Opening up (scroll for instructions)

Watch the video above from our foundations cohort + read the notes below to gently but persistently open up your sheepskin as it dries over a day and a half.

IMPORTANT: this action encourages the skins to dry + for the protein fibres to remain stretched, but it may not be enough to full dry the skin and wool. That will depend on your local weather. Add a heat source and air flow if you can. We want dry sheepskins by Saturday, May 24.

opening up - Softening - Dry-scraping

Now the hide is secured to the frame. Yes!

Directions for Opening up

1. Lift the frame off the ground and lean it against a wall. Skin side faces you.

2. Take your wringing stick or a dry-scraper or the butt end of a tool or a shovel - anything goes right now.

3. Press your tool into the hide. You’ll see the hide stretch inwards and turn white and opaque.  

4. Keep pressing the tool into the hide and slide it around. Up, down, side to side, it’s all good. Whatever is comfortable.

5. Focus on the edges of the hide. If they get stiff and crunchy, use a pair of pliers to open them up.

6. Once you’ve gone all around the hide, you can ease up on your full attention. Return to the hide once every 30-60 minutes throughout the day and open it up. You can turn the frame around and use the tool on both sides. This will help the hide get used to being stretched forwards and backwards (it will make more relaxed-feeling buckskin)

7. It will take anywhere from 90 minutes to six hours hours for the hide to dry. If you want to speed it up, put a heat source underneath it. If you want to slow it down, keep it cool and outdoors.

8. Make sure you open it up several more times before it’s finally dry.

Directions for dry-scraping

1. Once the outside of the hide is dry, we cna begin using our sharp dry-scrapers to remove surface tissue

2. Scrape in a downwards motion (“bevel up, scrape down”)

3. Remove membrane on the membrane side; clean the junction of the grain-dermis on the grain side.

4. Watch your hide become super polished - and more flexible!

5. After a hide is 100% dry, you can keep dry scraping. It is not time-sensitive, as the hide won’t change on its own.

The difference between “opening up” and “dry scraping.”

• The motion of our hands and arms is the same.  

• The tools may differ:

• You can use any blunt tool for opening up. If you use a sharp tool, a wet hide will dull it fairly quickly.

• You need to use a sharp (round) tool for dry-scraping

• The goal of each stage is different:

• Opening up a hide stretches the protein fibres wide and makes a hide more flexible. It prepares us for dry-scraping and eventually for softening. A compressed hide doesn’t accommodate these later, crucial stages.

• Dry-scraping removes surface tissue and texture from both sides of the hide. It does contribute to a hide’s flexibility, but only after a lot of dry-scraping. 

• The timing is different:

• Opening up happens when a hide is wet, until it is dry

• Dry-scraping happens when a hide is 80%-100% dry