found easy way to tan small skins

[Robert Egler]

In looking for some easy and faster way to tan small skins (I am, after all, basically lazy and impatient :grin: ) I found a method online that I’d never heard of before and that is very easy and very simple, so I thought I’d share.

Start in the usual way, defleshing and salt cure. After the skin is salt cured, rub vegetable oil in from the flesh side until the skin is translucent. Then dab off the excess oil, and put the skin in a concentrated solution of water and liquid soap, frequently kneading the skin, until the whole thing looks white again. Then rinse well in fresh water and lay out to dry. Once the skin starts to dry very frequently stretch it in all directions or work it over a dull axe blade (the usually softening methods) as it dries. When it’s dry, you have a nice soft tanned skin, which you can then smoke if you prefer.

I tried this with a couple of salt cured squirrel skins I had laying around. Took 24 hours, and came out great! Very soft, very white skin, beautiful soft fur. It only took about an hour with the vegetable oil, and about an hour in the soap solution, so it was very quick, a lot faster than the gasoline/alcohol method. These skins were very dry, having been salt cured months ago, I don’t know if it would work as fast on fresher skins.

Maybe everyone else already knew this, but I’d never heard of it before.

The writer of the instructions said that it was a modern-day method that did basically the same thing as brain tanning. I can’t say much on that account, since I don’t actually know how, chemically, brain tanning works, but this method does work.

 

[paulvallandigham]

If you don't want to do the stretching, and rubbing over a stick, or dull axe, etc. a friend of mine puts his furred hides in one of those nylon clothes bags used to dry " delicates" and puts them in a cold or cool dryer, with some tennis balls and old, washed tennis shoes. Its a bit noisy, but the shoes and balls pound the hide to break down the cell fibers, and the hids come out totally soft. All that is left is for him to brush out the fur with a comb, or brush. He showed us a Fox Hide he had done that way, and it was gorgeous.

His only problem is that he has to put those tennis balls and the old worn out tennis shoes in a sack in his work room, or his kids take the balls, and his wife throws out the shoes! :rotf:

 

[Kevin Bywater]

Did you have any particular ratio of soap to water? and did they recommend this with any size hide? sound a lot less messy than brain tanning.

 

You are indeed 'brain tanning' or dressing the hide. The soap works as an emulsifier to break up the oil and help it soak into the hide. The oils serves the same function as brains, which contain a lot of fat (no kidding). I use cheap vegetable oil because there is no risk of disease transmission from it like there is with brain matter and you can get it at any store.

Sean

 

[Robert Egler]

Did you have any particular ratio of soap to water? and did they recommend this with any size hide? sound a lot less messy than brain tanning.

Well, having no specific instructions as to the concentration, I used 4 fluid oz of liquid soap to 2 1/2 liters of water. (It doesn't take much water to cover a couple of squirrel skins.) I used this concentration based on a solid scientific theory: I guessed. :haha: Since it worked I think that the exact concentration probably isn’t critical.

Supposedly you can use this with any size hides.

 

[Robert Egler]

You are indeed 'brain tanning' or dressing the hide. The soap works as an emulsifier to break up the oil and help it soak into the hide. The oils serves the same function as brains, which contain a lot of fat (no kidding). I use cheap vegetable oil because there is no risk of disease transmission from it like there is with brain matter and you can get it at any store.

Sean

Thanks! Yes, it is a bit easier to get vegetable oil at the local grocery than asking for a couple of squirrel brains. :rotf:

 

[wvbuckbuster]

Will this work for deer hides as well?

 

[XXX]

Thanks, Sounds like its worth a try.

Should we ask Claude to make this a How-To article so we know where it is?

 

[Robert Egler]

"Will this work on deer hides?"

It should I think. Don't know why not. :hmm:
I'm going to try it on a fox hide I have when I get around to it. I don't have any deer hides around, and the season is over so unfortunately I think the Wildlife Officers would frown on me "acquiring" one now! :haha:

 

Will this work for deer hides as well?

Yes, I'm working on 2 pronghorns, 3 mule deer, a Barbary sheep, and an elk this winter.

Tough work scraping hides in 40 degree weather, by the way. Did the elk on Sunday and there was an inch of ice in the garbage can I had it soaking in. Took a while to get the feeling back in my fingers.

As for the amount of soap, its not all that critical as long as there's enough to made suds. You just want it in there to break up the oil so that it can penetrate the hide. If there's suds, you're good. I eyeball the amount of both oil and soap, but somewhere around a cup or so of oil for 3 gallons of water and a healthy squirt of dish detergent for a deer hide. Scale up a bit for bigger things like elk.

Sean

 

[dave payne]

so...could you use warm water, dish soap and vegtable oil together as a one step process....just using those instead of brains, all other steps being the same as brain tanning ?

 

[Big Sky Trapper]

that works too! all together.