Got a Fresh Hide, Now What?

[Steve P 0]

Nice link Floyd... some really good sound info there.

 

Sulfernut, you may have had a hide thet was already to far gone, i.e. freezer burnt, or just left on the deer to long, I had a guy cuss me out for three hours last year because I told him that the cape for his buck was freezer burnt and that I couldn't do anything with it since when we would put it in a solution to tan it it would turn ito a pile of hair and goo instead of a nicely tanned cape. He got mad and went to another taxidermist that got him a differnety cape and didn't tell him then charged him about 200 dollars more than we would have. He came back this spring and appologised and said he would be doing all of his business with us from now on because at least we wouldn't lie to him and do things behind his back.

 

 

Most folks think that a hide will keep indefinately in the freezer but if it is not properly packaged then it will burn in no time I lost a couple teal just after seson opened this year to freezer burn because I just got lazy, but the breast sure was good with some mushrooms and gravy

 

Steve

[DancesWithHeadCement 0]

Salt /Borax works peachy, but I switched to cornmeal two or three years ago. Salt leeches liquids out of the hide and assists in both drying and curing the hide, but after you start tying with the material the salt gets on your fingers, and shortly afterwards you'll get it in your eyes if you forget about it.

 

Cornmeal assists the drying process by absorbing the oils that will sweat out, and it won't irritate your eyes if you accidentally get some on your hands.

 

While the hides will be irresistible magnets to your family dog, I think he'll like the salted ones better. Mine does...or did.

[swellcat 0]

 

Steve and others: Do you have an opinion on aluminum sulfate (aka alum). I used that in solution last year, and it yielded a couple of pretty nice doe hides.

 

Right now, I have a Canada goose challenge – tons of fat on a very thin skin that tears through readily.

 

[Harold Ray 0]

I'm hoping to some javelina hides coming in shortly, so this has been a good thread for me. Several friends are going out this weekend for deer and javelina, and I'm hoping they get a few.

[flyfishingtaz 0]

I just recently lost a hide due to not preparing it properly. I recieved a hide from a friend who got a doe about 3wks ago. he said he scraped it, and had it all ready for tying. Come to find out after putting it in its own bag(thank god), and stored away with my other hides, he didnt scrape it well enough and I pulled a bag of maggots out of my hide drawer a few days later. My suggestion is to always treat a hide as fresh, unless you know otherwise. Tack it, salt it, when it cracks scrape it clean, and repeat. after about 3 treatments it should be washed, and dried. after it dries it should be fine.

[JSzymczyk 0]

for greasy/fatty hides like gray fox, ducks, etc, get some degreasing solution from a taxidermy supply company like WASCO or Jonas Brothers.

 

I think some folks are getting confused about preserving hide for fly tying purposes, and TANNING a hide which makes the skin into leather... hair on or hair off, obviously we want the hair on for tying materials.

 

While I will never pretend to know a fraction of what Chris Helm knows about deer hair, I would personally not soak a hide for a day in anything without monitoring the pH- if you don't keep it low enough, bacteria are going to grow and you WILL get hair slippage. Quite possibly the soap being used keeps the bacteria at bay.

 

Tanning isn't really hard, it's just time consuming. Preserving with salt or borax is good enough for 99 percent of fly tying applications I think.

[Catalpa_Joe 0]

Thanks to everyone who has responded. I just finished scraping it down. The edges were a little tough to deal with & may end up trimming them to get rid of the gunk that I couldn't seem to get off. I used a 2" wide paint scraper with the corners rounded off with a file so I didn't gouge the hide. Seemed to work pretty well & allowed me to get some leverage while scraping. I scraped it against a saw horse leg that I leaned againt my work bench. Nailed it to the saw horse & really went at it. Renailed it as I needed to get to a new section. It's stretched & salted on the bench in my garage. I may look for some Borax tomorrow. Thanks again to everyone for all the advice.