new to tanning (please help me)

coyote lance

New member
Hey, I am new to tanning and was trying my luck on a couple of rabbit hides because they are real easy to get and I do not want to ruin a good coyote hide. My question is how to flesh the thing and should it take a long time? I have worked on a jackrabbit that I shot yesterday, got it skinned quick, but I am having a real hard time getting the fat and membrane off. I have worked for about 4 hours so far and am about half way done! I am doing this by attaching the skin to a boad, pulling up on the fat/membrane and cutting it away with a razor knife. I tend to cut small pinholes in it while I am doing this and realize there has got to be a better way. I have heard of using a spoon to scrape it off, does this work? Do I need to grind the spoon so that it is sharp? Any advice would help, so please be generous.
 
The best thing to do considering what you have to work with would be to use a fleshing knife.
(handle on each end of a double blade) and a fleshing beam.
You can make-shift a fleshing beam out of a 2x6 piece of lumber if you have to.

Don't lift the membrane and whittle it off with your knife.

Using the fleshing beam you'll lay the skin flesh side up, flat out, on the beam and scrape the membrane off with your fleshing knife. You'll be leaning against the beam with your waist and by hanging part of the skin over the edge of the beam you'll be holding the skin in place with your body.
Push the fleshing knife away from you, down the beam, across the rabbit skin. Hold the knife so the wide blade lays flat against the skin.
 
I understand what you are saying, but should the layer of fat and membrain come off in one piece, a bunch of small pieces, or should I just scrape it over and over removing it in layers? Do I treat the skin with anything before I do this, or should I have done this just after I skined it. It is in a pickling solution now.
 
try salting overnite after skinning and the worst of the fleshing.Then put in pickle.You can even finish fleshing after soaking in pickle.Then use the pickle as a holding solution until you are ready to neutralize before tanning.With some skins its much easier to get the hard fleshing done after these other steps.tom
 
Lance if you have your pickle at a good safe PH level, pickling it first will actually firm up that fat and membrane making it easier to scrape off.
Sorry I didn't bring that up in the first post but I had no idea you wern't salting them or pickling them prior to the final fleshing.

The fat and meat will scrape off in strips or layers, depending on your fleshing knife and how much of the blade actually comes in contact with the hide on your fleshing beam.

The membrane will scrape off like an elastic tissue, you'll know when you start removing it.
Also if the hide is damp instead of drenched it will be alot easier to keep the membrane ahead of your knife instead of slipping over it like your working in grease.
 
Thanks guys, I found a couple websites today that suggested soaking the hides in a mixture containing: 2# salt, 8oz battery acid, and 2gal. of water. Soak it in this for a week and it says the fat and membrain should be easy to pull off by hand, then it says to return it to the solution for another week. After this second week, you should be done after a through cleaning and stretching untill dry. This almost sounds too easy, but at this point I am willing to try almost anything. Thanks again,

Lance
 
WOW!, I don't know about all that
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Lance, I gotta tell ya, I think you should test that out on a piece of fur your not so concerned with first.
 
Lance,
River Runner gives good advice borne of mucho experience. I'd also encourage you to visit www.taxidermy.net in their forums. There's one on tanning with an archive that will answer every keyword-based question you could possibly have. Good luck.
 
I have a quick question for you River Runner. My buddy is getting into Taxidermy so he has the flesher and all that stuff that I can and have used. What I want to know is what is a good product for hair on tanning? I don't really have the room for the tanning that has to soak so I was really looking for good "instant" tans or whatever you want to call them. Also, would I need different products for different furs. Mainly what I'll be getting is deer, varmints, and squirrels and rabbits. Sorry for all the ?'s.
 
Ohhhh Silver Fox. Questions like this make me real uneasy.
I have a very hard time recommending a one step tanning solution to someone because I don't believe in them. Tanning a hide is a conversion process. Converting the hide to leather. There really isn't a chemical on the market today that can convert an animal hide to leather in one simple step.
There's a few companys that claim they have a product that does so, but what they really have is a product that temporarily preserves the hide.
Preserving the hide is another story. You control the rate at which the hide decays with no leather qualitys what so ever. These hides aren't really tanned and will eventually decay. A tanned hide will last almost indefinitely, and be soft and stretchy like a tanned hide should be.

Ok...enough preaching right?
I really can't tell you what you want to hear. I can tell you that whatever you choose to use, you can use on all your hides. There is no special tan for different species.
 
Thanks for the honesty. With what you said what would be the best process/materials for tanning in a relatively small space. If you would like to e-mail your response so we aren't cluttering up the forum, my mail is

xxx@xxxx.xxx

Thanks again.
 
Clutter away. I'm reading intently. I've decided that I want to get into tanning in a small way. I've been trying to reasearch some of those "one step" and "kit" tanning processes. Still undecided so haven't ordered anything yet.

Randy
 
I took your e-mail address out of your post, Silver Fox. You did nothing wrong. I just don't want you to get bomb shelled from the spam harvesters.

Anyway...
Well, you really don't need a lot of space regardless of the type of tan you use. My tannery is only 6000 sq ft. I know, your thinking, "what? I have to put up a seperate building?". No not at all. Keep in mind I do a lot of volume.
You could set up a place to tan hides in a bathroom if you had to. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif All you really need as far as that goes, is a place to hang the hides when they are wet, running water, a floor drain would be handy, and something to soak the hides in during the stages. 55 gallon plastic drum opened on one end would work.

As far as the best process. That's all going to be opinion. But I swear by Rittel's because I've used it for so many years and they sell the same chemicals to many popular tanneries around the country.
Any tan that requires a pickling process will be your best bet. The One Step by Ronco products are mostly brush on and go tans.
Pickling skins in acid kills any and all putrefying bacteria and multiplys penetration to give an outstandingly even tan.
Some chemicals are harder to dispose of then others. That plays a big role in some areas.
I have a chart here that lists a few pros and cons on some of the tans here on the market today.
I'll draw it up and post it later when some of you get a chance to see whats been posted thus far, and comment.
 
Thanks River. My friend has a little 12x12 shed we put up, but it's a pain to go over there every day or two to check stuff. He said he would keep
an eye on it for me, but with both of us just getting into it, I would rather do it myself. The only free space I have is in my garage and there is no heat or water or adequate lighting for that matter.
 
River Runner, have you had any experience with the
Rittel's EZ-100 kit or heard anything about it? Is this an actual tanning kit or a preservative like the brush on?
 
I'm not sure what all Bruce puts in those kits Silver Fox, as far as other chemicals. It's not going to be a brush on tan, no.
I use the #100 tan here. I buy that alone from Bruce in 50lb units. You might be getting the #100, something to pickle with, (not sure what he sends for a pickle with those), and tanning oil with a kit.
 
Your tannery is listed as using the EZ#100. It doesn't however say anything about the kit. I take it tho, that you would recommend the #100, but haven't used the whole kit.
 
You got it Silver Fox. Everything that gets shipped in here gets tanned in #100.
If you order one of his kits you'll be getting the same tanning chemical, yes. I just buy it bulk, it only makes sense to do so.

The reason I said that I don't know what all comes with the kits is that there are several different chemicals available to pickle with and I'm not sure which one he would include in those kits. I swear by the Oxalic Acid, but it is some wicked stuff.
I'm going to guess that he puts Saftee acid in the kits, which is damn good stuff from what I here.

You buying the kits as you are, will be able to buy them through Van Dykes Supply a lot cheaper then if you buy it direct. Just because your buying a kit. Thought you may want to know that.

Which reminds me, the chart that lists the pros and cons of the different tanning chemicals is on page 251 of Van Dykes latest catalog, If anyone has that. Otherwise I'll draw it up Saturday morning sometime and post it. I won't hav time until then.
 
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