Folks,
I have acquired a whole whitetail deer hide and am going to dry it out after some scraping to clean off the tallow etc.
I’ve done some small drying jobs on squirrels, moles, a few birds etc but never something as large as this.
I’m looking for suggestions from anyone who has also done this…How did you go about it? Did you cut it into a few (4-5) pieces and nail it down and then sprinkle on the Borax/salt? Did you cut it up and wash the hide before stretching her out?
I’m looking forward to lots of bass bug tying this winter,Dahlberg Divers etc.
Like you, I succeeded with small critters but when I recently tackled a full deer hide I gave up and discarded it. Even if I succeeded the hide would not be tanned and pliable. As a reference. I could buy a year’s supply of tanned deer hide and a tail for the price of a carton of cigarettes. I’m not affluent but my time is worth more than that.
Maybe ten years ago so so I did three at once. I’ll let someone else tell you how to properly cure one, But I can tell you that you are going to have way more natural brown color than you will need. Cut it up any only keep the most prime pieces.
The white belly hair on the other hand, you can’t have enough.
I have a big box that I dyed different colors.
Jeremy-
I tend to agree with Dudley. I have found it is better to keep the prime parts of the hide. The belly, across the rump or hind quarters, and the tail. Scrape the pieces well and apply borax. This will dry the hide. No it won’t be tanned, but to use it to tie from, it doesn’t need to be.
Scott
Thanks gentlemen. I’ll search a site or two to find the more desireable areas and follow your advice.
I don’t really relish the idea of doing this BUT…at the price of deer hide these days it’ll be a good thing. My spinning/packing and general hair tying needs mucho improvement and the waste won’t hurt as much by having a good quantity on hand.
I’m aware of the posts saying that good hair makes all the difference but I do not know what “good hair” is. Hopefully, in reading up, I’ll find some good info. Chris Helm comes to mind.
Get all of the fat and membrain off the skin. Wash it and hose it off. You can nail it to a piece of plywood skin side out with long nails that are driven in the board just enough to hold them. As you nail, stretch the hide as much as you can, this will make it more flexible when dry than not and letting it shrink. When all the nails are in, pull the hide out to the nail heads. This will allow air to circulate. I dry mine inside the house. At this point, there is really nothing to rot since all that is in the skin is water. If it has been washed, there should be little or no odor.
Folks,
I got that hide all cleaned up this weekend. Having never done it before, when I initially spread it out it looked like a real job and I considered just forgetting the whole thing.
Then I began working it with my knife held 45 degrees and scraping. It worked quite nicely and I actually had a good time when it cleaned up. A der hide is really something to behold! Talk about a tough critter!
When finished I cut it up into approz 1 ft sq. sections (after being careful to section off the white underbelly portions) and washed and rinsed it.
Now tonight they’ll be stretched across some ply wood as Ron mentioned.
My bride went a bit nuts at first, with me bringing it into the house then she saw how clean everything came out and I she settled down a bit. You know how women are!?!? (BG*)
I’ll be doing this again. It’s been a great experience.
One thing that kept going through my head while cleaning this hide was thinking about the Indians and them cleaning Bison hides.
There I sat with my Buck knife, ceramic sharpening tool etc and a nice table to work from. I thought of the hardships they endured, the reasons they needed to do this work (subsistence) and the lifestyles they had.
I don’t know why, I’m not into fawning over the old whiteman/Indian routine but it became pretty clear just how good we have it these days! Sometimes you just can’t help but imagine…
This was fun! That, an’ I gotta helluva lotta deerhair for tying!!!
While not pertaining to curing and tanning deer hide; here’s one thing that I do. I keep a VERY sharp COLD STEEL brand knife in my truck and when I pass a road killed deer I will quickly assess its condition on a drive by and then turn around and park safely on the shoulder and take hold of the tail and with one swipe I have a deer tail with enough long dark and white deer hair for a bunch of flies. If I dont want to mess with it at the time, I just ziplock it and store it in the freezer until needed. I have two deer tails and two foxtails on hand right now and keep a look out for more as I drive to and from work. Same goes for roadkill squirrel tails , too. hey, don’t laugh free is free and my wife supports me as long as I keep the tails in the freezer out back instead of in the house.
I fish, therefore I swam.
[This message has been edited by featherchucker (edited 14 November 2005).]
I am fortunate to have friends who supply me with an occassional deer hide. Being that I only want the hair, I try to make the task as simple as possible, yet good for long term storage. I will first of all assess the condition of the hide. I may be incorrect here, but I find that a late fall deer hide will provide the better hair than an early autunm kill. I take it into the garage and lay the hide onto a sheet of plywood. Scrape it as clean as possible, then I cut most of it into approx 18" workable squares and remaining strips. I will then wash all the pieces in a saturated solution of warm water and 20 Mule Team Borax. This washes all the blood and dirt from the pieces. After shaking out most of the water, then I lay the pieces onto the plywood hair side down and cover them completely with pickling salt. The salt will draw the moisture from the skin causing it to shrink and firmly hold the hair in place. Each day I will check on the progress and periodically turn the pieces over to allow the hair side to dry. The whole process takes me about a week. Once the hide pieces have dried out completely, I will once again give them a quick wash in a borax solution to remove excess salt residue from the hide. I don’t want salt residue on my hands to ruin my vise or tying tools when I work with the hair. Let dry on the plywood and turn them over each day. When thoroughly dry, I store them in a Rubbermade container with moth balls. The process takes time, but I have been using this method for many years now and the hair has stored well for future use.
David P.,
Thanks for your reply. One thing that confused me in reading it was your mentioning that once you’d had the hide all dry with salt you would again wash it in Borax solution to rid the hide of salt.
Hmmm. Now you need to dry it all again. I’m confused as to why? So you scrub the salt off then do you stake the hide out to dry again or just flip/flop them as mentioned without staking them down?
I’m thinking once dried, even with salt you wouldn’t want to rewash it?? Maybe I missed something.
Thanks,
Jeremy.
Here’s the hide cut into pieces afetr being washed and now staked and boraxed.
I’m certainly no expert on this but isn’t the hair along the backbone premo for spinning…tends to be long,
coarse, and straight? Kelly Galloup emphasizes those qualities and somewhere I got the idea that’s where it’s found on the deer???
Jeremy and Duckster–Go to the Chirs Helm site that I just added above and read under “Hair Charts” It explains where each section of hide hair can be used. No need to guess what can be used where it’s all in the many pages that Helms shows.
To all who posted and helped with info., I thank you!
I just took all the pieces off of the nails, cleaned up all the excess Boraxo, took the skins outside and with a stiff nylon brush, I scrubbed the back of the hides to clean up the extra clinging Boraxo.
Then I brushed the hair out with (cough, cough) a hairbrush I “found” in the drawer BG and lightly sprinkled some talc in the hair and fluffed it up some.
You should see the beauty of the hair on those pieces now. Awesome and fluffy! This was incredible and fun.
And so was the trip to the store…I “treated” my very understanding bride to a new set of brushes…my dime! “No problem sweetie…honest!!!” G
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