Doing my first Tanning!

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SarniaTricia

SarniaTricia

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I will be doing my first tanning of a group of rabbits we are having processed.

Monday I will be starting:
Step 1:
Wash pelts with Dawn
Rinse Well
Place up to 6 pelts in a 5 gallon pale with 1 cup alum and water 2/3 of pail.

Step 2:
book a day 3 days later to peel the hides.

I'll keep posting as I learn.
I'm hoping to post pictures too.
:D
 
Good luck to you. I have done a dozen or so hides, I want to do them all but they're a lot of work. Mine turned out pretty good although a little stiff, probably just need a little more working on.

My procedure is:

Fill 5 gallon bucket 2/3 with water, add 1 cup Alum/ 1 cup non-anodized salt
After two days, remove from brine, rinse and scrape hides
Return to brine, add another 1 cup Alum/ 1 cup Salt
Let soak for seven days, stirring a couple of times a day, remove, rinse and hang to dry
When almost dry but still slightly damp, stretch hide until completely white (I just use my hands and pull it with my fingers)
Let dry

Some people like to rub them with a light oil when dry to keep them soft. I just leave them as they are. My oldest ones are a few years old now (5-6?) and the fur is still on the hides and they look fine.

To me, the most crucial step is the scraping. If it's not scraped properly the hide won't stretch properly.

Hope this helps! :)
 
Truckinguy":1xgdk1z7 said:
Good luck to you. I have done a dozen or so hides, I want to do them all but they're a lot of work. Mine turned out pretty good although a little stiff, probably just need a little more working on.

My procedure is:

Fill 5 gallon bucket 2/3 with water, add 1 cup Alum/ 1 cup non-anodized salt
After two days, remove from brine, rinse and scrape hides
Return to brine, add another 1 cup Alum/ 1 cup Salt
Let soak for seven days, stirring a couple of times a day, remove, rinse and hang to dry
When almost dry but still slightly damp, stretch hide until completely white (I just use my hands and pull it with my fingers)
Let dry

Some people like to rub them with a light oil when dry to keep them soft. I just leave them as they are. My oldest ones are a few years old now (5-6?) and the fur is still on the hides and they look fine.

To me, the most crucial step is the scraping. If it's not scraped properly the hide won't stretch properly.

Hope this helps! :)
Click to expand...

This is the same method I am using. But I broke the ingredients down to a gallon of water .5 cup Alum .5 cup of rock salt that I can get 40 lbs at 5 bucks. The reason for such a small amount of pickle is that i am not sure what I am doing so instead of wasting many hides I thought I would just try one for now and see how it goes.

Not sure what to do after the breaking process. ? smoke oil or both Basicly how would one finish the hides to make the water resistance or waterproof?
 
Not sure what to suggest for waterproofing. I don't intend for mine to get wet...lol. I haven't treated mine at all and they're keeping well and no hair has come off them. I process my rabbits at around 12-14 weeks so the furs are very thin and not good for much except maybe trim or some small project. They are just conversation pieces at the moment.
 
Ok ... so success so far...
All the pelts were washed with DAWN and rinsed well...

5 gallon pail (6pelts) - with one cup of alum and one cup of pickling salt.
Currently resting in the laundry room.

Peeling pelts tonight.....
(my next instruction is to add an additional cup of alum and salt to the existing bring... rabbit pelts will be placed back in the brine for ..... an unknown amount of time....lol)

I did read that you can oil the pelts as they dry (as you are working them) with neat's-foot oil?
I assume this might make them water resistant, but not waterproof.
 

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I don't know of anything that would make a fur pelt truly water proof.

There are some commercial sprays that can make suede water resistant. Smoke is also said to help, if you want to go that route.
 
Neat's foot oil is supposed to eat at threads that you might sew with. It recommended to use mineral oil. Smoking from what I have read and seen on youtube. Is the best way to waterproof them. But it will discolor furs such as white fur. I am still in the tawing solution my self. My fur is being left in solution for two weeks instead of the recommended 7 to 10 days.

Smoking is used on buckskin or hairless furs mostly. They smoke both side of the buckskin. To make it water resistance. It is said after smoking is done if the skin get wet it does turn back to rawhide but is worked a little to make if soft as the day its was tanned.
 
So... We got to peeling the pelts (Thirsday and Friday) and found that we didn't wash the pelts as well as we though.... some had nasty rot going on...
Lost 1/2 the pelts to this.... peeled the rest and changed out the water ....

Pail changed and 3/4 full water, with 2 heaping cups of salt and alum.... pelts are back in the pails and smell better now that the rotting ones have been removed and the water changed....

Our Coach had never had his pelts smell that bad.... but we got ours back from a processing plant and they were not as careful as he is when processing (parts still attached to pelts, pelts torn in a way that they couldn't be saved, bowel punctures (soiled pelts)) so we are living and learning that if we have a pelt we really want to salvage.... we need to process the rabbits ourselves.
 
Monitoring the acid of your PH would help immensely. A PH of 2 seems to work pretty well with most acids.

Processing yourself is definitely the best option for pelts you want to save.
I strongly doubt most butchers would have a good idea of fur pelt handling. Epidermal slip can start after just a few hours in warm, moist, or dirty conditions. It's important to salt or freeze pretty much just as soon as the body heat has left a skin.
 
Zass":1u9yhd04 said:
Monitoring the acid of your PH would help immensely. A PH of 2 seems to work pretty well with most acids.

Processing yourself is definitely the best option for pelts you want to save.
I strongly doubt most butchers would have a good idea of fur pelt handling. Epidermal slip can start after just a few hours in warm, moist, or dirty conditions. It's important to salt or freeze pretty much just as soon as the body heat has left a skin.
Click to expand...

Where can I look for these test strips?
 
bigfoot_158":391g943n said:
Zass":391g943n said:
Monitoring the acid of your PH would help immensely. A PH of 2 seems to work pretty well with most acids.

Processing yourself is definitely the best option for pelts you want to save.
I strongly doubt most butchers would have a good idea of fur pelt handling. Epidermal slip can start after just a few hours in warm, moist, or dirty conditions. It's important to salt or freeze pretty much just as soon as the body heat has left a skin.
Click to expand...

Where can I look for these test strips?
Click to expand...

https://www.amazon.com/Packs-Paper-Litm ... mus+strips


Some of the ones sold for aquarium use do not read low enough on the PH scale.
 
Well this weekend we will see how my "adventures in curing" has gone!

Sept 9th is day 14 in the solution of 2 heaping cups alum and 2 heaping cups of salt.
The skin part looks really white. The pails don't smell horrible, but the one doesn't smell "fresh"..lol
Time to rinse and dry and beat these skins... wish me luck!
 

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