Once the hide has been completely broken in, take a days rest because your hands will need it.
Depending on what you are doing with the leather, you can do a few things to continue to soften it, especially if you are turning it into mocassins or a clothes. Get a pumice stone (not your wifes, trust me on this one
) and work the flesh side. You can get these at Wal-Mart or Walgreens. Don't bother with this unless the leather will touch your skin. This does turn it velvet soft, though.
Picture 1- Neatsfoot oil- I rub this into most of my projects just to make it a bit softer.
Picture 2- If you have a project in mind and want to leave the hide a bit stiff, work it as much as you are going to and let dry on a form. This hide, I let dry on a drum so it would have a more round form for the quiver. If you let it dry out to much, rub some of the tanning solution on the hide and start working it again until the point you want and then put it on the form. The nice thing about this is if you do let it dry to much and have to put more of the tanning solution on it, you will not be starting from scratch. Once you have streched the fibers, they are much easier to work and will not get stiff as easily.
Picture 3- I was also tanning about 12 dew claw pieces. I have seen some dew claw bags that looked awesome, so I decided to try and make one. As you can tell, I don't let much of a deer go to waste. I saved the toes thinking I will figure something to do with them. I've heard of people making rattlers with them, but not sure what I will be doing with these. Anyone know if you could make bow tips with them? I still have the leg bones and though about making a knife out of one and some tools out of others (Pappy just posted some cool pics of the tools and jackcrafty just did an awesome knife for the kith- perhaps a build along for that is in order
).
Picture 4- Here is the finished hide. I will be sending this out shortly for the Tom B Memorial Project so Pat can turn it into a quiver. I've never made a quiver, but thought I might try with one of these.
Picture 5- This was a bow grip that I tanned from a hide a few years ago. I just finished this bow and will be posting pics of it in the bow section. I smoked the leather so it would look better with the copperhead and osage. The leather comes out ivory white, which looks good on some projects, but I like to smoke or dye leather for most projects. Smoking leather can be a fun process, but it is an exhausting one in my opinion. If you don't watch it carefully, you can ruin all the work from turning the hide into leather.
Well, that's how I tan my hides. There are many ways, but this is my preference. I would like to do a brain-tan, but never have. Perhaps someone who has done this would do a brain-tan-a-long for me
If anyone has any questions about the process, feel free to ask. Thanks for looking.
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