Deer Hair for spinning

[mybadhabit 0]

When I went to Mr. Helm's website and saw the change in his business I wound up using the first company his lists on his new front

web page and purchased a number of colors which are 2" X 12" in size. They are listed as Hareline Premo Deer Hair. So far they have

met my needs. I use deer hair behind my popper heads as an option other than hackle.

 

That is a great idea, I'd never have thought of that, thanks Stipp

 

Blane

[JSzymczyk 0]

 

PS Black hair sucks to try and spin.

 

Blane

 

 

??? Why? the color should have nothing to do with whether a piece of hair is good for spinning.

 

Unfortunately the first and only "premo" strip of deer hair I bought was a piece of crap. It looked like it came from a south texas deer in the middle of summer. There were not two hairs on the whole strip which were the same length (I mean VASTLY different, cut a clump of hair and have hairs from 3/4 to 2 inches long) and it was nearly solid and wouldn't flare hardly at all. It was mail order, so it would have cost more to BS around trying to send it back than it was worth. There is always a lot of waste with deer hair spinning/stacking, but that was ridiculous. I don't order deer hair any more. I have to be satisfied with what I am spending my money on. With Chris Helm out of the picture, it's a shot in the dark. When I have the time in a shop, I pick through all the deer hair they have to find pieces which are good. same with bucktails. Next time I kill a deer (Pennsylvania, winter) I will be scraping and salting the best sections of hide.

[mybadhabit 0]

 

PS Black hair sucks to try and spin.

 

Blane

 

 

??? Why? the color should have nothing to do with whether a piece of hair is good for spinning.

 

Unfortunately the first and only "premo" strip of deer hair I bought was a piece of crap. It looked like it came from a south texas deer in the middle of summer. There were not two hairs on the whole strip which were the same length (I mean VASTLY different, cut a clump of hair and have hairs from 3/4 to 2 inches long) and it was nearly solid and wouldn't flare hardly at all. It was mail order, so it would have cost more to BS around trying to send it back than it was worth. There is always a lot of waste with deer hair spinning/stacking, but that was ridiculous. I don't order deer hair any more. I have to be satisfied with what I am spending my money on. With Chris Helm out of the picture, it's a shot in the dark. When I have the time in a shop, I pick through all the deer hair they have to find pieces which are good. same with bucktails. Next time I kill a deer (Pennsylvania, winter) I will be scraping and salting the best sections of hide.

 

The process used to dye the hair black breaks down the structure of the hair so it doesn't flair nearly as well as other colors. Proved that to myself just last week, used a black primo hair strip to practice on, then tied in other colors and wow what a difference a color makes. That and was told about it by an instructor in my hair spinning class about it, and she spins a lot of hair.

 

Blane

[oldtoolsniper 0]

I have four hides I processed this season. All four came from the same area and they are all different. Each whitetail is it's own animal and they are not the same. When you are working whole hides you can tell pretty fast where a 2 x 2 scrap of hide comes from on a deer. An entire deer hide here in Iowa is worth about $4.00. There are a lot of them that go to waste.

 

How the hide is processed makes a huge difference in how the hair handles. I spent a lot of time on the phone with Chris Helms and he was willing to share how he puts up his deer hides. It is a labor intensive job for folks who have never fleshed a hide. I trap full time and put up all of my own fur so that was easy to accomplish for me. He told me he cannot find anyone who will do the hides for him because of the labor involved. If you have any of his hair it will have a yellow label with the type of hair checked on the label. The hide is rock hard, it is a green hide which means it is not tanned. These hides are NOT SALTED and they are NOT BORAXED they are fleshed, washed, de-greased, and dried. It takes a week or so to get a hide done and then you still have to cut and package that hide.

 

Tanning a hide unless you are doing it specifically for fly tying use does not take spinning hair into consideration. Foremost is keeping the hair on that hide, everything else is secondary. You never handle your mounted deer so the quality of the hair matters very little. We are looking for the ability to flair in our hair. Soaking that hide in an acid base is not really good for the hair or for what a fly tyer is looking for.

 

If the company is doing the hair for fly tying you will see a better quality hair. Random scraps from a taxidermist may or may not work for you but remember most deer mounts are the heads so you are not getting the hair you are looking for. Neck trimmings are not the same as flank, belly and rump hair.

 

The hair on a hide is different depending on where it comes from on that animal. A deer hide is no different than a chicken, each part is valued and used differently.