Cooking the Fat: Making Hide Glue

Last week as we wrapped up our review on our W. Smith and Sons canvas needles, I said we were going to start this week on cargo tape. However, this week we are not going to be focusing on traditional cargo tape or duct tape, we are instead going to be focusing on making our own glue out of raw hide chew toys.




The first thing I did was place the raw hide chew toy into the bottom of a 5 gallon bucket, filled the bucket with enough water to fully submerge the chew toy, and placed a mason jar over top of it to keep it from floating to the surface.

After a few hours, the raw hide toy was soft enough to be unrolled into a flat piece which is much easier to work with. At this point I laid it out on a cutting board and cut it into small strips keeping in mind that they all need to fit into a pot.





After making sure all of the small pieces of raw hide fit sufficiently in the pot, I am going to take
them out and place them elsewhere. In the mean time I am going to add water to my pot, let it come to a boil, and then turn it down to simmer and re add the raw hide strips. At this point I am going to let it cook for about an hour and a half being cautious not to let the water boil. The higher temperature will cause the glue to weaken. I also want to be sure to stir occasionally with a chop stick.

After the cooking process finished, I tested the liquid on the chop stick I was stirring with and it definitely wanted to bind to my fingers. I will say that I didn't do the best job keeping the water from boiling, but I tried to manage it the best I could. Now I want to remove the large piece of raw hide from the pot so that all that is left is the liquid, which is our glue. Using a flour sack towel, I am going to strain  the glue into a small mason jar that I am going to store the glue in.

It is also worth noting to make sure you leave a divet in the center of your flour sack towel so that glue doesn't spill everywhere as you are pouring it in the jar. The glue did leave some residue on the top of my towel, but it's nothing I shouldn't be able to clean up. The mason jars I used were $6-$7 at Walmart, however if you had a metal container to store the glue in that would be preferable. I just like to use something that should be cheap and easy for anyone to find and purchase. After about 6-8 hours, the glue has cooled and set.

You can tell the glue is finished if you tap it and it jiggles. In my experience I tried scraping a piece out and rolling it between my fingers to activate it, but it didn't work. It's unfortunate because I didn't want to have to heat it up since I did store it in a glass jar, however it's not big deal. Just set the glass jar into boiling water and the glue will return to it's liquid state, ready to use. I hope you guys learned enough to try this out for yourselves, and I would love to hear your results. Next week we will be talking about cargo tape. I'll be showing you my favorite brand and some super glue from that brand as well. You won't want to miss it! As always feel free to comment by clicking the comment link at the end of the blog, hit the follow button in the top right corner, share this blog, and check back next week for a new one on Sunday 10pm (est). If you want to keep up with me and what I’m doing, Follow me on Facebook: @BPackBushcraft and on Twitter @BPackBushCraft. Lastly if video is more your style check out my YouTube Channel backpack bushcraft where there is a video version of this with the same title. Until next time, keep those fires burning and put another log on for me.