part 5 took place on the same day as part 4, and brooke & i were pooped by the time it was time to soften. while clay, alnis & the other boys played quoits and swam, we busted ass in the heat & deer flies of a waning day. softening the hide involved st-st-stretching the hide any way we could - across our knees, on top of tables, standing on one end and pulling the other and constantly working the edges by rolling them out with our fingers and abrading them against a cable we set up in a spruce at the front of our property. the cable also served to abrade other parts of the hide and make it super duper soft (some places).
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| brookie, going for it, letting loose |
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| not much to see but my biceps are flexed to the max here |
we gave it our best effort but it was very hard work and if i'm going to be honest with you, i'll have to tell you that we have a few crusty spots on the finished product! this is mostly because those parts dried before we were able to really stretch and abrade them. the softening process has to be constant after you start because once the hide dries it can be really hard to get back into it without going through the soaking process again. constant meant no supper or swimming until we finished around 9:30 pm. oy!
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| the sun began to set, we began to fade |
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| a bit worse for wear but here we are with the ole' hide, dying for a swim and supper |
so here it is! our hole-y holy hide, not quite finished but done enough for now. in order to have it turn that beautiful tawny colour of most buckskins, we still have to make a punk fire and smoke it. this also will water proof it a bit and keep it from going hard if it gets wet. hopefully we'll get that done sometime in the next few weeks and then...onto moccasin making!
sigh, what an awesome experience.
Punk Fire! Good band name.
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