The Adventures of Stinky Rawhide: Deerskin Soup, Part 1

[Minuteman]

If you don't have em fleshed and don't change the water for two days , you are in for an olfactory assault my friend!
 Keep us posted.

[JackCrafty]

Picked up a bunch more skins last night....seven I think....and 32 feet.  I washed the blood off ALL the skins and put 'em all together in a big bin.  The first batch still smells fresh....luckily it's been very cool during the day...with 20's and 30's at night.  I think I've got enough to keep me very busy this weekend.

[Minuteman]

Good grief ! You ARE a glutton for punishment! ;)I gotta get a new set up for fleshing next year . The waist beam is killing my back. Though I probably have it set too low.
 Got the hole-less skin( the 4 day water soaked one) dehaired and into a the cooler with the other ones. It slipped pretty easy not as easy as two days in the buck but very little work involved.
 They are all soaking in water with a little vinegar.
 I am gonna have to scud off the flesh side again to get the ash out of it, I'm afraid.
  Jack , you might wanna change the name of this thread to hides hysterics or something like that. "Stinky rawhide" just doesn't sound right. Like its some cowboy's name from a b movie or something.

[JackCrafty]

Heheh.....hides hysterics....

OK, I changed the name of the thread.

[orcbow]

Good to see you guys earning some real "oooga booga" credentials. I can tell you it is a lot more fun to read your "adventures" than it is to be in your shoes. But when you get to the end.....It's worth it! Just think, leather that's good enough to eat!!

Well, maybe not that good, but all-natural?

[JackCrafty]

 

[Minuteman]

Thats pretty funny right there!

[mullet]

  Oh!  I forgot to tell you another,,, easy way to slip hair and it doesn't stink. If you freeze it for a few days, then take it and let it completely thaw. Then freeze it again, real good, and then thaw it again, the hair will fall out like a dog with mange.

[Minuteman]

Well, I pulled all 4 hides out of the water/ vinegar solution they all felt much less swollen and they no longer had that" so slickery you can't hold onto" it feeling. I figured they were ready for the tanning solution after I scudded off the flesh side again, I was really trying to remove some of the ash crud from the skin. Next time I'm gonna dehair with pickling lime so they don't get so dern dirty. I didn't do as good a job as I could have but it was cold out there with wet hands. I think next year I'm gonna do my hides in October. I guess that means I need to kill a bunch a deer with my bow, huh?
 I checked the hides after they had been in the bark for two hours and they had already started absorbing the tannin.
 Pretty cool , I've wanted to do this for ten years.
 Chris

[JackCrafty]

Well, I fleshed 5 out of 11 hides and the ones with the flesh still on are getting a little ripe.  I changed the water last night and they weren't too bad...but I got to finish them up soon!

Here's my hide fleshing set-up.  The platform (that I stand on) is an old gate, the fleshing beam is a 4" treated post with a 2x4 nailed to the bottom, my scraper is a metal rule I got off a combination square, gloves, plastic bag "shirt", and a hide in a bucket.




Here's a couple of hides soaking in a solution of water (10 gals ?) and 2 cups drain opener....a technique that Cowboy suggested when he was here. Let's see if it works.   Smells good anyway.


I rounded the corners of the rule so that I wouldn't punch holes in the gloves.  The edge is just sharp enough for fleshing, yet not so sharp that it cuts the gloves. 


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[Minuteman]

I envy your lack of frozen-ness What the temps like there?
 
  It was 28 degrees and freezing rain this morning.

[JackCrafty]

We had a warm snap last couple days....72^o today with 40^o tonight.  Getting colder tomorrow....42^o tomorrow with 23^o overnight.

[JackCrafty]

OK...here's the progress on the deerskins:

The first batch of skins I got was on Tuesday (Dec 2nd).
They were placed in a bin until Thursday...flesh and all.
When I got the second batch on Thursday, I washed all the skins and put them into bins...flesh and all.
No hair was slipping and all the skins smelled fresh.

Saturday I fleshed two skins and put them into a solution of water and drain opener.
No hair was slipping.

Sunday I fleshed 3 more skins and hung them up to dry.
I didn't have time to rack them so I just hung them them up.
They were a little smelly but not too bad.
No hair was slipping.

Last night (Monday), I tried to scrape hair off the two hides that were in the water and drain opener solution....hmmmm....the hair was not coming off at all.  Now, the other hides that were still in water were smelling pretty ripe....but no hair slipping on any of them either.....at all......nada......the hair was as firmly in place as the first day I got them.

Temperatures ranged from high 20's at night to low 70's during the day during this period.

So I decided put all the skins (even the dry ones - they were getting smellier) into water with drain opener.  This time I added quite a bit of drain opener to the water....and they are soaking right now.  I stirred them this morning before going to work.  I'll check on them tonight. 

[JackCrafty]

No go on the drain opener (the hair is getting weaker but at this rate it will take a month...or more). The hair is not slipping well on ANY of the hides except where the skins are thin, like the belly area.  It appears that lye is not the main ingredient in drain opener anymore anyway....I read the label and it's bleach (10%) and lye (2%).  GREAT.

So I racked 4 hides (I might dry scrape these), threw out the ones that smelled really bad, and put two hides into a bin with hydrated lime.

I tried looking for pickling lime but after 4 grocery stores, confused looks, and wasted gas (good thing it's cheap right now)...I bought some hydrated lime.  If that doesn't work I'm going to mail order some potassium hydroxide.  (While I was at it, I looked for borax with not luck....except for the type that kills roaches).

[El Destructo]

Man ....you don't have a Super Wal-Mart...or a United Supermarket near You??? We use 20 Mule Team Borax all the time...and buy it from Wal-Mart....and they have pickling Lime too...so does United....cause I just bought two more Pounds for an Elk Hide I have to do