Rawhide!
By Toby Trigger

Posted: January 10, 2015

No not the television series with Clint Eastwood and Eric Fleming, the real rawhide and how to make it.

  1. Skin that deer, elk, moose, buffalo, cow or whatever cloven hoofed animal you have and scrape the flesh of.
  2. Soak the hide in an alkaline solution for three days. Like 2 pounds of hydrated lime in 10 gallons of water or wood ashes in water so thick you can float an egg.
  3. Scrape the hair off the skin.
  4. Stretch the skin out on a board and make an incision in the center.

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5. Keep cutting the hide the width you want it to be until you have enough rawhide for your project.

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6. Use it!

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Rawhide is versatile and widely used.  The rawhide pictured above was used for a snowshoe repair.

It doesn’t take much to make a lot of useable rawhide. A 12 inch by 12 inch piece of hide can make over thirty feet of ¼” rawhide.

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