So now that you have all the right tools and have watched a bunch of videos about fleshing the hide, it's time to get to work. Lucky for me, I also had an in person coach -- Leo. He has prepared many a goat hide to be used on his drums and has done this fleshing process on dozens and dozens of goat skins.
This is gonna get graphic.
Take your skin out of the water and drape it over your fleshing station.
It's going to have some knarly chunks of fat and meat that you need to pull off. You can pull off the big pieces with your fingers/hands.
Next, get out your fleshing tool and start scraping from neck toward tail to gut under the membrane and the rest of the fat and flesh. I clamped the hide to the pipe at first to get started, but then ended up just using my body weight to pin the hide against the tube as I drew the scraping tool down.
End, result: two clean hides with gorgeous fur on one side. So, so thick and beautiful (spot the dog wishing he could chew on the hides). You'd be surprised how "not gross" the hide is once all the flesh is scraped off. It's really quite cool.
Now the hides go back in the bins in clean water to soak for a couple of days to help loosen off the hair. I'll have to check on them once a day to see if the hair is loosening off and to make sure the water is not getting funky. It may take 3 days and I will need to change the water a couple of times. Next step will be scraping all the hair off.
Mary
I found myself reading this post just like I read a sewing pattern. Line by line, pausing sometimes at mid-sentence and at the very least after every line just so that I get the full method clearly in my mind. ie starting at the neck to the tail, so as to get the membrane.
ReplyDeleteThis step of getting the hair off of the hide is the step where Richard was getting a lot of loose hair in the area of work station, if I remember correctly when he tried to do this, Please keep me posted. These are blog posts I am going to read more than once, just to get the full method imprinted in my psyche.
Well, I did watch a lot of youtube videos and read a lot of webpages about it. Youtube is really a miracle of our ages. There is something about watching someone do something that just can't be captured describing it with words. As wonderful as words are. The thing you can't really explain in words is the body positioning, the amount of pressure, the facial reaction to a wasp sting. I forgot to mention that part of the experience in my post, ha, ha.
ReplyDeleteYou and I were just thinking and typing about the same thing -- the electronic wonders of our times. There was a block of tofu in the fridge when everyone left the lake. I went out to see what to do with it -- how to make it into blackened tofu -- what spices to mix -- hot to marinate it in soy sauce -- how to fry it. After watching the video I felt as though I had been making it for years -- just tossing it off as another meal to make, nothing special. Thank you, you tube.
DeleteI so love this feature on the blog where I can click on a picture and then it will come up full screen for me. On the 11th picture, there is one of your dogs, checking out the hide. I wouldn't have seen him there, or at least noticed him without having the full picture on my screen. Bonnie and I were talking about the wonders of change that have come over the small period of 80 or 100 years. Taking a picture with a phone, posting it digitally, and having someone see it at least in a 5 x 7 version on their screen? That would have sounded futurist to me in the 1940's. Now I get close ups of hide tanning and think nothing of it!
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