The wonders of elbow grease
- Thread starter PatrickM
- Start date
Very nice Patrick.
Oh and by the way, I think I forgot to thank you for that little something you sent me.
Very generous indeed.
Oh and by the way, I think I forgot to thank you for that little something you sent me.
Very generous indeed.
looks good, ive just received a copy of deerskins into bucksins by matt richards. hope to put to use on some deer from my mates shooting trips.
probably one of these things that looks easy but hard to do in practice, should have hung about at the crannog to see AndyE with the one he was working on.
Stoo.
probably one of these things that looks easy but hard to do in practice, should have hung about at the crannog to see AndyE with the one he was working on.
Stoo.
Shambling Shaman
Bushcrafter (boy, I've got a lot to say!)
Thanks for the kind words folks.
John Fenna - all of the wilderness skills take a very long time, with hide tanning I scrape down a big batch over a few days and then freeze them,
that way I can brain them when I find a gap in my work schedule. Here is a photo of 9 hides.
This year I have scraped down 19 skins which will be transformed into trousers, shirt, boots, cape and then I will work another batch for a skin shelter and new bull boat.
PS. Thanks Bernie for the Fallow hide I will use that for a pair of mits.
John Fenna - all of the wilderness skills take a very long time, with hide tanning I scrape down a big batch over a few days and then freeze them,
that way I can brain them when I find a gap in my work schedule. Here is a photo of 9 hides.
This year I have scraped down 19 skins which will be transformed into trousers, shirt, boots, cape and then I will work another batch for a skin shelter and new bull boat.
PS. Thanks Bernie for the Fallow hide I will use that for a pair of mits.
Stooboy - take a look at this site. http://www.braintan.com/
In particular... if you're getting hide from friends, see if you can get them to read this article from the braintan site: http://www.braintan.com/articles/Billyskins/billyskins1.htm
It goes into detail about how to skin a deer in order to get the best possible hide from it. Apparently it's different from the methods often used when the skin isn't going to be tanned.
If you can get them skinning like that, it should make the tanning easier - or so the artcile says - I'm speaking from a position of absolutely no experience.
Thanks for the PM bigshot,
Ill look into that site, is maintained by the author of the book i bought, a lot of information on there to digest, although hadnt noticed the skinning part as i will probably get them handed to me, i should look into it more, if it makes the skinning process easire im sure my friend will quickly adopt.
Otherwise the skins are normally dumped, so i figured it was about time i attempted to make use of them.
I might try and do a rabbit or fox skin first as a starter and then do a bigger skin. Shall see. Need to get a decent draw knife first though
Stoo.
Ill look into that site, is maintained by the author of the book i bought, a lot of information on there to digest, although hadnt noticed the skinning part as i will probably get them handed to me, i should look into it more, if it makes the skinning process easire im sure my friend will quickly adopt.
Otherwise the skins are normally dumped, so i figured it was about time i attempted to make use of them.
I might try and do a rabbit or fox skin first as a starter and then do a bigger skin. Shall see. Need to get a decent draw knife first though
Stoo.
I get the impression that the skinning method he describes is different while not necessarily any harder or easier. Maybe it is easier though.
The author of the article says of the guy he learned this method of skinning from...
"He used his whole body to do it: his hands, his elbows, his knees, even his feet. He told me, that as a meat cutter who gets paid by the pound for cut and wrapped meat, his main concerns when skinning were to get it done fast and to leave as much meat on the animal as possible. And for me as a tanner his hides were great to work with because he pulled the hide off --- instead of cutting it off with a knife. Which means a clean hide with no knife marks or holes."
This method leaves the flank meat on the deer - apparently good for burgers and saussage. So even if it does take more time - it gives a bigger haul.
I seem to remember seeing a quote somewhere that said how great it was that the head of an animal contained just enough brain to tan it's skin. Pretty handy really.
The author of the article says of the guy he learned this method of skinning from...
"He used his whole body to do it: his hands, his elbows, his knees, even his feet. He told me, that as a meat cutter who gets paid by the pound for cut and wrapped meat, his main concerns when skinning were to get it done fast and to leave as much meat on the animal as possible. And for me as a tanner his hides were great to work with because he pulled the hide off --- instead of cutting it off with a knife. Which means a clean hide with no knife marks or holes."
This method leaves the flank meat on the deer - apparently good for burgers and saussage. So even if it does take more time - it gives a bigger haul.
I seem to remember seeing a quote somewhere that said how great it was that the head of an animal contained just enough brain to tan it's skin. Pretty handy really.
Great work.
As for skinning:
An old traveling butcher that used to help me out (and when i was a child taught me the "ways of old") peeled off the skin as decribed above.
It really isn't hard to do, almost nomatter what you skin. Blackboar however is hard to skin that way, due to the neck"plate" it has.
As for skinning:
An old traveling butcher that used to help me out (and when i was a child taught me the "ways of old") peeled off the skin as decribed above.
It really isn't hard to do, almost nomatter what you skin. Blackboar however is hard to skin that way, due to the neck"plate" it has.
I think that holds true for all animals except human, some humans don't have brains enough to come out of the rain let alone tan their own hide.
Seriously yes they do, but I find that buying a pound of pig brains when I need them is better than trying to save the deer brains until the hide is ready.
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