Camping and woodcraft - Scoutmastercg.com

PELTS, BUCKSKIN, RAWHIDE 311against the limb of a small tree, with smooth surfacefacing the operator, and the small end stickingin the ground about two feet from the tree.A graining knife is now required. It was formerlymade of hardwood, of flint, of the sharpenedfib or scapula of an animal, or of the attached bonesof a deer's foreleg with the front end of the ulnascraped sharp, the latter instrument being used likea spoke-shave. Sometimes a large, strong musselshell was used. A favorite instrument was an adzeor hoe-shaped tool made from the fork of an elkantler. After they could get iron, the squaws madeskin-scrapers shaped like a littlehoe, the handle beingabout a foot long. A similar tool for scrapingsmall skins can be bought from dealers in taxidermists'materials. In the backwoods, however,one must commonly use an extemporized instrument.The back of a thin butcher knife does well enough,if filed square across so as to give a scraping edge,and the point of the blade driven into a stick for ahandle at that end. Or, one can take a large halfroundfile or a rasp, grind it to a square edge on^ach side, draw out the point into a tang, fit a shortoval handle crosswise on this end and a commonfile handle on the regular tang at the other end. Askate blade does very well. In fact, almost anythingwith a scraping rather than a cutting edgewill answer the purpose.The skin is placed on the graining log with theneck drawn over the upper end of the log aboutsix or eight inches; the operator places a flat stickbetween the neck and his body, to prevent slipping,and presses his weight against it. If the shortnotched log is used, the neck is caught bet^veenthe notch and the limb. The hair and grain (blackepidermis) are scraped off by working the knifedown the skin the way the hair runs. If the hairis stubborn, a little ashes rubbed into such spotswill offer resistance to the knife and will make thegrain slip.