Shearing a hide .

K

Kevin the grey

Joined
Aug 26, 2005
Messages
4,106
I have a piece of buffalo rawhide . It is stretched taut on a picture frame . Dry and as flat as I,m likely to get it . It is a september hide and so the short hair of summer is shedding and unsightly . That is the back of the picture to be and so is relatively unimportant . It is a little ugly and the friend who will paint the picture won,t like to see tufts of hair even on the back of the : Canvas : .

I don,t want or need to remove it . I would like to trim it down a little and cut off any hair that sticks out the sides . If I purloin the family electric barbering shears I am likely to be in need of an old time barbers services .

I don,t want to purchase electric shears that I may not use again for a long time . Nor do I wish to go the traditional route of soaking and scraping or even modern chemicals .
 
If you want to remove all the hair, I gather from your post that you might not, you can freeze the hide, and once thawed the hair virtually falls out. I have used this technique with sheep, and whitetail hides.
 
I trimmed it down with some flexible bladed scissors .

How cold do you have to get the hide for that to work ?
 
My own experience was leaving the hides in a deep freeze for a couple of months until I had time to deal with them. I guess that would be at or below 0 F, probably for a couple of days would do the trick.
 
Funny thing . I have heard of deep freeze tanning . You leave a rawhide out in below zero weather long enough and it softens up . I have only heard of this and the person who told me said it has to be colder than a witches mammary gland for it to work .
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top