Does anyone here tan hides? Would like to get some tanned this year. What do I need to do while skinning to make it as easy as possible? Thanks!
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Hide Tanning
- Thread starter bsmith104
- Start date
My girlfriend says I need to get my hide tanned
DAMN IT! Not what I'm talking about!!
I KEED I KEED! But really does anyone tan animal hides
I don't exactly "tan" them but I do keep a few around. When skinning, take your time and try to remove only the hide with as little muscle attached as possible. I then soak the hide in 3lbs of salt with just enough water to dissolve and cover the hide for a few days. Remove from the water, rinse and scrape the rest of the **** off the leather and coat liberally with borax and salt. At this stage you can roll it up and store indefinitely or just let the salt work for a week to draw out the moisture. The next step is to soften the leather, this can be accomplished numerous ways (brain, oil, smoke etc.) I prefer to smoke the hide for a couple hours and start working it until it becomes pliable. This is a shortened version of what an old timer showed me and seems to work well enough for decorative pelts but it's certainly not a professional job.
I'm attaching a link to the video that I used to start tanning. I was mainly interested in rabbits so I went with this process to keep the fur. Pretty easy to do, but I screwed up the first few so be prepared for that. One thing I'll point out is when it's hanging, don't let it get too dry before starting to stretch it out or it'll become hard as a rock. You CAN re-wet it, but it still won't work as well (didn't for me, anyway). Another thing that matters is thickness of the hide. I raise Silver Fox rabbits. They have beautiful fur, but the skins are too thin when I butcher fryers (10-12 weeks) and a lot of the fur pulled loose when stretching. For a hide thick enough to work with, I have to grow them out to around 18 weeks. I've only done this with rabbit hides so far, but I do have a couple of deer hides in my freezer that will go thru the process soon.
