Sunday, February 27, 2011

Getting Rawhide And Its Specific Appropriate Functions

By Teresa Elliott


The early Americans utilizes rawhide and rawhide uses are shields, drum heads, lace, lamp shades, furniture, wraps, and much more. Rawhide is very firm as it has not been tanned; it has only been de-haired and cured. Soak it in water for molding, cutting and shaping. It dries, stiffens and holds its shape.

Rawhide equals frequently and mistakenly called leather. Rawhide has been used for many other purposes for thousands of years. Rawhide is made by scraping the skin thin, soaking it in lime, and then stretching it while it dries.

The making out of rawhide is stiffer and less hardened than other forms of leather, and is mainly found in uses such as drum heads or western furniture where it does not need to flex significantly. It is also cut up into strips for use in lacing or stitching, or for making many varieties of the dog chews or bones.

Rawhide was utilized to bring in par fleches (envelope-like containers), moccasin soles and ropes. Rawhide is what you commonly see on Native American drums, par fleches, etc. Rawhide is animal hide, which has been dried (by salting). Rawhide is used to make everything from clothing and personal items to building materials, furniture, and tools.

Rawhide is the unprocessed hide of an animal that persists in its natural state. Numerous companies use rawhide to make low-friction, high-impact, soft face hammers and mallets. These mallets are excellent for tooling and stamping oak craft leather.

Prepared rawhide can be purchased at some large craft stores, saddlery shops or leather distributors such as Leather Unlimited. Set up rawhide may include rawhide goatskin. Rawhide drum covers, rawhide pigskin, rawhide lace, and many additional products.

Making your own rawhide is much easier than tanning a hide for the novice, and is quite affordable. Once this is done, turning a raw skin into rawhide is a reasonably simple process. If you want to save it for later use, once the rawhide is dry, roll it gently and tie with a lace for storage. When you are ready to use the rawhide, soak it again in a five gallon bucket until it is soft again, usually about fifteen to twenty-four hours, depending on the thickness of the hide. If you soak a piece of rawhide, then something comes up, and you aren't prepared to use it when you planned, you can keep it hydrated for a couple of days, and it won't hurt it as long as you change the water at least once a day, depending on the temperature. Rawhide is really just skin that has been dehaired, and it has many varied uses.

Chances to work on such crafts as drums, rawhide making, rawhide tanning, cradles, moccasins and many other enchanting primitive technologies are great craft projects. First it must be converted to "rawhide". Once tanned, the rawhide achieves the soft substance of leather that we are acquainted. Dog chews toys are a good source of rawhide if you do not need large pieces. Why do you think we call it "rawhide"? : Rawhide is "raw" because it has not been tanned. Most of the leather we use today is tanned leather, but rawhide is still practiced making many products even though it is not technically tanned.




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