Leather rawhide - in the past and now

Leather rawhide - one of the oldest materials, invented and manufactured by man. After all, the climate is different on our planet, and if there is enough loincloth in the equatorial zone , and often do without it, then in places with a more severe climate without clothes from skins can not be. But if you remove the skin from the prey and immediately use it as clothing, very soon it will become unusable. And so that this does not happen, the skin needs to be treated in a special way. So, step by step, mankind has learned to process animal skins and to use it for a long time.

Skin raw, its types and properties

A variety of rawhide depends on the way the hides are processed. First, this material can be processed both face-to-face and face-less. In face-less mode of treatment, wool from the skin is removed together with the upper part of the skin, or the so-called "face". The facial method only means the removal of hair with hair bags. And the front side itself is preserved.

There are other varieties of finishing rawhide, such as: bread, scraped, or shovel, ash-bread, alum, dairy, frozen, pickle. These are only the ways by which the skin was treated in Russia.

The rawhide suede is also known, which was made by the peoples of North America and Siberia. This skin is called a rodwogo. Still the peoples of the north handled raw skin raw fish.

You ask, but what is the difference between rawhide skin and the one we see now? The difference is that when processing rawhide, the tanning process does not apply, which completely changes its properties. Rawhide same skin remains a product of animal origin. She, in contrast to tanned leather, lacks a specific smell. If the rawhide gets wet, it becomes slightly slippery to the touch, and to avoid this, it must be properly treated.

Another property of rawhide - it is an edible product, so in case of emergency it can be cooked and used for food to support life. Now let's look at how rawhide leather is made by hand.

Cleaning

So, at first the skin needs to be rinsed well in running water to remove blood and dirt. Then it is thoroughly cleaned from fat, meat residues and subcutaneous films. Do this usually with a special curved knife, pulling the workpiece on a wooden deck. This process is called skinning.

Then you need to remove the woolen cover. This process is called dern, can be performed in several ways. Hair can be simply scraped together with the top layer of the skin. You can use wood ash, slaked lime, sulfur sodium and other chemicals. With their help hair follicles decompose, and the wool can be removed, while retaining the face of the skin. And you can after chemical treatment and scrape off the top layer. Simply then this process will be done much easier. But in order to make rawhide, cleaning it is not enough. Physical treatment and impregnation are also needed.

Skin softening

After thorough cleaning of the skin, it must be kneaded. That's why the name "rawhide" was used. Skin the skin with your hands, stretching it along the edge of the metal corner or on the side edge of the planed board. Also, the skin can be suspended by using a weighting agent at the bottom and twisting it in different directions, using inertia force. Still there are various devices for kneading of the skin, such as whitewash, bream, Don malleus, etc. In the olden time, some people used to knead their skin, chewing it with their teeth.

The final stage

After the skin becomes soft, it is impregnated or fats. Impregnation is done with chemical or natural means, such as acid kvass from flour and bran, dairy products, (yogurt, ayran), egg yolks, salt and even oil. At the end of the treatment, the 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-flammable iron and painted.

For what it was used earlier and where it is applied now

In the olden days, rawhide leather was used everywhere. She was sewed shoes, clothes, jewelry, made belts, ropes, harness for horses. The raw material 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 rash of rawhide, a bag or some other accessory, but it's more for decorative purposes, not necessarily. Still here and there, rawhide is used in saddlery, makes ski bindings, trim golf clubs, toys for pets, for example, imitation of bones for dogs, etc.