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Pair of bobcats[may be graphic for some]

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JEB:
Will be watching this also. You going to boil the skulls?

BowEd:
From a thawed frozen state it's kind of a tedious process skinning and fleshing this way.If it were fresh and warm it woudl'nt have taken as long.Took just about 2 hours per hide.Key is to have a very sharp knife.Luckily they were not blown apart bad by the bullet.Just tiny enter and exit holes is all.

I started the process of setting the hair by salting and drying.By that I mean this.Each hair follicle has it's roots set into the epidermis in a little cavity of oily collegen type substance.Salt will dry that out.Extract all moisture from that cavity and the cavity area will shrink in size and tighten around that hair follicle root.Setting it into the hide.For preserving a hide for a later date it's a good way besides freezing it.

Use a fine grain pickiling salt.Massaged into the flesh side.Don't use rock salt.I get mine from a grocery store.Very cheap for a 4# box.

I will tan these using aluminum sulphate and pickling salt which has no iodine in it.An easy way to pickle or tan.Thinner hides soften easily using it.No pests that I know of eat it.Lasts for decades and resoftens after being wet.

Aluminum sulphate technically is a natural material as I understand it.It lowers PH in water or soil.Mixed with pickiling salt which is acidic it lowers the PH in the water.

It is used for many things.Most popular is to purify water from even unseen impurities.Very safe,cheap,and easy to get.It is used in cake mixes of various types also so ingested moderately will not kill you.It can irritate eyes if gotten into though just like salt.

Another way I tan or have tanned is with brains and don't use salt.A hair on brain tanned hides' hair gets set when it dries naturally.When storing hides to be brain tanned they are stored as rawhide.A light spraying of insectcide on them keeps the pests away over time,or use the good old freezer.Also with tannin water to bark tan and use salt while tanning but to store the hide I will use salt to dry.

The skulls the varmint hunter never discussed with me.I feel he does'nt care for them.I might flesh/debone/boil/clean up and bleach them.I don't know yet.I've already got bobcat skull but an extra skull or two does'nt hurt.

If you've ever seen a skinned bear carcass.They almost look human.Now that's creepy....Ha Ha.Or better yet seen a coyote infected with the sarcoptic mange.They almost look alien.Terrible way to die.

JEB:
going to boil the skulls and keep them?

Allyn T:
Thanks for the info! I've got a deer skin in my deep freeze right now

BowEd:
Allyn T...Your deer hide should be good yet if your freezer has stayed running all this time.

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