Rawhide is one of the oldest materials invented and manufactured by man. After all, on our planet the climate is different everywhere, and if in the equatorial zone a loincloth is enough, and often they did without it, then in places with a more severe climate it is impossible to do without clothes made of skins. But if you remove the skin from the prey and immediately use it as clothing, very soon it will become worthless. And to prevent this from happening, the skin needs to be processed in a special way. So, step by step, mankind has learned to process the skin of animals and use it for a long time.
Rawhide, its types and properties
The variety of rawhide depends on how the skins are processed. Firstly, this material can be processed both face and faceless. With the faceless method of processing, the hair is removed from the skin along with the upper part of the skin, or the so-called "face". The facial method involves only the removal of wool with hair bags. And the front side itself is preserved.
There are other varieties of rawhide finishing, such as: bread finishing, scraped, or scraping, ash-bread, alum finishing,dairy, ice cream finishing, piquel. These are just the ways in which leather was processed in Russia.
Rawhide suede is also known, which was made by the peoples of North America and Siberia. This skin is called rodvuga. Even the peoples of the north processed fish skin in a rawhide way.
You ask, what is the difference between rawhide skin and the one we see now? The difference is that when processing rawhide, the tanning process is not used, which completely changes its properties. Rawhide is still a product of animal origin. She, unlike tanned leather, does not have a specific smell. If the rawhide gets wet, it becomes slightly slippery to the touch, and to avoid this, it must be properly processed.
Another property of rawhide is that it is an edible product, so in case of emergency it can be boiled and used as food to support life. Now let's look at how rawhide is made by hand.
Cleaning
So, first, the skin should be washed well in running water to remove blood and dirt. Then it is thoroughly cleaned of fat, meat residues and subcutaneous films. This is usually done with a special curved knife, pulling the area to be treated on a wooden block. This process is called skinning.
Next, you need to remove the wool cover. This process is called turfing and can be done in several ways. The hair can simply be scraped off along with the top layerskin. You can use wood ash, slaked lime, sodium sulfur and other chemicals. With their help, the hair follicles decompose, and the hair can be removed, while maintaining the front side of the skin. And you can after chemical treatment and scrape off the top layer. Just then this process will be much easier to do. But in order to make rawhide, cleaning it alone is not enough. Physical treatment and impregnation will also be required.
Skin softening
After thoroughly cleaning the skin, it must be kneaded. That's why the name "rawhide" came to be. You can wrinkle the skin with your hands, stretching it along the edge of the metal corner or along the side edge of the planed board. Also, the skin can be suspended using a weighting agent below, and twisted in different directions using the force of inertia. There are also various devices for kneading the skin, such as white hare, bream, Don masher, etc. In the old days, it was customary for some peoples to knead the skin by chewing it with their teeth.
Final stage
After the skin becomes soft, it is impregnated or fattened. Impregnation is done using chemical or natural means, such as sour kvass from flour and bran, dairy products (yogurt, ayran), egg yolks, s alt and even oil. Even at the end of processing, rawhide is fattened using a solution of laundry soap, castor oil and borax. At the end of all processes, the finished skin is stretched and dried. After drying, if desired, the finished skin can be ironed with a non-hot iron andpaint.
For what it was used before and where it is used now
In the old days, rawhide was used everywhere. From it they sewed shoes, clothes, jewelry, made belts, ropes, harness for horses. Raw was also used in everyday life.
In general, it was simply irreplaceable material. As for the present time, the demand for such skin is minimized. Of course, you can make yourself a rawhide belt, a bag or some other accessory, but this is more for decorative purposes, and not out of necessity. In some places, rawhide is also used in saddlery, ski bindings, golf clubs, toys for pets, for example, imitation bones for dogs, etc.
