Hide de-hairing question for Bob in the Woods or others

[rich pierce]

Finally de-hairing a deer hide that was dried over the winter. Neck hair is very stubborn. Is that because of skin thickness or hair follicle density? Using dilute lye.

[bob in the woods]

I use ashes in a 5 gal bucket of water. I like the solution to feel "soapy" on my hand. I put in the deer hide, and leave it for 24 to 48 hours, depending.  Stir/ shift  the hide to make sure that all areas get exposed to the stuff.  Cold /cooler temps take longer.  Usually I can simply pull or even rub the hair off easily. If some areas are stubborn, I put the hide back in for another while.  Once the hair is all off I rinse the hide well in water, then put it back in the bucket with a mix of water and vinegar for a 1/2 hour or so stirring once in a while. Then another couple of good rinses in clean water.  Hope this helps

[rich pierce]

Thanks Bob!

[k morgan]

from my experince you can kote hide with ashes and sprinkle with water and roll up in cool place ,but dependent on what kind of ash and how old the ashes are depend on how long it takes to dehair. I have had hair roll off and start eatting holes in hides a couple hours i'm no expert on this.

[k morgan]

most of my ashes came from hard wood leaf ahs pile

[bob in the woods]

Large buck skin, soaked for 2 days in a 5 gallon pail of water with a good shovel full of wood stove ashes.  It took all of two days because it's still pretty cold here.  Most of the hair wiped off but the spine and neck areas required pulling, although not too bad. Sometimes I'll just sprinkle more ash on those areas and roll it up over night. Now I've got a pail of deer hair.  I might wash it and stuff a pillow 
BTW- this was the first hide that I fleshed  with a flint stone tool.  The last one too !   

[rich pierce]

Looks good. I got mine de-haired, dried, rolled up.