well, earlier today, a friend gave me the hide of a deer he shot and so all day today, i was working on scraping it clean. i tried to cut some smaller sections out of it and discovered something. deer hide is a lot stronger than people hide. as i was brutally putting all my strength into slicing through the hide, the knife unfortunately did not penetrate and instead slipped and gently inserted itself a couple milimeters into the skin on my finger. i got the bleeding to stop and cleaned it out good and it wasnt to horrible, but afterwords, i realized the irony of the situation. i couldnt for the life of me, cut through this dang deer hide but then it easily slid through my own skin.
so as some advise to the more fortunate, youre skin is not as strong as a deers. SO BE CAREFUL WITH KNIVES
I have several “hunting” knives , 2 X Buck folding, and even a "Swiss Army Knife, that will slice through a deer hide like well like a hot butter knife through butter.
You are right that the hide is tough it has to be, but if you were using your “fleshing” knife , that knife may not have had the edge needed to cut the hide ?
Plse be careful because deer blood has some strong proteins and pathogens in it, we always use surgical gloves, or calving gloves if we can…
i managed to cut through it fairly easily once i got the tip through. and i was pretty annoyed because it was a brand spankin new folding buck knife.
There wasn’t any blood on the hide though because i had washed it off thoroughly before hand. i was basically just working on scraping the fat off the hide and cutting it into managable sections. thanks for the concern though.
So what do you do with it once you have it scraped clean? I’ve always wondered how to use the whole animal. I figure if it’s not that hard to do, birds and furry critters could be of use to more than one person who ties.
once i have it clean, what i was taught to do was after you have it scraped totally clean, you make a frame, poke holes around on the edge of the skin, and you run a string in a hole, and loop it around the boards of the frame. then string it through the next hole and loop it around again. and just keep doing that, until you have the whole thing tied securly to the frame. then put some borax on it and let it sit for a month or two.
one tip though, this will give it a fairly rigid tan. im still trying to find out how to soft tan hide, like for zonker strips. if anyone has any info on tanning soft for zonker strips and the like, please post how.
you’ll get a better answer from someone more experienced, but there is a traditional bit of folk wisdom which states that the Great Creator made every animal’s brain big enough to tan his hide. after scraping the hide very clean, a mixture of mashed brain was applied evenly and completely and thoroughly worked in to the hide. has anyone on this board actually ever tried this?
Casey;
I did have a hunting buddy, when I lived in Idaho, that always used the Elk’s brain to tan his Elk hides.
Sorry, I don’t remember much about how he did it, mainly because when he started to “smash and mince up the animal’s brain”, I usually found something, else, to go do…
But, I do, remember that he mixed “enough Borax to the smashed/mushed brain” to make “thick soup”, then spread it evenly over the hide. Following, that, he’d take a piece of 2x4 and “work” the mixture into the hide as hard as he could, let it set for 24hours, then hose and wash the hide until clean.
Myself, I thought this “hide tanning was Squaw’s work”, being half Native American, but my ex’s lawyer told me “It wasn’t”.
Paul
I had a pair of mukluk’s made for me from brain tanning and then smoking. I don’t know much about the process. I was shown the procedure about 45 years ago. I don’t really remember exactly how to do it. I do know that to get the hair off the hide prior to tanning it was weighed down and sunk into the creek for at least a week or so. The hair then fell right off. Believe me when I say that hide stunk to high heaven when they fished it out of the creek. To soften it they pulled it back and forth over a rounded stump. This is to break up the fibres and make it soft. The old lady I bought the mukluks off of said Her mother used to chew the hides to make them soft.
Sad to say my dog ate one of the Muckluks many moons ago. The other was tossed out by my ex because of that smoky smell. I subsequently tossed her out so we’re even I spoze.
Most hides will after a bit of drying become fairly rigid no matter how they are tanned what you need to do to make them a bit more suptle is to “break” them and the best tool I have found for breaking is an old 2x4 and then a cinderblock.
To further explain… first tan said hide (doesn’t matter what kind of critter) after ample time to dry and properly cure scrape all the stuff off and be rather rough with it, which will begin the breaking process sightly. Take the hide to a 2x4 that is secured between two saw horses and just bend it over the board (hair side away from the board) and pull it back and forth repeated switching angles and turning the hide often. As the hide begins to become much more pliable the board will become less and less effective. At this point I go to the cinder block and do the exact same thing that i did on the 2x4 and it will begin to actually scrape and cut the hide slightly so be careful with thin skinned animals such as rabbits, but it will also begin to stretch the connective tissues as well wich if done well (and it will take a long time depending on the thickness of the hide) it will become very very soft and pliable. I have a couple squirrels that I have taned and broke that are so soft and suptle you could hang them over a pencil.
I looked into soft tanning hide pieces or the whole shebang…decided that this would be one instance where I would support my locally owned fly shop and give them my money…WAAAAY too much effort. All of my hides (rabbit, coast deer, coyote, ducks, pronghorn, etc) are dried with borax…and it doesn’t take that long.
ya can use ground acorns to tan with…just stretch the hide on a board after its cleaned real good, crush some acorns & spread that on the hide & in bout 3 days wipe off the acorns, work the hide & restretch it…do it again in bout 3 days then again in 3 more…acorns has a chemical in them called tannic acid…that acid is why the acorn has a yellowish orange colour…its a lot cleaner & dont smell as bad as using the brains…it leaves the hide soft & pliable…
Yup, I’ve fleshed and brain tanned 4 elk hides. Best to do one hide at a time, that way you can work the hide to make it super soft and pearly white. Very pretty when done. If you want it a tan color and waterproof you need to smoke the hide after it’s tanned.
In the old days this was considered women’s work. After you do a couple hides you’ll figure out why. It was too tough for the men.
I prepare my deer hair by carefully sliding the package off the peg board in my local fly shop. I carefully inspect the package to make sure the hair is the correct color, texture and length. Then I walk to the register and pay the propriator of the shop. The hair in question always comes out in top condition, clean and bug free. Time spent on the preparation process is generally less than 10 minutes. This process also works for larger animals like elk and bear or smaller animals like squirrel. 8T
I guess I’m getting “OLD”, because I also agree with your, method, 8T!
Of course, as soon as REE mentioned that; “You also need to smoke the hide”, I knew I’d stick to buying it, over tanning my own. Ain’t no WAY, I’m stuffing a bunch of dead animal fur into one of my expensive briars!!
(must, also, be a real hassle to keep it lit I’d think?)
They do great work and the prices are not too bad. I started using them after I had been through what you all are trying now. Tanning a hide is hard, back breaking work.