Foxfire 12 by Kaye Carver Collins

Author:Kaye Carver Collins [Collins, Kaye Carver]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: General, Social Science, Folklore & Mythology, History, Sociology, Rural, United States, Education, Customs & Traditions, State & Local, Georgia, Folklore, Crafts & Hobbies, Country life
ISBN: 9781400032617
Publisher: Random House Digital, Inc.
Published: 2004-09-01T06:00:00+00:00

PLATE 112 John thinning down a groundhog hide on his fleshing bench

The old-timey way to tan a groundhog hide is to first soak it in a mixture of oak ashes and water. The old term for this mixture is ooze, and the ratio depends on a number of variables, like how many hides you are doing at once, the air temperature, and the quality of your ash. You just have to play with it. If the next morning your hide looks like a giant hairy raisin, you maybe could have used a little less ash. The container you use can be made of anything that isn't metal, and ideally it should be roomy enough that the hide can be laid out flat. The amount of time you leave the hide in the ooze depends a lot on the weather. If it's a really hot day, you can set your container of ooze in the sun, and the hide will generally be ready in about twenty-four hours. If it's only fifty degrees, it may take three or four days. The way you tell that the hide is ready to come out of the ooze is by taking a stick and scraping back and forth on the hair. If the hair layer breaks loose from the hide and peels off, kind of like peeling sunburned skin, the hide is ready to rinse. Otherwise, it's back into the ooze a while longer. Once the hide is rinsed, it needs to be fleshed to get all the extra meat off the inside and get it down to a good thickness for a banjo head. I do this on what's called a fleshing bench.

The benches that were used in local tanneries back in the days when cattle and other large hides were manually fleshed were much larger than the one I use. I sit straddling the lower end of the bench and spread the hide across the top end. I added a little trough about halfway down the incline to keep the runoff from the hide from soaking my britches.

A good banjo head is fairly thin, so you spread the hide over the bench, meat side up, and work your knife in a circular motion, all the time pulling back on the excess flesh you're cutting away from the inside of the hide.

The top surface of the bench is rounded. Generally, it is the same contour as the outside of the tree you made it from. The curve keeps you from gouging holes in the hide. If you put a hole in it, it isn't worth a hoot as a banjo head. That's when you make it into shoestrings.

“The Lord made trees a bit like he made people. They all have different characteristics, and if you look hard enough, you'll find something they're good for.”

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