What can I make with deer?

**rwc1969** · 11-29-2010, 11:04 AM

I can't really see what you're showing in the pic, but I think it'll be ok, if I bust some grain it just wont come out as nice is all. I'll be careful not to though.

I removed and dried the foreleg tendons and needle bones, then heated the hooves and removed them, then boiled the bones to get most flesh off and am drying them. 1 strip of back sinew and the hockskins are drying, probably dried already, on a board in the shed.

Other than making the tallow candle and firestarters which are fungus and punkwood soaked in meted tallow that's pretty much it.

I'm getting ready to head out and harvest that fallen oaks bark in hopes that it's not too washed out. Other than that I'm probably going to try black tea, although I'm getting mixed stories on whether or not it will work to tan hides and I'm completely unsure of the concentrations to use.

I have an old cooler which I'm thinking of using for the bark tan as it is larger and will allow the hide to spread out more. I'm really hoping this oak bark will work. I'm either gonna de-hair it when I get back or do it tomorrow time depending, I'm back to school now and it's crunch time.

**rwc1969** · 11-29-2010, 09:59 PM

OK, got the hair off except the little stubbies that I showed in the pic above, some were just way too stubborn even using the backside of my machete. So, I got all I could off and made up a new lime solution and stuck er back in. I also started the flesh side removing the membrane to get a feel for it. It seems to come off easy, but it's hard to tell if it's coming off or I'm just squeeging the water and slime out??

But, I went and harvested some of the oak bark I was talking about and ran a quick test run to see how dark it would come out. As soon as I put the one pound of bark into the one gallon of water it started to change color. I boiled it for about 5 minutes and this is how it came out. I'm thinking if I gather 15 lbs. of this and mash and boil it down hard it should be plenty strong enough.

What do you think?

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For reference, this bark wasn't mashed or nothing, just cut off the tree with my machete and dumped in the pot. the bark on the younger sections of the tree was still green and the leaves were still attached and some were green which leads me to believe this tree fell when the leaves started changing about 1 month or so back. So, it hasn't been sitting long.

I am curious, if this bark is acceptable, which bark would be best to harvest, the young small branches, the main trunk, or somewhere in the middle? Or, does it even matter. This bark came from the midsection of the tree. I'd like to go back tomorrow and harvest as much as possible to store for the future. This is a variety of Red oak btw.

**your_comforting_company** · 11-29-2010, 10:34 PM

have another go at the stubbies tomorrow while doing the membrane. They'll eventually come out.

The liquor looks pretty fair. I think you should boil it longer. To my knowledge, it makes no difference if it comes off the little branches, or the base of the trunk. The Laurel oak that I used was off firewood sized pieces and it worked fine. Chipping it up will get the tannins out faster but I think boiling longer has the same effect.
Also, you can boil each set more than once, and if you want it more concentrated.. just boil the liquor down some more. You're definately on the right track!

If the tree still has green leaves on it, it's gonna be a good one to use.

I'd say get about 25lbs if you can.. it's better to have more than you need!

**rwc1969** · 11-30-2010, 11:05 AM

I am going to fill a 5 gallon pail as much as possible, but this bark is a bear getting off the tree.

So far the hardest part has been de-hairing the skin which has taken 3 hours so far. Getting the bark off the tree will likely take just as long.

Skinning was easy, Fleshing was easy, bucking/ liming the skin was easy, getting the membrane off seems easy, but I guess I'll know how well that went once I soak it in the bark liquor.

**your_comforting_company** · 11-30-2010, 01:11 PM

dehairing can be tedious because you're being so careful. Usually I take it off with the grain lol, two birds. The membraning is easy, and I'm sure you got it right. Really, you'd have to be trying a pretty wild experiment to mess up this process! If the flesh side doesn't look stringy and tatty, then you did an excellent job.

If you can get the outer and inner bark off at the same time, you can boil them together, but of course you'll need more weight. Often it takes longer to gather materials for a process than the actual process itself takes. If you think it's going to take a few days to gather enough bark, you can store the hide in the fridge, or freezer if longer than that.

**rwc1969** · 11-30-2010, 04:38 PM

Well I stuffed the 5 gallon pail chuck full of bark and it weighed 17 lbs. -2 for the pail is 15 on the nose, of course it has the outer bark on. This was about a 10-15 square foot section of tree that I removed the bark from. It took just over an hour using a hammer and utilty bar. Once started I could quickly hammer out nice long 2" wide strips right down to the wood.

I could go back and harvest more I suppose, but was thinking this would be enough?? This is a small deer. BTW, my hands are now brown. Actually, I expected the bark to weigh more, I think I will go back for another bucket tomorrow.

**your_comforting_company** · 11-30-2010, 04:54 PM

If your hands are stained brown you got PRIME bark, my friend. Excellent.

It's hard to guess how much it'll take, I would probably go for one more bucket since the bark will otherwise be wasted once the tree is dead. You might want to do another deer once you've done this one

Sounds like all that's left is to make the bath, and wait!

**rwc1969** · 11-30-2010, 05:32 PM

Oh, I want to do more, actually thinking along the lines of a bark tan fur on squirrel by applying the tan to only the flesh side. Or maybe a brain tan squirrel, not sure. I saw a rabbit on the side of the road today dead, but it was too magled or I'd have stopped. I've got my eyes peeled for roadkill, but haven't seen any recently.

Getting that hair off was a pain, but it is rewarding to see a nice clean hide. It seems so small now and thin. I still have to remove the stubbies though and finish the membrane, but it's looking like something different than what it was if that makes any sense at all. LOL!

The only thing that really concerns me is the amount of blood that was on the hide to start. I squeegied as much off while fleshing as possible, but it was stained pretty badly.

I'm not sure if the lime will remove the blood or will I need to wash it at some point?

**your_comforting_company** · 11-30-2010, 05:43 PM

You can wash it after the rinse. Blood stains will add character to the finished hide, so don't sweat it too much. those spots will be darker.

**rwc1969** · 12-01-2010, 07:26 PM

Thanks YCC, it appears a lot of the blood has washed out with the lime, but there are a few dark spots left.

Woe is me, the little hairs still won't slip, I'm leaving them in. I even had a hard time removing some of the pigment areas underneath the hair. I'm thinking the lime I bought is not good for the job. That's the only variable that is out of wack.

The skin has soaked in temps from 40-70 degrees for 10 or 11 days now, and 3 days ago I made a fresh batch of lime solution. Like I said it's the leg hair and white belly hair that's killing me. Unfortunately those are the thinner areas of skin, but even with great force and a somewhat dull blade they won't budge at all whatsoever. Except for the very nap of the neck all the rest of the hair slipped with just the lightest stroke of my smoothed over stick. This seems the exact opposite of everything I've read, confusing.

I think I have over 7 hours into de-hairing this skin and I'm calling it good.

Time to flip it, get the membrane off the flesh side and rinse this puppy out.

The weather has went from high 50's yesterday and rain to 20's and snow. I took the hide outside to de-hair it and withing 15 minutes it was starting to freeze. Winds are between 10 and 30 miles per hour. I brought it in and am finishing it in the bathtub, much more comfy, lol, and it's not freezing solid.

Next time I do this I will either use wood ash, lye, or specifically hydrated or pickling lime. Actually, I think I will avoid the lime altogether and go with the wood ash or straight up lye.

I did go back and get another pail of bark, the tree looks like an angry beaver had it's way with it now, it's pretty naked. I now have 28 lbs. of bark with outer bark on.

**crashdive123** · 12-01-2010, 07:46 PM

looks like an angry beaver had it's way with it now

Now that right there is funny. I don't care who you are.

**Rick** · 12-01-2010, 09:59 PM

I'd love to see the look on your wife's face when she walks in and sees you in the bathtub with that hide.

"Don't tell, I don't want to know."
"But honey, it's not what it looks like, honest."

Maybe you need to give that thing a shave.

**your_comforting_company** · 12-01-2010, 10:05 PM

It does sound right opposite of what normally happens, perhaps it was a thicker winter coat on the belly and delicate areas? Usually the neck is the toughest spot and the white falls out. wierd. Since it bucked the rest of the hide, I think your lime was fine, and blood stains are pretty common.
28 lbs will be plenty to do this hide, and probably enough to do another.
The stubbies will be fine too. they'll probably disappear in tanning, or you can shave them off with a sharp knife once the hide is "tight". It won't affect the tanning.

Sounds like you are getting part of the storm that passed through here yesterday. Today winds 30+ mph, temps crazy low considering it was 80 degrees yesterday. Work was hell today!

**rwc1969** · 12-02-2010, 01:45 AM

I don't know about the weather, but winter came today and it's here to stay according to the weatherman. I wouldn't have wanted to be on a roof with that wind you had.

I finally got the membrane off for the most part too. The membrane had reset up or something and was a bear removing. Basically a 1/4" at a time almost as if it were a dry scrape from what I've read. Some spots would slide off and most others were a nightmare, no other way to say it. But, it's done for now and rinsed. I have it soaking in 5 gallons of cold water and will move it to the creek in the morning. Hopefully a muskrat or scuba diving cat doesn't run off with it. If so I'm setting traps and they will be my next project. I'm not kidding!

I got all the lime cleaned off my boots and everything else, it's messy stuff. Just need to wash out the buckets and get the bark chopped up and going.

The de-hairing and de-mambraning process actually took upwards of 7 hours total. 2 -1 hour sessions and 1 -5 hour session today. I may have took an hour break in there somewhere and 1 hour was cleanup. I really did not expect it to be so difficult and take so long, but it's done now and I feel good.

It took me 3 hours to gather the bark. So, I think I'm around 12 hours in now starting from skin on deer. 1/2 hour to skin, 1 hour to flesh, 1/2 hour messing around with the egg, lol, and 7 hours de-hairing/ membraning. But, in reality 3 hours was spent waiting, cleaning up, and taking smoke breaks.

**rwc1969** · 12-02-2010, 01:50 AM

I'll try and get together some pics and such of the things that stood out to me, but haven't really had time to mess with the editing and such, been too busy just trying to get this far and now I need to catch up on schoolwork. Finals are in two weeks and I have three lengthy projects coming due.

**your_comforting_company** · 12-02-2010, 07:37 AM

Hehe. If you were making buckskin, you'd still have about 13 more hours of work to go! 7 hours is actually pretty good time considering this is your first one. After doing quite a few buckskins, I average around 20 hours per hide. I don't count cleanup time or "wait" time either...

If you want to speed up the rinse, you can squeegie it, rinse, repeat.

And remember, Schoolwork FIRST. This is just a side project!

**rwc1969** · 12-05-2010, 05:00 AM

Alright, I guess this will be the thread where I post all the pics of the tanning process. It wouldn't make sense for me to do another write up on the entire process as YCC's Bark tan utility leather thread does that better than I could with my limited knowledge. But, I do want to point out a few things that didn't seem quite clear to me and a few things that may still not be clear to me.

First off I put the hide in the creek to rinse 2 days ago, nothing has ran off with it yet, but a deer crossed 2' from it overnight. there's not much to show there.

Next, before I rinsed it I had to get the pigment layer off the hair side and the membrane layer off the flesh side.

This pic shows the skin half way through removing the membrane, at least I think the darker area to the right has had the membrane removed, at least for the most part. The stuff on the left is just a gooey, fatty layer and once you get under it the skin has a much less gooey feeling.

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This next pic shows the hide after membraning, the lighter area on the left is the flesh side and the dark area to the right is the hair side. You can see in the center the hairs that just would not slip.

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After I got the hide soaking I wanted to start the bark liqour. Here is the tree I removed the bark from, I believe it has been sitting for less than 2 months after falling. I stripped from the foreground of the pic all the way to the rearmost bare spot along with about 6 squre feet from other locations. The area you're seeing is the mid section of the tree from halway to about 3/4 of the way up the tree. This section of tree had the best inner bark per chunk ratio. The outer bark was not too thick and the inner was about 1/4" thick. The outer limbs had thin inner bark, and the main trunk had really thick outer bark, but the inner bark layer was much darker meaning more tannins, I think. LOL! Buty, it was just too tough to get off and it would have taken much more by volume to get the same amount of tannins, which is the end goal.

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This pic shows the golden inner bark sandwiched between the white interior wood and the dark outer bark. I think this is helpful to someone who may not understand the make up of a tree.

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These are the tools I used to remove the bark, a ball peen hammer and a Roughneck utility bar. I was able to fill this 5 gallon bucket in about an hour or just over. This bucket isn't quite full and held 13 pounds of bark. I filled it full the first time and it held 15 pounds and took 1-1/2 hours to fill. I wore safety glasses and earplugs and would recommend using a wooden mallet rather than a ball peen for safety reasons.

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Once I got the bark home I shredded it up by hand, it was easy and took just over an hour to shred 10 pounds of bark. I did not separate the outer bark or bits of wood that were incidental. It all went in the pot. I found trying to remove the outer bark to be very unproductive, it was hard and did not separate easily.

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Here the bark is boiling, I thought this pic looked neat. But, I wanted to show what I used, a 6 gallon SS pot filled to within 4" of top with 10 pounds of bark. I then added 3 gallons of tap water and once boiling let it roll for just over an hour. The tap water can supposedly leave spots on the leather, but from what I understand it's purely visual, does not affect functionality. I need confirmation on that though.

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I repeated the boiling and pouring three times per YCC's tut and here's what I ended up with. Going from right to left; first pour, second pour, third pour, and finally 4th pour. The fourth pour was not boiled, I simply added hot tap water to the boiling hot bark and let it steep in a 5 gallon bucket just to see what the results would be. You can see how each pouring gets progressively lighter. In a white 5 gallon bucket the 1st pour is like black coffee, here it looks much lighter.

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That's it for now.