down some.

[trail walker]

sorry guys I've been out for a while. i did flesh the hide first, and it was sitting in a five gallon bucket for 2 days in our sun room at probably 80 Fahrenheit. The hair was pretty dirty, i scraped off the hair side and through it into the freezer.  The smell was not like unbearable, but definitely stuck to my hands for like a day or so.

But i did a no no. I through the hide over a makeshift beam that had a bunch of dust on it so now the flesh side is all dirty. I'm i correct in assuming that i need to get the membrane off the flesh side to and the dirt will come off? i peeled some of the membrane off by hand and it was the good creamy white color under.

bjrogg! i did get the cow hide brained, I'll have to put on some pictures. It turned out pretty stiff even after spending like 20 hours on it with a belt sander thinning it. the day i tried to soften it we put the frames corners up on some barrels, wet the hide until it was almost fresh off the cow constancy. And then me and my little brother bounced on it like a trampoline and hit/rubed it with sledge hammers for like 8 hours. turned into a good wall hanging, and when i can get some deer hide tanned for the tops it will probably keep me in moccasin soles for half my life. 

[aaron]

The dirt should come off during scraping and softening. (though I did a hide once that got stained with charcoal and stayed that way despite scraping.)
I want to put in a plug here for using lye. This is becoming more and more of a neccecary step for modern wet-scrape tanning. Many folks think it dissolves the "glue" in the hide.It also makes scraping easier.
 Another step that goes hand-in-hand with this is acidifying. These are described in the 2nd ed. of Matt Richard's book deerskins into buckskins. These steps may takena few extra minutes, but may save you from re-doing a hide that comes out stiff.

[bjrogg]

I really always like these hide care threads. I always learn something.

Wish I was young enough to jump on a trampoline for 30 minutes even trail Walker. That's a real family project there and one I'm sure you and your little brother will always remember. Wait till he starts coming up with projects he wants you to help with.lol. Thanks for posting I'd love to see some pictures.
Bjrogg

[trail walker]

so i also need to scrape the membrain off the flesh side right?

[Zuma]

Yep I would recommend scraping the flesh side as well.
Zuma

[Outbackbob48]

Wait, a little confusing here, The flesh side and the membrain side or the same side, the other side is hair and grain. Membraining is just refleshing the flesh side. Clear as mud  Bob