I usually cut a line though the belly of coon that are cased while braining and stretching while drying.I can get a better stretch on the hide and on the rope.
Hides look well fleshed and the fur looks good too.Pictures are not distorted.
The leather structure of animals like deer,elk,and buffalo get progessively coarser.In fact one has to be careful about getting buffalo or elk too thin.Just concentrate thinning in the neck,spine,and hip areas only.While staking elk or buffalo holes can appear just from stretching too much while staking.Deer is the tightest of the ungulates and usually that does'nt occur.Antelope and goats too.I have over stretched yearling deer before though too as it's rather thin and dries rather fast.
Beaver,coon,coyotes,otter,and fox are all tight also.That's why deer are really the best garment leather out there.
Beef hides are the exception.Their fiber structure is tighter yet even with it's large size.They are very hard to get a good stretch on to soften.I believe horses are about the same also but can't say for sure.Usually I make rawhide from beef hide.They can be somewhat softened or pliable though after braining to make parafleches and rawhide boxes from though.Contrary to what some may think that smoking helps soften them like doing moose does not work on beef rawhides.
I usually stake buffalo or elk till almost dry then unlace it and rope it.It's the volume of square footage that's tiring to keep up with,but does get lighter as moisture disappears.Of course areas that are dry don't need attention.Just the still damp areas.It can take quite a while till the neck and hips of elk and buffalo get dry.It has fooled me before and takes extra hours to completely dry.I've rebrained the thicker areas and reroped again before with success too.
Putting it into a plastic bag while taking a break does a great job of not letting it dry out on you.I think it redistributes the dampness from the thicker areas to the thinner areas already softened making the process easier and actually dries the hide faster in the end.
Then after taking it out of the plastic bag the hide gets an overall roping again and then back to concentrating on the thicker areas again.
In the past I've laid towels onto deer hides and rolled them up for an hour or so after twisting to even out the moisture overall on hide and then begin roping it dry.I see no need to do that any more though for quite some time as I rotate the donut 90 degrees and retwist the hide a few times more,and that is good enough then.A few small wetter places may still remain but no too bad really.
Should have more pictures of this,but this in the only one I've got showing the donut formed and the twisting process.
This was a beef hide but the set up is the same for all hides.The hide is layed onto the pole width wise overlapping neck and hind quarters over the pole.Edges are rolled up to meet each other.This prevents any slippage that might occur during the twisting.
After twisting and catching all the drippings I put the brain solution back onto the stove to warm up while stretching and pulling the hide back into shape on the rope.Then redunk the hide back into the brain solution for an hour or so and go through the process again till satisfied.
When I see small bubbles oozing out of the rawhide while twisting it's telling me it is getting brained properly.
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