The purpose of the scalding vat was to render the hair on the hog loose enough to be scraped or pulled off. This required that the water be heated to about 140 degrees. Much cooler meant the hair would not "slip". Much hotter meant you literally scalded the hog and again the hair wouldn't "slip". A couple of good strong men would lower the hog into the vat very gingerly. If, when the hog touched the water, he flinched, you snatched him back and didn't let him go into the vat. To allow a hog into the vat that wasn't quite dead meant you had to refill the vat with water and wait for it to reach the correct temperature again. A lot of lost time, not to mention taking a too hot bath yourself. That's why you always tried to put the hogs that were killed first into the vat first.

Once the hog was safely in the vat he was rolled over with a hoe from time to time. This was to promote even heating. Also with the hoe the hog was brought to the surface for testing. A hand full of hair was grabbed from whatever part of him came up. If the hair pulled away easily, he was ready to be taken out and placed on the scraping table. Two people stood on the table beside the vat. Each man grabbed a rear foot. There was a trick to this because the foot was wet and slippery and there was still a 250 pound hog attached to it. You ran your thumb around the back of the foot just below the small toes on the side and wrapped your fingers around the front. You placed the other hand just below that. Before you could snatch the hog out of the water and onto the table you had to determine which way to swing the head. Since the head was always notoriously hard to scrape, you never turned the head to the same side of the table twice in a row. If you did, you faced the wrath of the scrapers. They believed deeply in the democratic principle of shared responsibility. And if the guys who were scalding the hogs didn't do a good job, they heard about that also from the scrapers.

Revised 2/14/2006, 10/13/2011.