Buffalo Hide - Step 2
Well, I finally got the hide stretched and hung - after the frame fell apart on me. In retrospect, the mitered joints were a bad idea. Next one I'm cutting lap joints and pegging them instead of biscuited miters. I suspect some of it was it is cool and I underestimated the time the glue needed to set hard.It's missing a front leg at this point as a certain poodle ripped it off and ate it, fur and all. No apparent ill affects except she's thirsty, which is surprising. She seems quite proud of herself too. She keeps trying for seconds on that part touching the bottom of the frame. I gave her a tablespoon of mineral oil to make sure the hair passes okay. Feeding a dog a tablespoon of oil was an experience, to say the least.
It's much more humid out than I expected so hopefully this will dry so I can scrape it before it rots. The sun just came out so I may have a chance. Next time I do this is in the August dry spell or dead of winter. Drying is taking forever.
Yeah, the rot thing was a serious issue with Sally the Moose as well last year. Don't get me started on how my garage and my driveway smelled for weeks. So was the frame not being sturdy enough. I'll let Russ know--he's up in DC helping his grandma.
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You need to use a disinfectant when thawing them and a strong brine or so I was taught. This thing smelt meaty at worse when I was scraping it. It was still damp in spots and I am still worried about the hair. However, we had to finish it as the dog loves the flavor. She's gonna have hairballs from the part she ate.
Into the alcohol and turpentine bath it goes. I'll know by the weekend if it is worth finishing with grease.
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Anna's misremembering the steps somewhat that led to the smell... it got troublesome for the EXACT same reason as you're worried... the drying time. (There was a previous one that was sent salted, but it was a bad salt-job, and arrived already rotting. THAT, and my subsequent attempts to save it, are what Anna's remembering.
It was just too darned damp. I've got another moose in the freezer waiting for hot and dry weather. Sally, Mark Two, I resorted to using a little space heater to reduce the damp time, and it helped. My frame also tore itself rapidly to pieces... I'm going to have to take notes on how you built the one that survived. Sally Mk2 is in a room waiting for me to have time to soften it, probably on my return from Maryland.
I found the book I emailed you about, by the way.
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Which of the two tans are you thinking, btw? I've never seen the alcohol-turpentine job in action, so no idea what kind of hide that results in.
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What book you emailed me about? I don't remember that...
It's basically a really nasty de-greasing step. Pulls all the fat out. After that I am planning to use neatsfoot oil to do a simple "brain tan." Brains carry too many interesting thing for my taste.
All in all, next time I doing this is January. Or just writing another paid article and buying one...
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The book? "Women will be doctors." One of several older novels I'll be bringing back.
So you're using this as a bate. Cool, I thought you had to have enzymes for that. Please keep me up on how that progresses. You're planning on letting the neatsfoot oxidize, so you get your softening and your tanning at the same time, kinda like using fish oil?
After having gone through all that hell previously, I have to admit there's a part of me that's inclined to just stick Sally Mk3 in an old washing machine and fill it up with coffee until the stuff penetrates all the way in...
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