Club Obi Wan

So, I was standing there talking to my friends old cowboy dad and I was asking him if he knew of a place to get good cow leather. I explained I was making a whip and he went off on this long tangent about how moose leather was the strongest and best leather ever!

He said he was gonna get me one so I could use it and see....has anyone heard of this? I know Canadians can be a tad odd about their moose, but I'm wondering if there is some truth to this.

A moose once bit my sister...

My Step dad's old car got attacked by like 5 moose...it was dented like crazy when he finally retired it.

myrddin wrote:A moose once bit my sister...

What were the initials as she carved them in?

Regards,
Yutte Hermsgervordenbroti

Moose are extinct in Tasmania, went the way of the Tasmanian tiger.

It's cause moose have such long legs and the Tazzy Devils would chew them off...and as much as you would think a legless moose would be able to get around just fine....well...on the contrary.

I'm sorry for derailing your thread too, CLM. It's just that I don't have a lot of moose skin experience, other than my dad being chased by one on his scooter when he was a teen.

Reindeer on the other hand...

Hopefully someone will chime in.

Regards,
Swindiana

Seriously I did read somewhere that moose hide is much stronger than cow hide.

Moose hide is tough. It's been used for leather garments here in Scandinavia for centuries, and is one of the preferred leathers for jackets worn by frowning middle-aged guys with expensive Volvos and corresponding paychecks.

Moose hide is versatile. It's suitable for heavier-grain leatherwork as well as silk-smooth, high-quality stuff. It's also very durable, and has nice tensile strength. Due to it's porosity, garments made of moose are nice and warm.

Common problems with obtaining moosehides is that they tend to be bullet- and insect-ridden - the large-calibre ammunition used when hunting moose is the reason. If the shooter's aim is poor, a significant part of the hide may be ruined. Also, the deer fly is rapidly spreading in Scandinavia and is a huge nuisance for the moose - deer flies can cause thousands of bites on one single moose and the scars can't be hidden when preparing the hides.

Moose is also delicious! I wholeheartedly recommend a nice steak or maybe moose meatballs or burger patties... scrumptious!

Moose might be great for garments, but maybe not so much for whips.

If it's tough, it's probably not that stretchy, and probably wouldn't easily cut thin enough to do effective plaiting with. It's the smooth, stretchiness of kangaroo that makes it so great for transferring energy out to the fall of the whip.

You could make a whip out of moose hide that you could probably deflect bullets with, but it would probably be a beast to crack and not handle well at all.

(And før the recørd, it was an interspace tøøthbrush given her by Svenge - her brother-in-law - an Oslo dentist and star of many Norwegian møvies:
"The Høt Hands of an Oslo Dentist", "Fillings of Passion", "The Huge Mølars of Horst Nordfink".)

-Respectfully Yours
Richard M. Nixon

thefish wrote:Moose might be great for garments, but maybe not so much for whips.

You may well be right re: the tensile strength - I have no idea, and have not found any good references either.

thefish wrote:And før the recørd, it was an interspace tøøthbrush

The sharpened end of it, no doubt...

Well I've never worked with it, but I've seen it as a kid from hunting uncles of mine. If you can get your hands on it, it might be fun to try it out. However the way the hide is tanned has a lot to do with how strong it is after. I've worked with chrome tanned kangaroo that was completely useless for whipmaking, that's when I realized the difference between vegetable tanned leather and the rest. Go ahead, try it, but my guess is that it won't be a proper tannage (it may even be rawhide) and will make a very thick leather, which may be hard to pull tightly enough to make a tight plait. But that's just my thoughts & my two cents...

Franco

but my guess is that it won't be a proper tannage (it may even be rawhide) and will make a very thick leather

It would be rawhide yes. My friends dad told me about a connection where I could get it tanned and planed to whatever thickness I needed.

I just question it's strength compared to roo, or even cow.

I love Monty Python!!!

Dave

myrddin wrote:A moose once bit my sister...

Lol. Seriously, I hope she came out of it ok. I always thought Moose were docile creatures, (big mistake!), until I saw one in Idaho pin a guy to a tree with his antlers. The guy luckily survived, but he also deserved it for harassing this magnificent animal. And no, it wasn't me!

Scandinavia Jones wrote:... deer flies can cause thousands of bites on one single moose and the scars can't be hidden when preparing the hides.

Mind you, deer flei bites Kan be pretti nasti...

Not as nasti as a pair of pointy teeth, mind you.
They could nibble your bum, you know.

Regards,
Swindiana