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Colum6	goat hides	Lead	[-]
Posts: 74 (05/21/09 7:32 PM) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	Tags : None Well, my goat hide projects start tomorrow. I'm picking up about 5 goat hides. I would like to turn three of them into rawhide and a couple I plan on soap tanning. A few issues have come up. For the rawhide, I plan on following the Invisible Tanner's tutorial. I went to all of the home improvement stores and Wal-mart looking for hydrated lime and I can't find it. They have fast acting lime granuals and Menards has quarried "lawn and garden" lime. None of them say hydrated lime. Are either of these what I'm looking for? Any suggestions what I can do? For the soap tanning, I'm using washing soda (Na2Co3) to remove the hair; it's from a recipe I found in a book; says it really causes the grain to swell for easier removal. Second question. After I have soaked the hides in the hair removal solution, can I just let them sit for awhile after neutralizing? Since I have several hides, I can't stretch and dry them all out at the same time. I am guessing letting them dry is no problem and that all I would need to do is to rehydrate them later before stretching. Thanks. Todd
inwabo		#1	[-]
Posts: 463 (05/22/09 6:39 AM) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	Go to the feed store or the hardware store for hydrated or "active" lime. HArdware store that sells cement products is best. After they are rinsed they can sit awhile, or freeze, or dry. Patrick Patrick Metaphors be with you.
Colum6		#2	[-]
Posts: 75 (05/22/09 10:12 AM) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	Thanks, Patrick.
Colum6	scraping	#3	[-]
Posts: 76 (05/23/09 1:26 PM) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	I started my goat hide projects today and scraped five hides. I'm a little worn out. There were quite a few small holes in the hides. A couple of hides each had a big hole in almost the same spot. I think the skinner must have difficulty in a particular area. I ran into quite a few areas with deep scoring from the skinning knife. I can't complain too much, I think I got a good price on them. On the first couple of hides, I went over these scored areas with the scraper and tore several new holes. I tried to be careful on the subsequent hides and even tried to follow the scoring so as not to tear the weak parts. This resulted in marginal success; some holes appeared, although small, and I didn't tear areas I had torn on earlier hides. Will these thinner scored parts be a problem as I finish up the rawhide or use the skin for a drum head? I'm dehairing in two different solutions to see if there is any difference. 1) hydrated lime 2) sodium carbonate (washing soda). I'm not quite sure what to do with the holes. I am using four of the hides for rawhide for drums and one hide I'm soap tanning. Is it customary/useful to sew up the holes when making rawhide? If so, when should this be done. thanks. May it be blessed, Todd
NordicFletchr		#4	[-]
Posts: 381 (05/23/09 9:49 PM) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	I don't know much about tanning hides, or making rawhide, but I do know some about drum heads. It should be ok to scrape the hide thin, if it's going to be a drum head; thicker lasts longer, but thinner can give a "sweeter" tone. I've seen many a drum head that you could almost read a book through (the hide was scraped so thin it was like parchment that had been re-used more than just "a few" times), and they were some of the sweetest sounding drums I've ever heard. Just make sure there are no holes in the skin, not even sewn-up holes, when you pull it tight on the drum. Holes in drum heads become tears, and tears mean the drum head needs to be replaced. The Past is the Past, what is Done cannot be undone; While it is Good to remember the Past -- living in the Past, allowing it to rule your life, accomplishes nothing good. I have been told only a non-Native would ever think this way. If so, then I am proud to be "non-Native".
inwabo		#5	[-]
Posts: 465 (05/26/09 7:24 AM) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	Sodium Hydroxide (lye) is a better substitute for Calcium Hydroxide (hydrated lime). I have never used Sodium Carbonate (washing soda) in tanning or making rawhide. I have used both of the other two, plus Potassium Hydroxide (wood ash lye) in tanning with good results. Patrick Patrick Metaphors be with you.
Quillsnkiko		#6	[-]
Posts: 2098 (05/26/09 8:41 AM) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	colum 6 Ive never seen holes sewn in a hide unless it was being tanned.sewn holes would not work on a drum anyway. eventually would rip out... and probably would even affect the sound of the drum , right from square one. you want hide that is free from scores too if at all possible. I don't like lye myself... it plumps up the hide way too much ...and turns it rubbery until neutralized.plus its harder on the old hands...and caustic. Lye is hard on the hands but not as poisonous to the environment. I dump my hair... etc in the compost pile.. & Could not do that if I used lye. " You can't stop the waves .... but, you can learn to surf."
Colum6		#7	[-]
Posts: 77 (05/26/09 9:38 AM) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	Thanks guys. It will be interesting to see how the washing soda compares to the lye. The book I have said that the washing soda really causes the grain to swell, so I guess for wetscraping that's a good thing. I put both sets in Saturday and have been stirring them a couple of times a day. Nothing much going on right now. I guess I'll find out how much actual rawhide I have for drums a little while. Unfortunately, I'm going to have to put off everything for a couple of weeks. I got the hides late and now my schedule is conflicted. I'll probably neutralize them this weekend if they're ready and then figure out what to do next. I decided to only tan one hide and chose the one with the most holes. I can at least fix those holes and decorate around them if need be. Thanks again for your help. Todd
Colum6		#8	[-]
Posts: 78 (05/30/09 4:06 PM) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	Well, both batches look like they're ready for dehairing. The hair seems to come off the hides in each batch with a push of the hand- at least in the couple of areas I touched. I was changing the water in both (after 7 days) because it seemed to be getting funky and my wife was complaining. When I grabbed the hides to take them out, I noticed hair was coming off. The hair in the lime might come off a little easier than the washing soda batch, but I can't say for sure. I'm just not ready to deal with them and I'm getting a little nervous about leaving them in the lime. I'm going to Renezvous next weekend and then I'm gone for another week. I guess I'll dehair them tomorrow and rescrape the fleshy parts and...see what happens. Question: how big do you folks build your frames for drying skins for rawhide? I'm doing goat hides now but plan on deer in the fall/winter. Are 2x4's nailed together sufficient? I watch Matt Richards DVD and he uses a 6x4 fraom for braintaning deer but he's not really stretching the skins flat when tanning. I guess I'm not sure how much a hide can be stretched when making the rawhide and thus how big to make my frames. When braintaining it appears the hide stretches quite a bit. Thanks. Todd
Colum6		#9	[-]
Posts: 82 (06/05/09 6:43 PM) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	Well, four of my goat hides (the ones soaked in lime) are ready for drying as rawhide for my drum skins. They were ready earlier this week but I just kept them soaking until this weekend when I could deal with them. The wife still isn't to keen on me putting four goat hides in the freezer. The fifth hide, which soaked in sodium carbonate, was dehaired and degrained tonight. Last week, the hair wasn't coming off as easily as the hair on the hides soaked in lime. Even tonight, the hair on this last hide didn't slip off by hand as did the hair on the other hide. It did come off rather easily with my scraper. The author of the book that suggested using sodium carbonate said that it made the grain swell. It certainly did. The grain was very easy to see and take off., well, except for the neck. Now, this being my first time and doing it at dusk, I'm not sure how well I did it but it was easy to see. The only problem with the sodium carbonate was the smell. Unlike the hides soaked in lime, there continued to be an odor throughout the process until dehaired and degrained. The guy came up with the idea for using sodium carbonate so he could do it with boy scouts and apparently this chemical is less caustic than lime. FWIW, Todd
Mister Owl		#10	[-]
Posts: 885 (06/06/09 6:30 AM) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	I don't think you want to degrain a hide you are going to use as a drum head. Or perhaps it's that you don't have to. In truth I don't really know. What I do know is all the hides I've ever used still had the grain layer on them. In fact, on some African drums they don't even dehair the hides, rather they shave it down after the drum head is attached. Teach a man to make fire and he'll be warm for the night. Light a man on fire and he'll be warm for the rest of his life.
Colum6		#11	[-]
Posts: 83 (06/06/09 8:16 AM) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	I'm going to tan the one I removed the grain on. I left the grain on the other hides that I intend to use for drumheads. The hide prepared for tanning was just an experiment, a test run so to speak. It was small and had too many holes for a drumhead. Todd
Colum6	framing	#12	[-]
Posts: 84 (06/06/09 5:13 PM) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	I framed a couple of hides. I got some tearing away as I tightened the ties. This happened much more on the first hide than on the second because I stopped trying to stretch ithe hide with the tie! I then pulled on the hide a lot more with my hands and adjusted the string ties. I quickly put a frame together and didn't do a very good job. The first hide twisted my frame. This is probably what caused some loose skin in the middle of my hide. No big deal. After reinforcing the frame, everything went okay. I was following the Invisibile Tanners tutorial on making rawhide. The goat hide was quite wet but I could not see the epidermis the IT talks about removing. It looks very noticeable in his tutuorial. I gently scraped but didn't see anything come off. I was very nervous about tearing away the grain ,so I let it be. I recall reading somewhere else that the epidermis on a goat was black and rather visible. As the hide started to dry, I started to see some of the epidermis. Not sure how hardy the grain is after rinsing. I also read that the goats have oils glands than need to be removed. I cannot say that ran across this. I probably wouldn't have known it if I did. :-) One of my hides kept breaking off the string, time after time after time. I figured that there was something wrong with the hide and opted to use it for lashings on the drum. It was noticeably weaker than the other hides on the frame. The grain-scraped hide is going into the soap solution tomorrow. We're gone for four or fives days but I think it will be okay. FWIW, Todd

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