AFaF: Tanning hides

FreeBear

So... A friend of mine is looking for a guide to tan & preserve a couple of hides. She wants them to end up fairly soft & flexible and retain the fur.

I've only ever done a couple of rabbit skins a long time ago that ended up being like cardboard. Any suggestions would be most welcome.

Apodemus

Your rabbit skins sound like a couple of sheep skins I did!  My memory on all this is hazy, but when I was looking into it, I came to the conclusion that doing it properly meant gearing up for a whole process that would be unrealistic for only doing a very few skins.   However, depending on the process used, I think softness can simply be a matter of putting in the time and effort to soften the "cardboard" by hand.

neilmcl

Don't you use salt for this sort of thing, ie, stretch the pelt out fur side down, scrape all the flesh from the skin, then cover with salt for a few days until it's fully dried, then soak in water and stretch out to break down the fibres to soften.

Apodemus

Neil, that would be fine for a basic dried hide, but you need to do a bit more than that if you want it to be properly preserved, actually tanned and for the wool/fur to remain in place  The traditional way in UK was to soak the dried, salted hides in a preparation of oak bark.  More recently alum and/or chromium have been used.  I also read a version that involved soaking in diesel and there is popular "environmentally friendly" version in the US, which uses pig brains.  Urine and dog faeces can also be used...  All of these processes tend to be a bit unpleasant for the operators ... and the neighbours!

FreeBear

Chromium compounds are not available to the average person thanks to EU/UK legislation restricting the sale of toxic chemicals. I don't think anything involving diesel would be acceptable as the smell would be difficult to get rid of (also environmental impact of washing it out).

Will keep looking..

Apodemus

Yes, tanning can be a pretty toxic process!  I guess if it was easier more people would be doing it and even though when I was looking into it I wasn't covered by EU/UK sensitivities, I still concluded that the chemical hassles were beyond the scope of the amateur.