new to tanning (please help me)

My 2 cents

I got a coyote over Christmas break skinned it fleshed it and salted it. Then I had to go back to college. The lutan f kit came from van dykes and my dad tanned it for me. He finished it in a week and he said it turned out good i.e. soft and supple. He said there were complete instructions included with the kit. Hope this helps.
 
Don't get dicouraged if you have trouble with rabbits they are very thin skinned and the hair is very easy to pull by accident.I had a taxidermist tell me a long time ago when I was just getting interested in taxidermy to steer clear of rabbits at first.Tom
 
The hides that gets shipped to me have to be dried. So my process goes in this order;
1- Rehydrate the hides. Soaking in Rittel's Utra Soft
2- Give them a quick once over flesh job on the beam. Basically to break up the membrane and remove any large pieces of meat or fat left by the cutomer.
3- Wash the hides I like to use Tide and cool water and rinse them well afterwards.
4- Hang the hides up to drain for and hour.
5- Put the hides in the pickle bath For a MINIMUM of 3 days. Plunge them, stir them, a few times over this period.
6- After the 3 day minimum I pull the hides, hang them to drain for a while, and give them the final fleshing on the wheel. And return them to the pickle for a couple more days.
7- Pull the hides again and hang them to drain.
8- Once they drained a while they go into a nuetralizing bath. For 45 minutes.
9- Pull the hides from the nuetralizer and hang them drain again.
10- Then they go into the tan bath for several hours.
11- After that they get hung for 20 minutes, or tumbled to remove saturation.
12- Then the hides get oiled, folded and stored to sweat in the oil for 12 hours.
13- After that the hides get hung to dry for 8 hours.
14- After 8 hours the next several days are spent tumbling off and on between drying stages to soften the hide.
15- Once they are dried and softened they go into the tumbler with a dry cleaning sawdust mixture to clean and brighten the fur.

16- Go have a beer before the next batch. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/laugh.gif
 
Well...what I was afraid of just happened this morning. I can seem to get my ancient Mustek II scanner to function anymore. It's been getting more and more tired, freezes up, can't find data sources, ah hell it's going out to the curb today.

Like I said if anyone has the latest Van Dykes catalog the chart is on page 251.
Brennen mentioned the Lutan-F agent. Quoting the chart Lutan is right up there in the rankings with Rittels #100.
The differences are Lutan will slowly leach out of the skins if washed or gotton wet. Rittels #100 or (EZ tan) won't.
Also It takes 1 pound of Lutan-F to tan say 4 Fox hides where it would only take 10 ounces of EZtan to do the same.

Sorry I couldn't scan the chart guys. I'd be happy to photo copy it and mail em to anyone that wanted one.
Otherwise Van Dykes sends out their catalogs free also. 1-800-843-3320
 
Thanks River. My only problem now is lack of heat in my garage. The only other place is my basement, but it's a "Michigan" basement. Dirt floor and very damp. Neither sounds like a good option to me. What do you think?
 
I'd lean towards the basement, Silver. As long it's 65 degrees or real close down there.
The dampness really isn't that important for just tanning.
You want someplace dry if your going to be storing salt dried furs or already tanned furs. But for the process itself, you'll be ok.
 
Have you ever had any problems with hair slippage
using the #100? My friend tried some and said he got all kinds of slippage. He's also kinda stingy
and won't keep his shed warm all the time. Could the nearly freezing water have caused this?
 
I think I've probably lost 3 hides due to slippage over the years. But you can see it coming a mile away and I usually refuse bad hides when I get them.
Slippage is caused by bad handling, and poor fleshing. The meat and fat left on the hide rots and eats the derma layer away with it, causing the hair folicals to let go.
When you tan a hide, there shouldn't be so much as a trace of meat or fat on the hide. Therefore it can't rot because of a bad Tanning chemical.
A bad tanning chemical simply wouldn't tan the hide. The hide would just be a dried skin and eventually draw bugs, moths, etc.

A properly fleshed hide, say a deer hide, will be completely smooth and usually a very uniform white once it's pickled. Depending on the primenss of the skin. Varmints pretty much the same except you'll be able to see the pores in the skin when it's fleshed thoroughly.

Temperature of the tanning agents doesn't cause slippage either. But things should be tanned atleast at room temperature to keep the pores of the skin open and able to absorb the tanning agents.
Also, #100 is a powdered agent and will cake up instead of dissolving in cold water.
#100 tans at a PH level of 4.0. No higher, no lower.
I fing it hard to believe that your friend held a PH level of 4.0 with the tan not properly mixed like that.
 
One more question River and then hopefully I'll be able to stop bothering you. I just finished up a deer hide and wasn't expecting a whole lot out of it so I left it pretty thick because I planed to just tack it to the wall. It turned out better than I hoped and now I would like to get it more flexible. Can I put back on the fleshing machine now that it's tanned or do I just need to spend a whole lot of time at the breaking board?
 
Actually if the hide is still wet you can oil it again, and that would help a lot.
But your answer about the fleshing machine, yes you can, but it would be a lot easier if the hide was at least damp when you did it.
I'm assuming that the hide is "completely" fleshed, so what you'll be doing by going back to the flesher is thinning the skin.
Now on your next hide you'll find it to be a good idea to spend a little more time around the neck area of your deer and you can shave er down after you fleshed and pickled it.

Another tip would be; as the hide drys if you tumble it for an hour a couple times a day, it will really soften up the hide.
If your wife doesn't find out, you can put it in your cloths dryer with the heat "turned off". It'll work the same as my tumbler does here /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif

[EDIT] By the way...as long as you don't call me in the middle of the night and get me outta bed, your not botherin me /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/laugh.gif /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif
 
There's not a lot you CAN do now that it's dried. Unless you sand it down but that's a pretty poor technique with shady results.
Breaking the hide needs to take place once it's tanned and before it's dry. During the drying stage.

What you'll have to do now if you want to go back and soften it is, lay the hide out flesh side up, cover the entire flesh side of the hide with some wet towels or rags, and cover the entire works up with some visqueen to hold the moisture in. Let it set like that for a day or so. You might have to go back and moisten the towels.
When the moisture has gotton back into the skin, and I don't just mean the surface, you'll know if it's INTO the skin, then you can go back and shave it on your wheel, or heat up some oil and oil it again.
Let the oil sweat into the hide as before, and you'll have to go through your breaking/drying process all over again or the rest of the hide will stiffen up too.
 
Back again. Have not had the chance to try tanning anything since my last post. What are some easy animal skins to try and tan? I do not have a lot of choices, rabbits seem to be a little out of the question due to their thin skin. Should a coyote be easier? Not sure if I mentioned this, but I am trying to use the Lutan F tanning kit. I have followed the directions very carefully, would pickling for a longer period of time make it easier to take the layer of fat off?
 
Tanning them isn't hard Lance. The work is in preparing them, and finishing them.
Deer flesh the easiest, and require the least amount of finishing as far as cleaning the fur goes. Deer have hollow hair, kind of like straw. So it's easier to clean, unlike fur.

Pickling will make it easier to flesh a hide, yes...BUT, and I can't stress this enough guys, you have got to get the fat off these hides before you attempt to pickle them. Otherwise the hide does not get pickled, the grease in the fat will block it.
Exposed meat and tissue will firm up in the pickle bath making it easier to flesh as long as it's not covered in a layer of fat while being pickled.

The fat on just about any hide you work on, is going to be the easiest to remove. Deer especially, the fat is like a stiff wax or suet. It can be scraped off with the blunt edge of a knife.

Scrape the fat off your hides before you pickle them. And don't forget to return the hides back to the pickle for at least 24 hours once you have fleshed everything off. (meaning the meat and membrane)
biggthumpup.gif
 
RiverRunner, is there such a thing as pickling for to long? I've noticed alot of your posts have stated to flesh after the fur has been pickled. Is there a reason for this or just personal preferance?
 
No you can't really pickle them too long as long as the solution maintains a safe PH level.

A couple of years ago I had half a dozen coyotes and a few beaver hides that were given to me by a trapper. I figured I'd get them done in the slow season and get them out of the way since they were my own. Those hides ended up setting in a pickling solution for over three months because I got busy a week later.

Fleshing after pickling? Actually I do it here before and during. Before; to get off the fat as I mentioned before and anything real big on the hide. And then a few days later I pull it out and give it the final work over removing the rest of the membrane and any thin layers of meat.
Why?... as I mentioned before the acid helps firm up the tissue. Fleshes easier.
 
RR, in your opinion what is the bigger factor in
getting a fur to be supple: thinning it down on the wheel or tumbling after the oil sweats in.
Also, when you hang them to dry do you hang them over a bar or are they clamped up to hang in a single thickness?
 
River Runner, nowhere in your tanning process does it mention stretching the hides. Do you have much shrinkage? Also does the tanning process after the pickle make the hide waterproof? I "tan" a few hides but my process ends after the pickle. After the hide comes out of the neutralizer I stretch it until it starts to dry and then break it to be soft. I have had several hides done this way for several years and there is no sign of deterioration. I know that the hide is not actually tanned but I guess my question is what advantage is there in going further in the process if I don't gain anything. Also can you tell me anything about what you use as a tumbler, I am always looking for an easier means of breaking hides.

Thanks for any info, Ross.
 
Back
Top