The Hair is falling off my...

[Zonie]

I am the owner of a nice home made Possibles Bag which is made out of deerskin which was tanned with the hair left on it.

As I wear it around to various places, I noticed that some of the hair is falling off.

Is there an easy cure to fix Possibles Bag Pattern Baldness?
I thought about my wifes hair stuff, but I think it only works on dears, not deers.

Any ideas?

Oh, the title is part of an old joke. It goes like this:
A farmer worked for years for the money to send his daughter to College.
After she got there, all of the girls in the dorm were buying bicycles so she sent a letter to her dad explaining how she needed some money for a bike.

A few months later, the farmer saved enough for the bike and sent it to her, but by then, the girls were buying Spyder Monkeys instead of bicycles so that's what she bought.
Several weeks later, her Monkey got sick and his hair started falling out.
The daughter thought "My dad knows all about animals so she wrote him a letter saying:
"Dear Dad: The hair is falling off of my Monkey. What should I do?"

Her dad wrote back: "SELL THE BIKE!"

OK, that should be worth an idea about my Possibles Bags Pattern Baldness??

Zonie
Keep Your Eyes Peeled!

 

[roo shooter]

Now you gorne and done it ill spend the rest of the day thinking about monkeys.

 

[arcticap]

Is the hair coming out in clumps or is it just thinning everywhere?
There's replacement animal "toupees", but I'll bet that the colors won't match.[url] http://www.blueribbonflies.com/merchandise/flytying_hair.shtml[/url]

What about other filler material or decorative adornments, like colored leather, shooting patch, concho, beadwork?

Or remove all the hair and then dye?

 

[Ridge]

Deer hair is hollow and very prone to breakage.

It's something you are going to have to live with.

 

[Swampman]

Deer hides harvested in the summer don't shed. Deer hides harvested in the winter do.

 

[Stumpkiller]

There must be some taxidermist's trick to minimize that. Seems like I have heard alum used to slow this.

Sure it's not little buggies? Clothes moths, flour beetles and larva of both just love to visit my fly-tying materials. Constant battle to keep them out.

Maybe a comb over?

Or, just use it proudly. I've seen many originals with placards that read: "may have originally had hair on the hide", but you can't see any remaining.

 

[Cherokee]

:rotf: :hatsoff: sorry Zonie I had to

 

Hey Zonie, it's called "patina" in some circles. :grin:

 

[boar]

Zonie We used Borax to set the hair on a coon hide . A fur buyer told us about it. This was a untanned hide. He told us to coat the flesh side with the Borax,it turned the hide more white and set the hair tight. Dilly

 

[TANSTAAFL]

My hair started falling out when I turned 50. :rotf:

 

[barebackjack]

As ridge said, deer hair is hollow, and very brittle (not so much as antelop though).

Is it falling out (slipping), or breaking off?

Who prepared the green hide? (the pre-tanned hide)
If it was slightly spoiled this could cause slippage. If it wasnt fleshed properly, tanning solution may not have penetrated all the way to leather (only penetrated fat and membrane), this could cause slippage as the leather is not fully preserved.
Was it a home tan kit, brain tan, or commercial tan garment tan?
My family has been in the fur business for 30+ years, and those home tan kits are by far the worst. Sometimes they work, sometimes they dont. Sometimes they work half way.
Commercial tans is great, but expensive.
Brain tan is time consuming and messy, but in my opinion makes the best leather of them all.
Im off track, but if it was tanned with a home kit. It may just not be fully tanned.

At any rate, there are fixes.

One thing we used to do to hide bullet holes in pelts was to cut out the damage area (bald area) and match a new piece to it, and sew it in. Youll have to match lay of hair, and length, believe it or not these are more noticeable than color, which youll have to match also.

You could always leave it to give it that "worn" appearance also.

Hope any of this helps.

Boone

 

[Zonie]

Thanks for all of the replys!

First off, no, it's not falling out in patches. Its just randomly breaking off, which leads me to suspect it is just the result of the "hollow" hair you folks mentioned.

As for who tanned it and with what?, I don't have a clue. The leather seems supple, there is no sign of membrane, fat or meat and no smell.

This picture shows the bag along with the shirt I bought from an elderly couple at a Antique Sale:

I got the shirt plus the possibles bag (with some goodies in it) for $165 so I guess I have no room to complain. I was just hoping some kind of oil could be used to keep the fur flexable.

Zonie

 

[Stumpkiller]

Does that ball block have cruciform holes??? Could we get a close up? Looks like a unique piece.

Now, for the missing hair on the bag, ye jest need a good cover story.

"There we were, three days surrounded in a dry was by Comanchees. We held them off with accurate fire, but the powder ran out on the third day. Even though we knew thay's be closing in, we was just too tired. So's I had an idea. I pulled my pouch over my head and fell asleep.

Sure enough, that night thay came on us after the moon set and it was totally dark. One grabbed my pouch and sliced the ball bag, thinking it was my throat, then proceeded to scalp the hair clean off the pouch's flap.

My partner Calico George, was almost as lucky. He was on watch and heard 'em coming so he put his shirt and pants on backwards and ran in reverse until he fell. Then, played dead and pretended to have broken his neck and spun his head clean around. When one who wasn't too proud to accept a gift prize started to scalp him he screamed, and he and the Comanchee both took off in opposite directions like scalded cats. Just got a nick from the knife and three miles worth of cactus spines.

 

[David Teague]

As it's been pointed out... deer hair is hollow and will shed...

If you want a fur bag that doesn't suffer from hollow hair shed, use goat.

So... deer hair shedding is PC, just not very purty.

:winking:

DT

 

[Zonie]

Liked your story Stumpy but I'll have to change the Indians to Apache for it to fly out here in 'zonie. :grin:

The ball block you were asking about looks like this:

It is sized for a .45 caliber.
It measures 8 1/8 long including the brass measure. The measure sticks out about 1 inch.
It is 1 1/4 wide and 3/4 thick where the measure is. The area where the balls are is 13/32 thick.
The measure appears to be a shortened .45-70 shell casing, but if it is, the rim must have been cut off to get it into the wood. There aren't any gaps between the body of the cartridge and the wood.

The holes look like they might have been made by drilling (4) 3/16 holes equally spaced and then drilling for the ball with a 15/32 bit.

The wood looks like stained plain Maple.

There were two of these in the pouch when I got it.

 

I like the shape of those holes. Pretty neat block. Say ye got two of 'em? :hmm: Wanna make a swap fer the extra one? :grin:

 

[Cherokee]

You sure they werent black feet?

 

[bob1961]

what bout squirrel does it shed like deer....i'm gunna make a grey bag.............bob

 

[Zonie]

You sure they werent black feet?

Well now, come to think of it, most of um had black feet. :hmm:
All except one of them that is. :grin: His squaw followed him around saying things like:
"Watch out for that mud there...Now don't go stepping in that old fire pit like all the others do...Don't step in that Elk Scat..." :rotf: :rotf:

 

[musketman]

:rotf: :hatsoff: sorry Zonie I had to

Maybe he needs this instead... :grin: