Tanning Hides
I've always wanted to have hides tanned, and with the way that my season is looking on cameras so far, I have my hopes elevated on at least two nice kills. Does anyone know how to tan hides yourself, so I don't have to pay an ungodly fee for something that I could have done on my own?
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VenaticFanatics .com
interested in the same thing... let me know if you hear of anyone knowing how!none of your business
OK. First you got to make sure its scraped free of all the fat. Thats probaly the most important part. Then you want to stretch it skin side out on a bord or something by nailing the edges of the fur as far away from the opposite edges as you can get them. Then you need to realy salt it good, and make sure that all parts of the hide are thourghly salted. That should all be right after skinning. Remember to never wash the skin side of the hide with water because it may taint it, but after your done tanning you can do whatever with it. Leave the first coat of salt on the hide for about 5 days then scrape it off and put another one on there and make sure to get it rubbed in good. Leave that on there for another 3 days then take the hide off the board and work it through your hands real good to make it soft. We have to work them over rocks sometimes and you may want to chew on the edges to make them soft. After that, salt again, put it back on the nails, and scrape the salt off and replace it once every 3 days for two weeks. Take it off the nails, and work it again. It should be dried and soft by then. If not then work it somemore, but that should be it.Jeremy Romand
That is one good way of doing it. Just remember table salt does not work!! make sure not to scrape to deep if you want the hair on. Dont expose the hair roots, it will fall out. There is lots of info online and really good suggestions. To make it easy most outfitter stores carry a tanning kit that will normaly do about 2 deer hides per kit. Look into your options and do your research.Audra Goss
Cool ideas! Thanks a bunch! It's actually kinda funny, cause two days after I posted this, I shot a doe and I was able to get a nice 3x4 skin off her, maybe enough to make some nice boot-warmers and gloves.Kelly Harper
there is also a dvd called Deerskin to Buckskin that shows three different tanning methods , you can prolly google it and find one