I tanned some goat fur & some other pelts and I washed them before tanning but they still smell like animal. Can I wash it again with dawn soap or how should I remove the smell?
So I have the skunk hide. I fleshed it, salted it for like 2 months, and gave it a 14 salt bath. I want to know if it’s ready to egg tan today. I’ve been trying to get rid of what I think is membrane but keep making small holes and pulling hair through.
Can I just tan it or should I keep working on it?
I am looking to complete my first dry tan. I am just wanting the hides to be soft and pliable for my wall. I will not be selling or mounting these hides. Do I need to turn the ears etc?
Smoking a fine brain tanned, hair off Montana mule deer hide.
Very malleable after drying with borax should I leave in the sun or just replace borax
I have a cowhide that’s been sitting outside for a couple of months that I’d like to try to get fleshed and then try tanning. Is it too late or is there some way to soften it to get it workable again?
I’m a bark tan convert! This is a bit of an odd question but I’m wondering if I can bark tan a hide that has been tanned with a chemical tan? I have 2 hair-off deer hides that were tanned with TruBond 1000b. But I don’t like them. Can I fix/improve these by bark tanning?
So I grew up drying and tanning mammal skins, most of my life, whether it was deer, bobcats, foxes, squirrels or rabbits. Familiar with the general process but its been a few years since ive done anything.
I've never done a reptile before. I was given a deceased rattlesnake on Wednesday, I skinned it and ate the rattlesnake meat. But the skin I just salted, rolled it up and put it in the refrigerator. Because I wasn't really sure how to dry and tan it... It is very clearly different from mammalian skin, much thinner and the scales make me nervous about using normal techniques. Just a casual hide tanner. Certainly no expert even with mammal hides, mostly self taught.
Anyways, looking for maybe a very quick rudimentary Step-by-step guide to get it preserved(doesn't need to be perfect) I just want to avoid letting it go to waste and would prefer to do it with minimal material costs for tanning supplies. I trust redditors much more than Google when it comes to stuff like this. Online seems like a lot of either misinformation, or over the top "museum level" methods that are way too detailed for me, or at worst: just people trying to sell you products.
Do I just stretch it out and dry it in the Sun as normal? Or do I need to dry it slower? What can I use to tan it with once it's dry? Stuff like that.
I cant tan this for a couple months. Do i need to degrease it before tacking and drying or am i good to go. Pic not really relevant to question
I have this hide I’ve been working on but idk what to do next. I can’t quite stretch the center, I think it might need fleshed more? I’m not sure. It’s from an intact elderly stud rabbit, probably around 14 years old, so the entire hide was tough, thick, and difficult to work with. I had to flesh by cutting the fascia with a razor blade a millimeter at a time, and I’m still not sure I got it all.
I brined for 2 days in 1 cup alum, 1 cup salt, 1 gallon water, took it out, finished? Fleshing, then put it in 2 cups alum, 2 cups salt, 1 gallon water for 7 more days. Yesterday I rinsed it and shampooed the fur in a tiny amount of baby shampoo and rinsed well, then hung it to dry. I stretched/broke it the best I could last night, some places stayed soft and pliable, some didn’t.
Today I tried to sand it a little with 220 grit paper, but it didn’t do much.
Where do I go from here? The fur is beautiful but the flesh side is a mess. It looks like there’s salt crystals forming on the hide as well? Is that normal?
Alright y'all I recently got into a new job at a local weed farm as an overnight security guard. I found that they set traps during the summer due to the amount of ground hogs, racoons, foxes, etc that destroy the plants and dig holes under the fence. The head of maintenance has asked me to check traps during my patrols and I'm wondering if this would be a great way to get into tanning some hides. My main concern is since it's summer if these hides are worth tanning or not. Seems like the bulk of them will be ground hog hides but the occasional raccoon or fox as well. I plan on doing fur on for the most part but won't shy away from doing fur off as well.
Since y’all have experience with tanning hides, I hope you could help me with this! I bought this otter pelt a year ago and I am in LOVE with it, except for the feet! 3/4 are a little warped, ranging from twisted toes to having part or half of the foot inside out. I would really like to know if it’s possible to fix this and to make them look more normal! :D
Today I went to a local town's heritage celebration and I ended up case skinning a grey squirrel. I've never skinned an animal before. I had the privilege of taking it home on a fleshing beam with instructions to let it dry and use a spoon to scrape off the bits left on the hide, and then rub a mixture of egg and water on it, to cure I think?
Since I got home I did a little bit of research, and I managed to use the back of a butter knife to flesh most of the body. I'm having trouble with the limbs and tail because they're drying out really fast, genital area because it isn't dry enough to flesh yet, and the head because there's lots of delicate parts and a caked layer of blood. I can't feel a difference to tell exactly where I stopped fleshing between the limbs and body, but I remember generally.
I sat outside fleshing for an hour or so, then left it outside while I had dinner and did some googling. Then based off of something I read, I ran the hide under warm water to make it a bit more pliable, did some more fleshing until the mosquitoes and bugs got unbearable, and now I have stored the squirrel off the fleshing beam in a gallon bag in the freezer. I could feel that the hide shrunk or tightened a bit around the fleshing beam when I took it off to put it in the freezer.
I'm looking for any advice or as detailed instructions as anyone is willing to share. Right now my plan is to try and finish fleshing it tomorrow by running it under warm water and putting it back on the fleshing beam, then probably covering it in salt for a few days, changing it when it gets soaked through, and then rubbing the egg/water mixture on it and leaving it out in the sun on the fleshing beam to dry. Since it's my first project I'm not expecting a miracle, I just want to be able to keep this pelt without it rotting. Any help would be extremely appreciated.
Hey there! Not a first time tanner but first time with a cowhide. I wanted to level up.
Used a pressure washer for the fleshing, long but worth it! Found proportions for a pickle on a few trapper websites and now we are here.
What's a good next step if you dont have chemicals in your budget? I read that using egg yolks can help set the leather, just planning on using this for a rug. Realistic expectations have been employed as this is a first attempt at a cowhide.
Ok u/jesters_emperor has helped me lots with this journey (thank you!) but I have a tendency to overthink 😵💫
I've got this python skin that's just been properly defleshed. Prior to this, it was sitting in an alcohol-glycerin mix with bits of flesh stuck to it. It's been sitting in there for about a week and a half with daily agitation. I want to use the skin for a bracelet, a hat band, and as an accent for a wallet.
I've been looking for vege/bark tanning extracts since oak and other typical bark materials mentioned in this subreddit aren't available to me, and I might just go use some mimosa extract powder since I've found a supplier (hoping that they sell them in smaller batches 🤞🏻). If not, I'll have to start foraging for native bark soon haha.
Now I've been told that a vege/bark tan is the way to go. Should I pickle the skin before I start tanning it? Or can I just tan it right away? If I have to pickle it, will vinegar and salt do? I saw someone mention using those ingredients for their snake pickling mix (https://www.cascity.com/forumhall/index.php?topic=44693.0).
Or did the alcohol-glycerin preservation mix work as a pickling solution as well?
So far this is the gist of what I plan to do:
Pickle/Tan > Stitch up holes (what stitch material to use? Is the baseball stitch the best stitching technique? ) > Stretch board to dry and make leather pliable > Wash off with water and pat dry > Snake skin is now proper, usable leather(?)
Would need all the advice and tips y'all can give! 🤲🏻
I live in a tropical and very humid country. I feel like that will affect the snake skin but I'm not sure how so I'm just going to mention that.