How To Soften A Deer Hide[Ron Nail]

okay and our fifth video video of our series here we're going to talk about and show you the process of softening a height this is the height that we brained the other day and went ahead after the video was done and I drained it the second time and did her a super good job on it and then I actually wrung it out for a while there's some considerations that they would like to take care of before I actually put it on the frame and one of them is someone up any holes that might be in heighten there's couple of reasons for doing that appearance is one of them when you get your height all finished if you sold the whole lot nice you know I it's going to look so much better so appearance wise your height will come out nice and if this is your first height that you're going to be tan and you want it to come out looking real real nice and be able to hang it on the wall or throw it over your cure be whatever you want to do with it so we have a hole in this height that we're going to solve another reason for doing those is if you leave the hole and you don't sew enough when you go to soften the fibers in that area where the hole is aren't you're going to pull evenly and so you're going to end up with a hard spot around that hole so I always sew from the flesh site that way the show side of the height looks nice so I'm gonna set down here and I use a small Glover's needle some guys like to use a beading needle whatever is comfortable for you you don't want a real big needle you want to fairly small one so I used somewhere around a number five or number eight Glover's needles and I also use beading thread this is the nine hole nylon beading thread doubled and I'd used this the street over hand-stitch and Justin would you hand me those reading glasses right there and get them to the flanker where I needed a little extra help to be able but see the fighting stuff here you want to take pretty fine stitches so this is the street over hand stitch started at the left hand sight and work to the right because I'm right-handed if you're left-handed you'd go the other direction okay so just just a whip stitch make your stitches pretty small and this look easier when you're done you can do this with a sewing machine I kind of enjoy the hands on so long as I don't have too many holes so they have to sew up I'm just keeping my edges together they're nice that's a pretty small hole they only hold in the height so I'm going to be able to show you this part you can actually saw a pretty big hole and I and it'll still come out looking looking real nice I've just always thought sewing up the hole so I've seen some hides that you guys have done they don't sew the holes up and hide books doesn't look that good so parents means mean something to me okay so when I get to the last couple of stitches what I'm gonna do here is I'm gonna do to finish this off what they call prints not so funky little part way through take my thread and then I'm gonna wrap about three or four wraps around the needle just like that pull the needle on through and that makes this a nice knot that cinches up good there that's called the French knot and then you want to be that same thing again and that finishes off the last stitch there I'm going to do that again it's about three or four wraps around that needle and there you have it and I'm just gonna clip that off about a quarter of an inch or so and that takes care of the sewing up the holes on this height so the next thing we're gonna do is we're gonna bring the height just like we get when we were making raw height we're gonna frame it except we're going to use the the eye hooks this time same process the neck end is going to go up and bottom in down and a I do this a little bit different than some of the guys that got the wood heat back here about five feet behind my frame and so I'm gonna have the grain side towards the fire and the flesh side towards this way because I'm going to soften this with my tools just about a hundred percent from the flesh side so the reason for that is I'm actually pushing the moisture through that direction if you if you do much pushing and softening on the grain side you could actually trap moisture inside the fibers so it's just a little something that I've learned well I actually I think an open B he told me about that so since he told me I've been using this this nothing and works great don't get any more captain there the drive fast some of you aren't going to be able to or have access to a frame to socket and that's okay you don't have to have a frame you can actually stop and hide by hand just by pulling and stretching every direction you want to go diagonally you want to go different directions and you can work it over a staking tool something on this order you know it's just a simple it doesn't have to be this elaborate could be a post in the ground just went shaped on top like that and then work your hide over that just like shine and shoes just pull and stretch your height over it just like that that works you can also use a rope or a cable got a cable over here attached to the wall that I sometimes use for the animals of the height you can also use a rope attached to a tree just tie it up ear down there and then I use that rope to work the hide over that would work so you don't necessarily have to have a frame but I like and there's some advantages both ways frame or hand soft knee if you hand soften you're gonna end up with a little plumper fluffier hide but it's not going to lay nice and flat it's gonna have more ripples around the edges and everything if you frame soften it'll be a little thinner not quite is fluffy but it'll lay out really nice and flat if you're gonna lay out a pattern on the height that's kind of a nice nice thing so I'll start by lacing this in the in the frame here so the same thing I start start with the neck [Music] got a few extra holes on top of the neck this hole isn't a little bit better up there and so guys have the train set up so they can do horizontal softening I've just always done it this way I don't bother with that it's turning it sideways or anything my frame is kind of just fixed pretty pretty much right where it is and so on a little little or hide like this you can leave it hang down ways and you don't have to stretch quite so high on some of those big items it's a little pepper but it's no no big deal you get used to doing something a certain way and if it works for you it's nice and the ride in there I I forgot to tell everybody the reason that I do go a certain direction with the strings so I always come remember I always come from the back side on the height it's not anything that's going to really make a difference and the difference will be if you come through the back side here you need to go through the front sight on your hooks because what will happen is a little twist if you don't solve so I go through the back side just kind of almost like doing that whip stitch when I sewed up the hole saw this just go through the back side of the high through the front side and we're going to try to get this laced in there sort of things pulling pretty pretty even and straight and I'll just do the same thing I did with ride it go from side to side the difference on how you're gonna stop in this you can stretch this thing pretty pretty snug you don't have to worry about it it's not rawhide anymore it's gonna actually stretch out a little bit is we start working okay so working right along here so I decide this like we did on the ride but the difference on the brain night is I'm stretching it white give them some tension on they're using the same a pitch through my loop and try and pull real straight side side to side so just kind of pay attention that how I'm pulling here you need go through the same eyelet that's okay some places I'll go through three or four times so one thing I kind of wanted to mention is if if you're gonna try my method that we've been working up here with the videos I kind of stick with that at least for I a tour tube because if you switch off to do try to do something else midstream you're not going to be able to figure out what happened if something goes wrong if you stay with what we're doing here all the way through the process and something happens along the way we can figure out you know what happened so that's kind of something I'm wanting to bring it up there so okay okay so we've done where I placed in the frame nice and snug and there's some tools that we're going to use in this frame softening process you're gonna need I didn't mean to throw that on the floor sanding block kind of course I think this is probably about 80 grit just wrapped around a block of wood or a piece of a pumice stone you're going to need something because what's going to happen on the backside bag here I keep even though I softened from the flesh side for the most part I keep track of that grain side back there because what happened is so we'll start getting a little crusty spots on there that are gonna want to start tightening up on you and so with the pumice stone or the sanding block I can go back there and work on those little spots and break them up and then also for taking off the little fuzzies on this side there's always going to be a little bit of the fibers that are coming up as you're softening so you want to clean those off pretty much so that the eye it looks nice when you're done I mean if you leave them on their side gonna pretty hurt anything but just the parent slice it looks better so so those two things maybe even one of those this is one of those little foam sanding blocks that you can get their foam in the center and then kind of report strip okay told to ice as you can see there's a variety of things here there's all kinds of other things that you could use you could use a canoe paddle almost anything but these are some of my favorite tools that I use I start out with this white tool here and I'll do a pretty good roll it'll stretch over the whole height like my ax handle just got a little wedge shape on the end there I like that one that's a really good one I actually have another Whitman here that I use quite a bit too it's a hickory piece of hickory lumber and it's got just a paddle shaped wedge thing on the end there like so and that's nice for tough the big old heavy tough buck Heights this is my gnarly tool here that I can really get serious and it's just a number two shovel that I cut down and reshaped a little bit so that that told you can really get serious and dig in there with it on a thinner hide like this you have to be kind of careful and wherever you've sewed up a hole you want to be pretty careful whatever tools you use there but in the thin areas like an armpits your the legs themselves flanks there's certain areas there you want to be a little bit cautious about using the real aggressive tool like that one this little tool is just a piece of metal its shape shape there so that I can kind of kind of dig into I've got a certain little spot that needs a little extra work I'll grab this too use it so various different things you can use almost almost anything really because what we're doing is just stretching the fibers you want to keep those fibers movement if you if you slack off of you and you and you don't keep your fibers moving and there's certain spots that you have to pay attention to right off the bat your height from the legs top of the front legs all the way down to the tailbone on both sides that's the part that's going to drive first that dead just going to drive real quick up in this area neck about from there up that's going to dry slower so you don't need to worry about that too much for a while and then your hip areas down here or thicker and those are gonna they're going to be one of the last things that drives actually those and your neck if it's a buck the neck would be the very last thing on the goal the neck might actually dry a little bit before the hips do so in your hand softening the neat thing about that one of the neat things is that if you get tired you can roll that thing up put it in a plastic bag and stick it in the fridge and come back to it later when you're on the frame like this you're kind of committed to do the job you're gonna have to keep going until until the light is completely dry and soft so I'm going to start out with my white tool and we're stretched in here pretty pretty snug so I'm just going to put a little bit of a stretch on this hide so that I can actually do some hand work around those edges so so I'm just going to start and just you'll see how it starts loosen it up one of the reasons I like frame softening I can keep track of the whole height kind of a little bit easier than I can with the hand saw you have hands off there's a lot of ideas but I really prefer I do 95% of the heights on the frame now so I got it it's pretty loose in there now and don't worry about that you want the fibers to be able to move so that was the reason for stretching that like that so now I'm gonna I'm gonna start out around the edges here and just kind of pull those edges out while you're doing this you can kind of feel out things are going on that backside around the edges so I'm just doing quite a bit of handwork here one good stretching I like to save my lacing bowls I think they just look kind of neat so I always leave them on there so I try that I've kind of tried to pull those up sometimes they come out a little stiff but they're so kind of cool if you leave them on there I think my preference so you're stretching and pulling by hand that's pretty damp they're still weird about that too much I'm just gonna keep working around keeping a close eye on this on this whole edge it's gonna keep me and attention to that because it's actually this this place is great they do the super and rank on Mike and I'm raining and reading you up here after you do a bunch of heights you kind of get a feel for the feel for lighting I mean you can you can just kind of tell by the way it feels that it's actually gonna soften soften up nice for you and you're not going to have the problem with it you can just you can feel that there's a lot of this this part of the process is a tactile I guess this word I can look to write weirdness anyway he's being able to touch and peel this thing you can came to tell what needs to be done we're so so I'm running around on the backside and just kind of check that my pumice stone [Music] you can't see what I'm doing here but I'm just thinking up on the phone comes right down the spine they'll have little scars this one really doesn't those armpits right there or spots that you need to really be careful of cuz you over okay softening tool through there pretty easy you know if you can see it or not and this the little thing you spotted green right there and that's one thing that the pumice stone can help you out with do a little tension on there [Music] and you pretty much get rid of that little bit of grounding so I'll also use this publisher my sanding block on the front side all of this little fuzzy stuff that's on there holds moisture so if you and then go ahead and use your on the stone and kind of work some of that off of here careful around your summing up holes because this will and it's rough enough it'll take your stitches right now if you get that okay so we're coming right along our edges are almost dry already 20 minutes or so you've been pulling the stretching on those one thing I want to mention about your goals which are doing or use them you can tell a whole lot by the way your tool feels on the height you'll have more drag where it's still pretty damp and then where it's dry your total slide right off of that so like very here in the middle we're still quite a bit of moisture pretty good tool right here and when I get over to right there that little slide drive across that dry area there like that so once an area is dry you don't need to keep working that and then you're done with that just don't worry about it at all just concentrate on the areas that are snow damp as you can tell if the height does that make a no-ball air and that's still got quite a little bit more drag all we've done that back leg here very bottom that's right you can see how much pressure I'm putting on this thing that are amazingly tough you can poke holes especially if you move across an area that's already dried you're pushing that art with one of these more pointed jewels you can easily punch a hole in your right here and you don't want to do that so you want to be a little careful with that how long does it take to soften I know that can vary a lot I have pretty much ideal climate control the conditions here together and roaring what fire to fans going and so this is going to happen a whole lot quicker for me than if you're trying to work here is the night in the garage or somewhere it's cool and I it'll dry quicker on the frame then well hands off me normally if you're in a given warm spot that really makes a whole lot of difference so it could take I'd like this one I'm going to say call me in an hour this height is going to be hour and a half of the most sites going to be pretty well done I can kind of tell by the feel of it my big buck height might take three or four hours and even under the best of conditions and the over the last talk I did was a cow it wasn't big cow and it took five hours and so you don't have to constantly work them it's actually good to just back off for a while and I kind of rebound a little bit and then go back to it constantly check it all the time feeling feel of it to make sure it's not getting any crusty stiff spots on the backside and then what an area is guard like that totally dried there and it's all the way dry that's you don't need any more attention to that so like this leg is driving besides good we've got a real quick so this tender give you some idea how much the site is stretching them and putting pressure on your end and it's really really stretching back there always and his extraction like that he might as well quit and he's pretty green and start over okay so we've been about an hour and five minutes and this light is 90 percent dry and there's some tests that you can do for dryness and and the thing about it is if you feel like oh that's that's not this it's all dry and there's a little moisture left in an area that's why could dry hard and then a half an hour from now you check it you're gonna have a stiff spot you're gonna be only aggravated at yourself over that so you want to make sure that the height is dry all the way and you can use the back of your hand and feel I feel real warm you know this feels almost hot because one would so behind there but if there's a little moisture anywhere it's going to feel cool on the back of your hand so one of the other tests that I like to use is on this reach around behind and pana grampa what a hide like so and if it kind of stays balled up like that and doesn't just flatten out see here's a dry spot right there and just that just flattens back out basically but when it stays kind of like a little dough ball like that and there's still a little bit moisture there and that's where wrap we've got a little little spot right here and a little spot right over in here the hip area which is almost always well one of the last places to drive so what I'm going to do when I get it down to this point where there's just a couple little patches like that I'm going to go ahead and type my strings up and you know the idea here is to keep those fibers moving but we're down to the point now one of those little patches you're gonna if I take these up they're gonna drive even that much faster so probably less than an hour and a half this night that's excellent I wish they all would do that they don't so I'm gonna go ahead now and take the screens up and then we'll come back to it here in a minute okay so this went extremely well today about an hour to 20 minutes total here and I had this soft and dry he was pulling the last strings off here ideal conditions we're working under here with let's don't go on the Pens going and zero you better be in here with that with that wood stove no one and I didn't even get too sweaty to date on this thing but that's just like a piece of flannel it's it's really a really a nice nice bite Bob lemon square flood that's what we came out with there so that'll make some beautiful flow thing or beautiful whatever somebody wants to do with it so appreciate you guys watching our videos and hopefully this was a help to you and the softening end of things if you have questions I'm always open to answer whatever I can so thank you very much

Channel: Justin _d_Hunter

Views: 5,799

Rating: 5 out of 5

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Id: 59MQbsnHvRI

Length: 30min 10sec (1810 seconds)

Published: Mon Feb 24 2020