Gray Fox hide question

[4ancientarts]

greetings to all! I am seeking advice and opinions on preparing a hide that I harvested from a road kill. It is a small gray fox which I found yesterday and have stored in my freezer for now. I want to tan it, fur on; and perhaps make a small bag. I don't have much first person knowledge. ... and thanks

 

[paulvallandigham]

There are several good books on tanning hides. You might want to check them out. First decide if you want to brain tan the hide, or use some commercial product. Tandy Leather sells " Tannit" Which works well, but is not everyone's cup of tea. If you didn't save the brains from the fox, go to your local butcher and ask him to get you some brains from a calf, or hog. Brains are brains, and they all can be used for brain tanning. Or you can use egg whites instead of the brains to tan the hide. After fleshing the hide to remove the thin layer of shinny skin from the underside, you make a solution of the brains and distilled water, and then rub the solution into the flesh side of the hide. This takes time, and you want to get the solution to penetrate as deeply as possible into the leather.

Then let the hide dry. Next comes smoking, which is how you get the hide to keep from rotting or suffering from milddew in wet climates. Finally, you soften the hide. You can do this manually, or you can put that small hide in one of the net bags sold to put nylons and delicate fabric clothing in and put it in your dryer. Put a couple of old( clean) tennis shoes, and or some tennis balls( also washed and cleaned) in the dryer and let the beaters of the dryer, and the shoes soften the hide using a cold dryer. Brush the fur when you take it out of the dryer. Use some fabric softener sheets to soften and get any knots out of the fur, and brushing the fur will produce a very nice fur hide to display, or place on the back of your couch.

 

[BrownBear]

Lots of options out there. This is a good read.

 

[4ancientarts]

"There are several good books on tanning hides."

yes, I have read through Matt Richards: "Deer skins into buckskins" and found it pretty thorough; since this hide is a fox and likely a young one I thought I'd seek some advice.
Thankyou! It sounds like I need to "flesh it" and then use brain or another substance to soften it. Lastly, smoke it to cure the hide and then wash. Thankyou for your response Sir. :hatsoff:

 

[4ancientarts]

Thankyou for the link! yes it is a great article. :thumbsup:

 

[crockett]

If you already know this then fine but a fox is usually skinned cased and dried on a frame or board, tack out the tail. Take plenty of time skinning and split the tail straight. When you take the animal out of the fridge brush the fur a bit to remove dirt, etc provided the fur is dry. Wet fur might slip.

 

[4ancientarts]

No, I did not know that; :redface: I skinned it yesterday on the back of my pick-up and did not harvest the tail or head. Had to go to the car wash and blast all the yuck and flies off this morn. It is frozen now with a some flesh still attached. I'll remember this one for the future though :thumbsup: thanks

 

[Birdman]

another great site on the web to read on tanning is braintan.com, besides braintanning it should answer most any question you may come up with concerning prep, storage, cleaning, stretching of your hide etc. Search their archives n most likely you may find posts from people that actually tanned a gray in the past n any glitchs they may have had as well as advice on what to watch out for. I tried tanning a fox or two years back n found out I was allergic to the dander hee hee boy was I a broke out red bummpy mess fer a week or two, Haven't touched one since unles it was already tanned.

 

[Homesteader]

Here's a little tip that works if you have a hard time getting brains: those little cans of pork brains they sell in the potted meat section of a grocery store work just as well as any other brains. You'll want to wash off most of the milk, of course, and you'll need quite a few cans, but I've tanned maybe a half dozen deer hides with 'em and they work very well. No worry about disease, and you can scramble up some eggs if you've got a few cans left over!

Good luck.

 

[4ancientarts]

thanks for the info; :thumbsup: I have no known alergies

 

[4ancientarts]

I will be slaughtering a couple lambs and goats this winter so there will be plenty of brains for a primitive process, thanks for the advice :hatsoff: