just when you think you have it all figured out
the big man upstairs reminds you that you don't know everything.
so I made a batch of brains the other day, enough for two hides..
I only have 1 frame..
First hide softened beautifully, took the better part of the day, it was really humid, I knew I'd have to fight it.
second hide, I caught a day or two later. (brains get a little smelly really quick) It was cool with low humidity and lots of sunshine. It almost went rawhide on me before I got to staking it, so I learned that I need a little less wringing.. a little more dampness, but once I got it broken, it softened to be one of my best so far. took only a short amount of time and with success... well, you start thinking you know something.
ok.. so by the time I got to the third hide I still had enough solution to totally coat it.. saturated, though it was a quite smelly and unpleasant, even for me. but I toughed it out, thinking this might be the "sour brains trick", but apparently it wasn't. a good wringing and redunking in brains before going to the frame proved too long of a wait.. that extra day, apparently the brains went from "sour" to "rotten". I mean... make a butcher gag.. but I toughed it out and framed it anyway.
it started softening slowly. It's 97% humidity today here so I knew I'd have to move inside by the fire, not exactly an ideal setup, but manageable.
after about 4 hours of constant stretching and buffing (you should be able to take breaks after the initial breaking) a big spot right in the middle goes stiff for no apparent reason. only minutes ago it was softening... now, it's like cardboard.. right in the middle of the hide...
What happened? What went wrong? ..EVERYTHING.
The rules state that every animal has enough brains to tan it's own hide... The solution I made was for two hides.. not 3, so there wasn't enough brains-to-water. The weather was bad, but I thought I could circumvent that with controlled environment.. wrong. The brains were rotten.. no longer oil, but rather decayed flesh at that point.
So just because you think you know what you are doing, doesn't mean you do. Sometimes you just lose all gumption and go wild.. trying to break all the rules that you previously accepted as true.
I've found the same things when knapping.. not paying attention to flaws in the rocks, not setting up a platform... you know the rules that one should always follow.
I'm sure this is true with many things we experiment with, and If it weren't for many, many failures, we'd never find what works best, so alls I'm saying is keep an open mind, and never give up.. some things you can only learn from doing ;)
