Heads and Hides--our raw materials. More on the heads later.

Midnight scrape-a-thon.

Bryan got a dozen hides one day in January and we were up past midnight scraping.

Here's Mason removing the hair from a hide. That's a trash bag he's wearing.

The oils in brain tissue are perfect for softening the hide. An adult deer brain is about the size of my fist.

I used two deer brains for three hides.

You probably don't want to see the process of removing the brain from the deer's head.

... and this is your brain in a blender.

Soak and wring the hide multiple times to ensure good brain saturation.

Dad and Cole frame softening. After the brain soak you must "work" the hide dry to soften it.

Mason takes a shift on the frame.

We found hand-softening and cable-softening to be more effective that frame softening.

You pull and stretch the hide to soften its internal structure, and occasionally pull it back and forth over a cable to abraid and soften the outside.

The "Buckskin Boys" model their primitive fashions.