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Aluminum sulfate/pickling salt tan for fur on hides

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osage outlaw:
Great follow along Ed.  Thanks for posting this.  I've got a freezer full of hides that need done. 

bjrogg:
Looks real good Ed. Nice to have someone taking pictures for you while your doing this.
A couple tips if you've never scrapped a hide. Skin coon warm if you can but chill it good before scrapping it. The knife will bite into the fat and meat better when it's cold. Very messy if fat is warm.
Also belly is much thinner on most animals and be careful around teats very easy to cut through them.
Bjrogg

BowEd:

--- Quote from: osage outlaw on February 24, 2018, 02:28:39 pm ---Great follow along Ed.  Thanks for posting this.  I've got a freezer full of hides that need done. 

--- End quote ---
Clint I used to have a lot of hides that needed a tanning myself.The way I'm showing is about as mistake free and cheap as possible with tools and containers everyone can have laying around.With the way Robin and me live here I needed more room for meat/vegetables/berries etc. in the large chest freezer we got so I don't let the hide numbers get built up too much any more.Got 1 nice doe hide in there yet at the moment.I plan to just make regular old rawhide out of her in the frame dry scraping.

--- Quote from: bjrogg on February 24, 2018, 04:35:33 pm ---Looks real good Ed. Nice to have someone taking pictures for you while your doing this.
A couple tips if you've never scrapped a hide. Skin coon warm if you can but chill it good before scrapping it. The knife will bite into the fat and meat better when it's cold. Very messy if fat is warm.
Also belly is much thinner on most animals and be careful around teats very easy to cut through them.
Bjrogg

--- End quote ---
Yes Robin helped out a bit with some camera shots after chores this morning.Good points BJ,that's correct.There are ways to make things easier and less messy for yourself.A rubber apron is nice to have around and a towel or rags too.I was never one to freeze whole coon in a freezer.I always skinned immediately after killing when it's the easiest.Skinned out coon in the fat takes less room in the freezer too till a person can get to them to flesh/frame or flesh/tan later.
Fall and winter coon have quite a bit of fat so it still is marginally messy,but that's when the fur is at it's best.When doing these things the goal of a tanned hide and things to be made need to be kept in mind.This is a sow coon so teats are a bit larger than boar coons.Since this coon I knew was going to be ripped up the belly the concern was minmal,but if I was to be putting coon up for the fur sale being careful would be more of a concern.Keeping the hide flat and taught on a smooth surface without any folds avoids any holes.Your right most all animals skins are thinner on the belly so there is a learning curve for that for first time fleshers.Less pressure is needed to flesh those areas.Thickest areas are on the back side of neck and spine.
It's a learning curve for anyone who wants to do this will learn.Techniques using a fleshing knife correspond with techniques using a draw knife.Only in reverse.I push to flesh and pull to chase rings.My fleshing knife is actually rather dull the middle 10" with the outside 2" on either end sharpened for grissly areas like the back of the neck.Just like my draw knife actually,but would'nt reccomend using a draw knife for a flesher.My draw knifes' edge is slightly convex and my fleshers' edge is slightly concave.

Hawkdancer:
Got the recipe, but the rest of the pics went to limbo!  What book is the from, btw?
Hawkdancer

BowEd:

--- Quote from: Hawkdancer on February 25, 2018, 12:10:55 am ---Got the recipe, but the rest of the pics went to limbo!  What book is the from, btw?
Hawkdancer

--- End quote ---
The book was written by Phyliss Hobson called "Tan Your Hide"/Garden Way Publishing,Charlotte,Vermont.Other tanning methods shown are bark tanning,vegetable tanning,chrome tanning,alum carbolic acid,sulphuric,and acid oil, chemical wise.Also snake skin & indian buckskin.There are many other books out there really.This one is pretty straight forward and easy to digest.It's for sale on Amazon for $11.00.Pretty cheap I'd say too for the amount of knowledge gotten.

Too bad the pics disappeared.They were transferred from Imgur site.I see them here on this thread.

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