I flesh and dry all my hides first so that when I'm ready I brew up a super strong solution of black tea and, when cool, paint the hide side with enough coats for it to soak in fully, stretching them between times to allow the fibers to drink it all up.
Then I let them dry a bit - being careful all the time to get as little tea solution on the fur as possible - and then put them in the dryer with wool balls. I have used wooden blocks but that is really noisy and old shoes work well but dont use any you might want to wear again, it wrecks them. Anything that can tumble about with the hides will work.
Let run on no heat for aaaages.
The nice thing is you can keep damping down the hides wiht more tea if they are drying too stiff and, a few times I rub lard across my hands and work it into the hides, not much or often but it makes them feel nicer. A good quality hand cream or body lotion works really well too but be sure its good stuff, I ruined a batch once with cheap lotion, they seriously never stopped stinking. 4 years on and the one I have left still stinks.
Some hides come out amazing and others I have to finish up by hand but the dryer does most of the work.
Even if all of them need extra work its like, an hour or two per hide instead of an all day thing so much easier on my hands.
I feel so bloody stupid to have bought a dryer and it doesnt have an air cycle but whey hey, moving in our future again so maybe once we are set up I will get another one.
