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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 21 ก.ย. 2024
- In this video I demonstrate salting a hide to preserve it for later use and talk about various options for preserving skins. The common options are freezing, drying and salting or of course you can tan the skin fresh off the animal. Each has it's advantages and disadvantages. Drying is a lot of work and resoaking the skins thoroughly after drying is even more work. Freezing is easy if you have room. Salting is easy and cheaper than running a freezer. Salting keeps skins in a semi wet state so salted hides are easier to resoak for tanning than dried skins. For saving skins with the hair on, I would prefer to work them fresh or freeze them.
It's deer season, so you can preserve your deer hides or hides you collect for tanning later by freezing, salting or drying.
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Have been a trapper, skinner for 45 years.
I know that you know your shit.
Best I have seen on tube.
👍👍
tom tom if I have a hide fleshed do I need to salt it to keep the hair on
Thanks buddy.
Last time I did a hair-on hide, I put a layer of salt and then covered the whole thing with kitty-litter. Worked great, no issues with slippage. The litter helps keep the liquid moving away from the hide as the salt draws it out.
How long did it take for it to dry up?
Agreed w other commenter, how long did that take you? Do you have a tutorial you followed?
@@lucasgarcia8285 a couple of days, in an unfortunately humid time. I followed tutorials for stretching and applying salt, but because of the humidity I really wanted to speed up the process. Using kitty-litter to keep moving the water on outward was my own idea. Seems to turn a litter box into a desert quickly enough. And indeed, with a very heavy raccoon hide, it dried it out about as quickly as if I'd been drying a thin-skinned muskrat.
Did you use a clay kittie litter or another kind? So many out there. Thanks in advance.
@@pattywest8371 I used the cheapest stuff, a non-clumping clay type. Didn't think having it clump up would work as well, because the clumping would eventually become more of a water barrier than a water absorbent.
Your vids gave me the confidence to skin, clean, and remove hooves from a deer leg I found in the woods 😊
Great video. I had no idea I could just flesh the hide instead if salting it. This video was very helpful and well edited.
thanks. glad I could help.
already learned more from this dude in the first 5 minutes than most videoz
Such a respectful manner to honor the animal. Your cuts were very clean and symmetrical. Thank you!
HA! “honor”. Please 😒
Taylor Ha! Someone who doesn’t know who they’re talking about!
Luke Miller Eh well I can agree to disagree. I just think if you people would open your mind to seeing an animal as more than an object, you’d see how beautiful they are and how they’re not so different than us. But I guess it’s easier to pretend that they don’t have feelings and that they deserve to be treated the way they are, as long as it caters to you
Taylor animals don’t have feelings, just instinct. God gave us animal to Eat and have companionships, and in no way did he disrespect this animal.
@@Taylor-fw4ue I definitely see the animals I kill as being people. Science says they have feelings; observation says they have feelings; the only thing saying they don't have feelings is human arrogance, or BS religious dogma.
So why do I kill animals and eat them? It's very much about where you live and the type of animal you hunt, but in my case, there are reasons to decrease the population of deer. CWD is a horrible way to die, and the disease is rampant here. Starvation is a problem as well if the herds get to be too large. It's not just a matter of having removed the wolf packs from their environment--it's also a matter of humans having always been part of the population-control of deer in the land I live on.
The alternative is eating domesticated animals, because I eat a lot of protein, a lot of it farmed fish. In the contest between eating a CAFO-raised beef cattle, versus a deer, the more ethical thing to do is to eat deer, or other animals whose reproductive patterns are prone to result in populations above what nature can provide for.
So many people will eat a pepperoni pizza and not think about the animals killed to make the pepperoni, they'll eat a steak and never think of a steer in a crowded pen, surrounded by pools of sewage.
I will look at the deer as a person who wants to live and to mate; and I will take their life, and then I will NOT waste the result. They will not eat the last of the winter's food supply; they will not gather in herds and spread disease; and because they are not there, the rest of the deer will have more food and a lower likelihood of those diseases.
And I will fill my freezer with meat, tan the hide to make leather, save the sinew for creating things, use the inside of the feet for neatsfoot oil, and scatter the offal for other animals to survive on.
The leather will be made at home, with no chemical waste, so I can make some clothing that is not plastic and will wear for a long time; just as the furs that I make displace plastic-fabric coats. The meat will not only be more ethical than cows or pigs; the protein also means I won't be putting a demand on farmers to produce MORE soy to make "vegan meat."
Honoring the animal is not even about THAT person-animal, it's about honoring the balance of living as best I can, as a human hyper-consumer. Displacing the materialistic things of a Westerner with more sustainable, harm-reducing ways of getting what I need in order to live.
I'm so glad you mentioned the thing about putting things in the freezer! I'm new to trapping, and so far I've been dealing with my muskrats every day as they come, thinking that if I start catching too many in one day I'll throw them in the freezer. But really, that's got to be the last resort. We already have enough weird stuff in our freezer, since we feed mice to the snake and dead fish and random parts to the carrion beetles in-between skulls.
I'll keep doing what I've been doing, then; minimum of gutting, skinning, skin goes into a bucket of salt water out in the cold, bit of butchering and wrap the meat for the freezer; and then when that's all done, fleshing the hide from the day before, and stretching, salting, or putting into tanning solution.
Its so easy once you start to leave things in there. It's like cleaning up anything, or doing the dishes it goes from "just this once" to a habit real quick. At least with a freezer there is a physical limitation when you have to face facts lol.
@@SkillCult great informative video. Thank you for an awesome video.
Out of all the videos I've watched these last few months this is the best one so far! Subscribed!!!
Welcome :)
DITTO!!!
This guys been a pro on hides since at least the mid nineties when I got his book.
Found this video looking for something else but it answered a question that I have had for years. Thanks.
One of the best videos I’ve seen!! Most peopple starting out don’t preserve the hide till it’s ready to be worked. Great video I store mine in a 55 gal hazmat drum with small holes in the bottom for drainage, and pull them out one at a time to be worked. Although on average 15 hides take about a month to all get worked. I brain tan and smoke mine hair off. It is lengthy at about 3 days in wood ash to hair slipping.
Dude, i have been salting the hide in water and then drying stretched on wall. But after seeing this vid i understand what I was doing wrong. Cheers for lesson. Keep them coming. Thumbs up
Seriously the best video I have found explaining the process but most importantly the WHY! and not trying to sell me something!
Thanks homegirl :)
Getting hooked on your vids. You speak a lot about bacteria. Bacteria is much like people who make unnecessary comments and start name calling. It's something that is unwanted. Good job bro.
Thanks. I get very little flack on this channel so far, but it happens.
Too bad you can't use bleach on trolls.
@@Auriam they just need to confront the demons that make them act that way and try to grow up mentally. They also should appreciate people like Mr. Edlholm who have a great deal of knowledge that they'll share for free essentially. Over the years I've grown to appreciate everyone I meet because they know something I don't know and also have appreciated myself in a similar way. Life is very enjoyable if you keep trying to learn and share what you've learned. It's very rewarding.
Thank god someone that really explained it to me and it made sense
Always watch the whole video. You are a badass. Good job, I never would've thought at first
My apologies if someone asked this prior to myself. Just need to verify; those two hides were in those pails for literally years with only salt?
If that’s the case, I am Extremely impressed. I knew something about salt could accomplish, but nothing of this magnitude. Wonderful video, thanks a bunch!
Yes Eventually they change and go bad, but you can keep them for years as long as you are not trying to keep the hair.
I'll be shipping a hide to a tanner to do hair off tanning so I can have bookbinding leather. That said, I found this video helpful as I've never prepared any hides in my life and I've got quite a bit to learn. Thanks for the video, it was really helpful.
I do a hair on tan most of the time, but I salt my hides because I pickle the hides in an alum and salt brine and I wanna get all the old moisture out so it can soak up the brine.
This is awesome
Yeah, blame the helper, lol!
Excellent video, really good info.
It was actually probably someone else's helper lol.
Use an ulu to remove the meat and fat. Then powerwash the rest of the meat and fat but most importantly the thin membrane also it pushes all the blood from inside the hide out the edges. I like to wash in soap twice after powerwashing and then salt.
I'll be hiding first time today and you'll be helping me today lol
Thank you
Thank you for sharing this information. I greatly appreciate it as I learn.
Thanks, this video has been really helpful. Also thank you for replying to so many of your comments. One thing I didn’t catch from the video is - after a certain amount of time, can you store the salted hide without elevating it from the bottom of the container? If so, when do you transfer from the initial dripping container to the long-term storage container? Thank you!
Thank you. Yes, you can do that. Just when it's not dripping anymore. It may still pool some, but it should be okay. Make sure no rust though, as it will stain and damage the skin. There is also such a thing as wet salting where the hides are brined, but I don't use that and don't know much about it.
I'm new at this. I salted some sheep hides I had bc I didn't have time to deal with them then. Then later, I dusted the salt off, and took a drill with a wire brush bit and scraped off the remainder of that white stuff you spend so much time peeling off. It came off a lot easier that way. Then I worked oil into the hide and made moccasins with some sand made a hair-on sheep skin fleece to cover my bed with - very warm. I dunno if I did it right. I stored it in a room that got a leak and we have most air, so it molded, had to throw it out. Then we moved to a good house with no leaks.
I have a couple cow hides, now. They are salted with hair on and laying flat for now. In winter, I will have time to work with them.
Beggs n Achin' how’d it go?
@@yourfriendlyintergalactica2452 I made moccasins....? Nobody that I gave them to complained, so....?
Beggs n Achin' sweet
Good info. Thank you.
Thanks boss, that was very informative. It's helped me alot to see things like the ammount of salt used, the outcome, even how long the hides can last. Thanks.
You're welcome. It's kind of a first step in tanning to figure out how to hold hides until they can be tanned.
SkillCult Yep, and i like to have all my ducks in a row before I go out. Nothing is worse than wastage caused by being unprepared.
you got the like when you said Good Morning.
If i have 25 yers old preserved . What to do again to preserve for 50 years
It's very wet where I live, and I'm worried to wash my sheep hide before its tanned because of the likelihood of rot. Would you recommend tanning, smoking, and then washing? It's hard to find extensive information for this topic on the internet , thanks for providing a resource.
That can be a problem. If you use Alum or bark tanning, they will fix the hair and you can wash after tanning.
Andy Stowe an old fur buyer from western NY told me he used 4 pounds of rock salt per hide. He'd buy hide from butcher shops and individuals. Fill up a barn with hides on pallets . when the price was good he sell. most were shipped over seas.
How long can a hide sit out before you want to think about preserving it? Can you let it sit for a day or two and then work on it without salting it?
As long as you are not trying to keep the hair. Of course there is air temp and other factors to consider
@@SkillCult just got 2 deer hides mabye 1 or 2 days ago and I want to keep the hair, it's pretty cold where I am so they are already frozen just from being in my shed should I salt them?
I have a fieldmouse hide, and I was wondering how to properly preserve the skin (it's stretched out, opened like a deer rug) and i wanted to know how to preserve and it dry it properly
You can just let it dry. Only issue is bugs could get into it. Bugs that eat skin, like skin beetles and moths. a sprinkle of dry borax can prevent that.
@@SkillCult thanks 😁
Every single "tutorial" online says to use salting for drying. Then resoaking to finish fleshing and then tanning. It took me a while to find this video with you explaining that you do not need to dry the skin out. So I have my work cut out for me. But now I have a whole whitetail buck hide that I will have to figure out how to soak without a huge container so I can finish fleshing and then tan it. I'm glad I got into this though because it is teaching me very quickly.
So lets just say you get a fresh hide, and say you are going to start working right away until tanning, you would just flesh and then go right to tanning? No drying at all? Obviously the hide shouldnt be soaked but every instructional says to dry and then re-hydrate. It is frustrating lol.
I think they do that because it halts or slows bacteria, so people can take their time drying. If you are storing for any length of time, it's better to dry them out. I don't prefer salting for hair on. For hair off, which is mostly what I do, I definitely like the damp salted hides.
you can go right to tanning, but at some point, you are probably going to want to dry the skin. Too many variables to say.
I just came across this video today and already I'm hooked...I can't stop watching them lol...can I ask where u are from ?
Hi, Welcome. I live in Northern California.
With fresh hides ,for it to remain soft and keep the hair do you flesh and then soak it?
I commented before watching
I just skinned my first deer and dried the hide for two days at camp in the desert. Came home to the coast and the salt/moisture thing is not working out. Should i clean the salt off and then freeze it until I can get to it another time? Or just leave it salted...It mostly dried hanging int he wind without salt, I scraped it for 7 hours so it was really clean. thanks for this video, I wish Id watched it earlier. Now I have a mostly dried-but drippy in places-hide because of the moisture.
You certainly can do that and it is a safe bet. I know what you mean. It will suck moisture right out of the air and drip all over.
That orange/red growth is probably the bacteria Serratia marcescens. It can cause illness. It's growing because of the anaerobic (oxygen free) environment you're creating. You can probably avoid both the bacteria and mold growth if you allow a little air flow and use some Mimi cat litter as a dessicant. I hope this information is helpful
It's pretty common to see that halophilic red bacteria on hides that are stacked from hide dealers. As far as I know it's harmless to the hides. If I give it air the skins will dry all the way out and I want them slightly dampl
@@SkillCult it tends to cause opportunistic infections. So most of the time it's not an issue for healthy individuals. You said you didn't know what the red growth was. I just wanted to share information on what it likely was and how to avoid it.
If other ideas for avoiding it occur to me, I'll come back and share them. But I haven't studied microbiology in like 10 years
@@rocki_bb Oh, I see, you're saying it can cause direct infections, I was thinking more internal. The infections I've seen people get from hides are primarily for oversoaking and handling wet hides. Thanks for the offering; This is a common occurence in salted hides, which are common in the industry, so no doubt there is some info on it and it's been addressed at times in literature.
@@SkillCult it's pretty well known for causing infections in hospitals & in/on things that are supposed to be sterile. Some strains have developed antibiotic resistance.
I'm a biology nerd trying to expand my knowledge and skill sets. I didn't really imagine I would be able bring any useful knowledge to the table 😂 Here's a link with more info about the bacteria. One way to tell if it is S. marcescens is to cool it down and see if it looses the red color.
www.sciencedirect.com/topics/biochemistry-genetics-and-molecular-biology/serratia-marcescens
your videos make me happy
:D
Do you use Borax salt? Or what kind of salt? Will this work for duck skin as well? Thx for vid!
I use coarse refined feed salt. Not rock salt, but pretty coarse and no minerals . I have used borax to keep bugs out of skins, but don't typically use it in tanning or storage unless bugs are an issue with dried skins, moths and beetles will sometimes get into them.
Rehydrating hair on hides can be done by piling snow or towels on top of the flesh side and pouring water over the snow or towels. To not soak the hair side.
Thanks for that comment. I've used towels a lot when I don't want to wash the hide or it's not going into something like alum and salt or bark to set the hair. Good way to go for braintanning.
A key thing before you salt is to get rid of flesh and fat , it does matter, if you care about your hides clean them properly befor salting . You won’t have mold and crap . Also after a day or two of salting take the salt off and resalt it with clean salt do this again after a few more days then you will see the difference . Salt them again then You can then let them be in your freezer for as long as you like as long as you put them in a bag and rap it up nicely till your ready to tan it but wash the salt off prior to tanning. I do this and have very good skins no hair slip no mould no rot , your skin looks horrible, sorry about that , better preparation and your skins should be beauties , just my 2 cents worth hope your skins turned out ok bud , happy hunting and skinning . 👍
I don't tan a lot of hair on skins, so these are all going to grain leather and bucksin. Last time I pulled out many years old goat skins salted this way from these tubs, smelly and ugly looking, the leather turned out even and beautiful. Aside from letting them dry out, get too hot, soaking in the brine for years, or being inadequately salted I don't recall having any issues with the skin quality for tanning and I've been using this method for over 20 years. Again though, I'm rarely tanning with hair on and if I am, I typically don't use salted skins, although I have. salting straight off the animal with only large chunks of fat and flesh removed is the leather industry standard. That is because no one has the time to flesh before salting at the killing end of the chain. If I'm skinning deer all day, I'm not going to flesh them too. I've done it and that's one of the things that drove me to salting. I was either fleshing as I was skinning and staking skins out to dry, or I was racing to get them fleshed before they rotted when I got home. As far as I've seen, fleshing and drying without salt is the fur industry standard. Is there some benefit you are getting by salting even though you are going to freeze? Do you think it sets the hair better maybe? Anyway, experience shows this to work fine for my purposes, and I can't argue with that too much.
Thank you for the very helpful comparison between drying, salting, and freezing! I have seen people use Borax. . . is that an alternative to salt, or is it for something different?
Borax is toxic to bugs. I think that is the only reason it's used.
Always wondered the use of borax! Thanks for your help and info buddy
Thanks a lot,i gona salt my first ever beaver hide
I don't think that salting is the best way to treat furs like that. Beaver are very greasy and should be fleshed thoroughly, and then some. You can put cornmeal or sawdust on the flesh side as you work to absorb more of the grease. If you let it dry, with or without salt and there is grease on the hide, then the skin will probably grease burn, which means that raw fat soaks into the skin and ruins it. If you keep it wet and salted, the hair may eventually begin to slip. My prefered approach would be to either freeze it until you can get to it, or flesh thoroughly and dry in the shade.
It's absolutely imperative that you shave that beaver.
I am learning some interesting stuff. Thanks :)
How is the smell on salted and stored hides? Gotta keep how my wife will react in mind before I start a project.
Not good. but you can seal them in a bucket or something and should be no smell til you open it. smells at least like old bad meat. Not completely putrid, just not good.
Two weeks ago, I hunted a pronghorn antelope and decided to keep the hide and skull. I just stretched the hide over a board and for 5 or so days, I replaced the old layer of salt and borax with a new layer every day, and then just to be sure it was dry, let it hang on a couple of ropes the the garage, just below a small heater. It’s still flexible but it’s dry. I have it nailed to a wall in my basement as a cool decoration for the gaming den. My mom is worried that the hide will eventually rot even with the salt and borax. She even says it smells weird, even though I’ve smelled it and all I can smell is the salt and borax (nothing alarming). My mom doesn’t like my taxidermy, so I think she’s just being a little overcautious.
But she does have a point. I know this may be a silly worry, but does salt/borax last for more than a year? In the past I’ve boiled skulls and salted a few hides with no issue, but this was the first time I did something so big. I’ll definitely keep an eye (or a nose) on the hide, but I just hope it’ll stay for awhile like my other salted/dried pelts have. I don’t have the time, money, or experience to tan a hide, and am worried about it. Thanks for reading this. The video was pretty helpful :D
borax never goes away. If it is on and in the skin you are probably protected. The thing about salt is that it's hygroscopic, meaning it can attract moisture from the air. In a very damp environment, the skin can basically stay wet all the time and even drip. That can be a problem for long term preservation if that salt is actually dripping out with the moisture. Better to actually tan it eventually, or not use the salt and only use borax and drying it thoroughly and quickly into rawhide.
SkillCult ok thanks. Just made a reservation at my local tannery. It should keep well until then since I live in a very dry place
Just wondering, do I have to flush the hide before salting? I have a hide I got this winter and just bagged it and buried it in snow. It's melting now and want to salt it but unsure if it matters to flush it or not.
No, you shouldn't have to.
Very informative, thanks
Question: If I got mold on it, can it be saved?
I haven't noticed a little mold affecting hides much as far as tanning them goes.
I'm a tattoo artist and I'm looking for a way to dry the pig skin I've tattooed and display? Any pointers?
Pig skin is very fatty. Flesh it very well. it can help to use a pretty sharp scraper and scrape off a thin layer of skin. The fat in pigs is incorporated into the skin usually, so it is hard to get out. Also, wash in warm soapy water. If you get all the fat out, it should be as simple as stringing it up in a wooden frame, or nailing it to a wall well and letting it dry. the nails should be sturdy and the wall too, or a thick piece of plywood. Raise the skin very slightly off the wood so air can get under it. If you use a frame, make it sturdy. Drying rawhide can exert a powerful pulling force.
Thanks so much!!
Hello and good stuff man, i have a question, what do you do to soften a hide before you tan it? not unless you tan first then soften? thank you
Well, that gets into the technical meaning of terms involved here. In braintanning and similar methods, you often condition the skin with oils from brains, or eggs possibly with added oils, soften then smoke them to "tan" them. Most methods, tanning of some kind that changes the way the skin behaves and feels is done first. Some are softened, while for other uses, they may actually be compressed and solidified by things like pounding. Softening methods in all cases can vary. There are lots of them. Stay tuned I'll get to that stuff eventually. It's a big subject area.
would this work for fish
Would ash be a good alternative to Salt? Rub ash onto the hide, then place hide in bucket then cover with ash.
Also creating a saline solution of extreme salt content and placing the hide in, then removing it, then dry it for 15mins there will increase uniformity, but would it remove the hair?
Would the salt penetration impact the quality?
What about anti-bacterial sprays such as Glen20 would that preserve the hide if also placed in an airtight container?
Apparently wood ash has a pH of 7.5 (Alkaline) so it'll loosen the hair.
Very different chemicals and effects. Ash contains strong alkalis that act on the skin. Yes, It is used to remove the hair in tanning. Some say salt has a negative influence, I've not noticed anything much myself and use mostly salted hides.
Do you think road salt could work for a hide?
I"m not familiar. depends on the size. but probably.
I'm doing alum "tanning" to keep hair on the hide. I theorize that salting and drying the hide first might help the effectiveness by removing the pre-existing moisture from the hide and then when it soaks later the hide should theoretically more fully absorb the salty alum solution. Otherwise I feel like the pre-existing moisture might actually slow or block absorbtion of the solution. Does that seem like a logical consideration or do you think it doesnt make a difference. Thanks!
Seems like good reasoning, but I just don't know if it would make a real difference. Who would likely have more of an opinion is a taxidermist. There are probably lots of taxidermy channels, maybe ask there.
@@SkillCult That's true I suppose. I've just found your videos to be the best on topics like fleshing and long-term storage via salting etc. Also great videos on bark tanning, though I'm not ready to try that. I dont even know what local tree species would work since we dont have the typical oak etc. Anyways, thank you again for your insight as always.
Can you tan hides that's been in an UNPLUGGED freezer for over 6 months?
I seriously doubt it. Better toss them.
not sure if you made a follow up video but i have two hides i salted last year and i'm finally ready to tan them with the hair on. Whats the process of doing that? Do i wash of the salt and rehydrate or what? Thanks for your time!.
I don't have any videos on doing hair on hides. There's way to much to talk about here.
How does the hide smell? The one that is moldy.
Old salted hides never smell very good.
Hi there! I came across your video. It’s awesome. However I have some question for you. I have a hide that has been smoked beside the firewood for about 48hrs. And I packed it in the plastic bag for one day to carry it because I couldn’t salt it at the time.After I took it out it smells with some maggots on it. I was wondering if the hides is still reversible? Or do u recommend any solution for this situation? The hide really means a lot to me. Your answer would be highly appreciated.
Because it was smoked but then but in an airtight bag the moisture that was in the hide cooled off and started doing stuff, if you still have I hope you dried it out completely with salt and airflow or put it in a salt and alum pickel
Brother AWESOME video! Just subscribed
Hello. I would like to use the fat for tallow before I salt my hides. will fleshing the non-hair side prevent me from being able to use salting as a preservation method?
No, that is totally fine. It's just that you don't have to flesh it, not that you can't.
#tupperwarecontainerofeyeballs
No doubt we'll be seeing that hash tag everywhere now. Who doesn't have that problem!?
addictedtoelf #tupperwarecontainerofeyeballs
That’d be a great icebreaker when meeting your daughter’s new boyfriend. Bet she’d get home on time.
Does this only work at certain temperatures? I am in Northern Michigan and I have a hide with salt on it, but I haven't seen any dampness come out of the hide. It hasn't gotten above 30 much lately and I think the hide might already be too frozen for the salt to work. Should I try to put it somewhere warmer?
Certainly if the hide is frozen, the water won't move. Salt can cause ice to melt, but I'm sure there is a limit below which it won't. It might be good to pull it in for a couple of days and let the salt do it's thing. If it is super cold and stays that way, I guess that might be fine too, like putting it in the freezer.
dude ... I need two of you.
damn, me too, at least two!
Thank you for making this video. I just started learning taxidermy and am running to the lack of space.
If you use salting, be careful. you don't want it sitting in slush. Salting is sort of my last choice for fur on skins. Check this vid out from a guy that does taxidermy on how to do it well. If you dry them, be careful of bugs. A light dusting of borax powder should keep them out.
forgot the link...th-cam.com/video/z-VGIhCSBNE/w-d-xo.html
AWESOME!
Do you have to be careful about rinsing all of the salt off before you lime, or will the salt not hurt the liming process?
That is a good question. I don't worry about it much and can't recall any warnings about it anywhere, though that is the kind of thing I might forget. I do rinse them for sure. I'd prefer to rinse numerous times and flesh before liming, but I will often just rinse them pretty good and start them off in the lime without fleshing due to time/energy limitations. haven't noticed any problems.
Hugely informative, as always! I just figured I must have the best wife in the world, I don’t know that any wife would tolerate a fox skin in her freezer ;)
You haven't met my wife. Skins in the freezer and motors on the table or the living room floor. She's pretty awesome!!
Thank you for this video I have liked it!
Question can this process be used for wild boar skin.... I want to make a tug toy I can use year round.
If this would work... could I just pull the hide out...use it then put back when done? safe for the pup?
Thanks again
It should work. I'd try to flesh it well, but if you only want it to last a few years, it should be fine. Just store it in a sealed tub. Hard to imagine anything dead really harming a dog ha ha. They will probably think it's just awesome the stinkier it is.
FYI, I accidentally left a ham in my trunk when my car died and left at a car dealership. They called me to come find the horrible smell in the car. Rotted pork is the worst smelling thing on earth.
🤭..🤢..🤮
Can we use rock salt for preserving? or just non - Iodized sea salt.
Yes, you can use it. Make sure it sits long enough on the skin to dissolve ans stick some. It is used a lot on thick skins, but not as commonly on thin ones.
@@SkillCult And What about Iodized table salt? because It's cheaper and easier to find in my country (Thailand). Thank you for your response.
What is the best way to tan the hide with the hair on? If you could link me to a video or fill me in. Greatly appreciated. Just skinned today at 4am. Have the hide in water atm. Already fleshed it.
I can't think of anyplace to reference you to. YOu might want to do alum and salt, look up the recipe. Unless putting in alum and salt or something to set the hair or tanning immediately, putting it in water is usually the last thing you want to do. It promotes hair slippage. Another option is to freeze it, or try to get the hair wrung out and dry it very fast with a lot of air circulation, like a fan. Since it is already wet though, alum tanning is probably the way to go. They are expensive, but you can get small containers of alum at the grocery store. You'll have to look up a recipe.
@SkillCult Hey, should I be worried if the deer hide has never dripped any moisture out? I heavily salted it, and folded it as you did in the video. Then I put it in a tote with spacers keeping it from sitting on the bottom but it hasnt dripped out any liquid at all. Maybe it is folded too air-tight and all the liquid is trapped inside? Also, if these hides are stacked one above the other, what if the top one drips brine on the hair of the lower ones? Will this cause problems with hair retention and/or staining? Thanks!
Probably just pretty dry already for some reason. Salt should pull out moisture if it's there. If you want the hair, dry it with the salt on, or tan in soon.
@@SkillCult Hey thanks for the reply! It was a friend's deer and the hide sat off the deer for a while before I got to it, but was still really damp and pliable. Only one small area dried a little more than the rest but was also pliable. Maybe I misunderstood, but are you saying I should dry it flat like rawhide if I want to keep the hair on? Does it fall out if I store it in a tote until Spring? I may try making a padded bag with it or something requiring the hair not fall all over.
@@DieLuftwaffel They just lost more moisture than it might seem. That is okay if the salt penetrates well. But if they were sitting around, the hair could already be compromised. If you want hair on, you really have to be on top of it and arrest the decay process quickly. I would take them out and dry them to be safe. You might also look into alum tanning. It will set the hair, sometimes even if it is starting to slip a little. You can put them straight into the alum and salt solution this week, then just dry them out and finish later if you can't finish. It should be easy to find info on the proportions of alum to salt. That is a good safe, non toxic tan. It also combines well with braintanning, or you can use egg yolks as the conditioning agent.
@@SkillCult Oh wow, sure hope it hasnt been too long! I live far north so it's quite cold, but the deer was left to cure hide-on for about a week, then thrown on the cold garage floor for a couple days, then left in a box on my porch in the cold for about a week before I salted it. Everything on it still seemed fresh to me since it was folded skin-to-skin. Even small chunks of meat stuck to the hide still looked technically edible (not that I would). But you would recommend alum tanning right away or drying it literally stiff as a board? Doesnt soaking in water to rehydrate make the hair loose? Sorry for all the ongoing questions, I just dont want to mess this up and have a few more hides waiting to prepare too both deer and antelope, which has very thin skin and not sure what it may or may not turn into.
@@DieLuftwaffel It might be okay. order alum online where it is cheap. The alum is extremely astringent and will shrink the skin around the hair roots. Its still a gamble, but it might work. You can dry it out after completely until you can research info on finishing it. I think that is the most likely to work.
How long from when you salt it do you have to wait to be able to take it out and just have it around the house?
salting isn't a substitute for tanning, it's just to preserve the skin until it can be tanned.
Hello! First of all, I wanted to say thank you for your easily understandable and well put together video. My boyfriend just killed a cow elk and while in the woods I fleshed it (the best I could) and salted the hide to preserve it. I am glad to see that (once I watched your video) I was indeed on the right path of starting the preservation process, the right way. However, I have looked over your videos and perhaps I have missed it... but I can't seem to find a video on how to preserve the hide WITH the intent to keep the hair... We are wanting to have a pelt for the back of our couch.... but am kind of at a standstill right now on what the next steps are. I have used chemicals in the past on deer hides, but all of my hides came out shrunken and hard as a board.
Could you point me in a good direction? Perhaps... a video of yours that I have missed?
Once again, thank you for your videos and I look forward to any input you may have.
Hi Marissa. I don't really have a video on that, but there is this one that seems very good about making sure the hair doesn't slikp when salting. It's by a taxidermist and I'm sure he knows what he's talking about. If you mean how to tan it, but that's a whole other subject. I don't have any hair on tanning vids and it will probably be a long time till I have any if I ever do. Be warned though that elk hair breaks like crazy and you'll always be cleaning up little bits of hair. That's because the hairs are hollow, which makes them brittle. I'm not sure where to send you for the best hair on tanning information. There is some in my book Buckskin, the Ancient Art of Braintanning, but it's out of print for the time being.
Thank you very much. I found a fellow with a channel called Richard Smith, he went through the whole process, in case anyone else asks. I am still very excited to subscribe to your channel as you are VERY informative. I look forward to watching future vids! Thanks again for the quick response and your time!
-Marissa
No more than a year in the freezer. Just did a hide that was frozen for two years and it has hair slipage.
Never seen that happen. They can get freezer burned though.
Hey how much you selling hides for bro I see you got a bunch there that are just sitting there
I don't sell hides raw or tanned. I have before, but not currently.
I appreciate your teaching sir. Thank you.
You're welcome :)
Great videos :) Thanks from Spain
How do I thaw a frozen hide properly? Move from freezer to fridge? Or take it out completely? How long?
Doesn't matter too much. Either will work. As it thaws, you can pull it apart to thaw it faster.
Thank you! Unfortunately I think I picked a bad day. The flies are going nuts for the hide. I just covered it up with a big bucket. But once I start pulling it apart they'll have back at it...
Last question I promise haha! After you flesh/salt and leave it for a few days, can you soak it for an hour and go straight to brain tanning? Or do I have to pickle it? I've seen some people say you 100% have to pickle it but others say no. I don't want the hair to slip. It's doing very well so far
You don't need to salt at all if you are tanning right away. Salt, like drying and freezing is only for preserving the skin until it is time to tan. A fresh skin is great to start with. Once salted, you have to wash all the salt out when you tan it, or at least it's better to IMO. For hair on skins, I'd probably flesh in the frame if you can, or at least put a doubled up towel on the beam. If you're going to wash it at any point, you want to dry it quickly. might as well dip it in a fatliquor (brains, egg yolks, oil). to start the conditioning process. After that, I'd keep the hair side dry, and just resoak with fatliquor repeatedly from the flesh side with wet towels. Really, way too much to cover here. I have a half assed version of hair on deer tanning in my buckskin book, but unfortunately, it's still out of print.
Ir0nMaidenFan666 .
I have a whole rabbit in the freezer as my first ever taxidermy attempt. When i eventually thaw and skin it do you recommend salting after fleshing what i can or just fleshing and drying?
I'd look at taxidermy resources. I don't do taxidermy. You might want to put it into an alum pickle or something to set the hair and tan it. I just don't know what they do.
The salt gave me grip to pull the fat off my rabbit hides
But i left them in a tube to easily make slippers
I packed with salt for 3 days now
Its pulled the moisture out of them but they are not hard dry
I want to egg tan I'm guessing thats the next step
After rinsing all the salt out, dry them as quickly as possible, using a comb on the hair to fluff it, but dry some egg yolk solution into the hair side. And work them open a little while that's going on. After that, don't resoak them again, but just use damp towels and egg yolk solution on the flesh side to get them rewetted for softening. That's a pretty typical approach for furs. Alum will fix the hair and help tan if you want to go that route.
@@SkillCult yes we want to try it both ways thanks that makes sense
ls it possible to purify used salt in home to be used again hide salting?
I've reused old salt before and I know some others do. but I'm not sure about purifying it. sounds challenging.
Good to know, that you have reused (because you know that you do). l read from one finnish hide processing book, that you should't re-use salt, because it contains too much bacteria and it don't guarantee good end results. That's why l wondered if it can be purified. Edit: can you make a video about traditional fur making? l remember you said in some video, that it is harder to make with plant-tanning (because it can easily go wrong with strenght of solutions or something), but l quess that it is easier to make with animal fats.
both side or only one side and have to keep it in sun
one
Thanks for that, ....3 days ago i pul out moose hide from my freezer after 12 years ....i use small nails and nailing that to plywood and putting whole thing on florida sun and salted whole thing "for some unknown reasons " after this video im heading out now to break of that salt and just let it dry ....during a day it dry nicely but at night it attracts lot of moisture, will see ,i did not know what i was doing, so thx for this info.
Yes, salt will pull moisture from the air in a climate like that.
Great video!
I have some questions if you or someone could enlighten me.
I am working on some hair on hides in my free time with my friend who harvested the deer. Our first hide we salted and partially dried it (10 days in his cold work shed) before we strung it up on the makeshift frame. We scraped the salt off for later use. The hide has been strung up for about a week and finished drying out with the remaining salt on it. Yesterday I went over to his house and scraped remaining membrane (white fluffy peels) and what I believed to be some of the hide due to my lack of knowledge with a dull cabinet scraper.
(it was tough and did not want to come off but stood out from the translucent spots which I thought was what I expected the entire hide to become after scraping)
The material coming off the hide was very fluffy (and salty as I kept ingesting some of the dust lol).
After scraping I washed the hide with warm water with an old t-shirt to remove the remaining salt. I opted to just wash the hide on the frame instead of soaking it because there was no dirt of blood on the hide because removing it from the frame would of been a pain. I tried to get as much water out of the hide as possible then we tightened and stretched the hide as much as we could. I figured we should let the hide dry again before applying the eggs to tan it and I am debating on whether or not to remove the hide from the frame to soak it in an egg solution for the recommended time in your book or should we just lay the frame down and apply the egg solution to the flesh side only.
My main question is should we soak the hide for about two hours in an egg solution or should we just egg it while its on the frame so we can prod it with our cherry stake and stretch it.
I really would appreciate any advice you or anyone who reads this has. I really want to make a deer hide quiver lol.
You really don't want to leave that much salt in the skin. I would wash it as quickly and thoroughly as possible then egg it. If you are worried about the hair slipping which is a real possibility, you can alum it, but You'll have to look up a recipe. You want to keep scraping the water out of the skin to get as much as you can out and keep fluffing and combing the hair. If you have electricity, put a fan on the hair side and try to get it dry quickly. as it starts to dry, you can work it open some, but you won't likely get it very broken the first time around, It will open it for the next egging though. Maybe put a little olive oil in those eggs too in a blender to emulsify it. I don't remember what I said in the book, but probably fatliquor the flesh side multiple times and dry it in with a little light working as it dries. Just try not to leave the hide damp for any length of time. bark as used in tanning can also set the hair, though it may color it, depending on what you use and how long you soak. One more suggestion, make a makeshift toothed flesher as shown in the book and use that. You will probably find that after drying and re-wetting a lot more fleshy stuff will come off.
SkillCult thanks for the advice Steve. I am going to check the store to see if they have alum i literally am in the parking lot about to grab some eggs haha. as for the toothed flesher, I have been using a card scraper from a pack I bought for bow making and the one i was using to scrape the hide had a jagged edge on one side I found and it seemed to work alright. I do understand that having the correct tool is preferred. I will wash the hide in water (to get any salt left in the hide) then egg it right after as you recommend. Thanks so much for the advice I really really appreciate it.
as for alum I am going to grab bulk online its so expensive in the store haha
Cool video brother 👍🏻
I cleaned my deer hide while it was nailed to a board but I didn't get time and it dried because it was next to the coal stove. Is there any way to get it back to a workable state and tan it with the hair on it? How easy is that?
It depends. if it got really warm, it could have been damaged or greaseburned if there is fat on it. Deer skins don't grease burn easily, but if it dries with a lot of melting fat it can. Also, if it dried slow, or drying was started late, it could start to break down and the hair can begin slipping. If none of that happened, which it very well may not havce, just saying, then yes, you can resoak it and tan it with the hair on. It is a journey to learn to tan skins. Learning new things and new tools, so it's never really do this in a few easy steps. At least not quality traditional natural tanning. My buckskin book is out of print right now, but hopefully it will be back in print by the end of the winter. It has a short chapter on hair on braintanning of deer skins, but it's basically a supplemental chapter and the book is about making hair off traditional braintanned buckskin. It's too expensive out of print, but here it is. www.amazon.com/Buckskin-Ancient-Braintanning-Steven-Edholm/dp/0965496554/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1513451369&sr=8-1-fkmr0&keywords=buckskin+tanning+ancient. you could also consider bark tanning. I have quite a bit of info on this channel about bark tanning. I don't spell it out step by step, but a whole process is there. This is probably the best playlist fort that. th-cam.com/play/PL60FnyEY-eJCcE3gKzj0GkadKlSF_8xbj.html. Deer skin makes beautiful bark tanned leather.
I like to begin in doing this can you give me details of items I need to use
Have you ever experienced rabbit fur changing colors during the tanning process?
Not sure I've done rabbit that way, but have seen some color change on other fur. There are ways to potentially minimize it. For one, using a light colored tanning material. Some sumacs are suppose to be very light in color. You could also dip it for just a short time to set the hair, then apply ground bark wetted well, but not enough to run, and roll it up for a while to tan from the flesh side. Native people in the arctic did something like that with alder bark.
This video helped me a lot thank you.
I hung elk leg hides in a tree to dry a few weeks back.I wanna keep the fur and I have no clue what im doing!! Are they still good??
They might be. depends on the weather and stuff. They will dry, but they might be kind of smelly. Or if you mean you want the skins, you should get them off and either preserved, frozen or tanned ASAP.
Ok, we prolly did it wrong but last year we got a cow hide fresh. We salted it and its stored in the freezer... now what? I am hoping we did not mess up and that we can get this to be a nice hair on hide that is soft and supple. Whats your advice?
freezing on top of sallting isn't a bad thing, just the salting is unnecessary. Really, it's better to freeze as long as you froze it right away. Tanning it is a whole other deal though. I'm not willing to go there :) Cattle hides are tight fibered and dense by nature, so soft and supple isn't the thing they most want to be. With the hair and grain intact, it would be even more challenging.
I am
A newb. I was given a deer hide a day before I was headed out of town. I came across this awesome vid and salted the hide, stored as recommended.
That was about a month ago. Will I
Be able to flesh the hide and leave hair on? Should I test for slippage before fleshing? Should I pickle it after fleshing? Thanks so much!
There are too many variables to know if the hair will stay or not. I don't recommend learning tanning with the hair on first. but everyone wants to. as far as what to do next, that's a huge subject. You might look into alum and salt tanning for keeping the hair.
SkillCult thank you. It’s still in the tub. Per your recommendation I’ll switch to hair off. I want to learn both ways, but, if mastering hair off first is better for the newb I’ll go that way.
Awesome info
I heard something about Borax on hides, do you have any tips on that?
Borax is for preserving the skin from attack by insects. It also prevents mold. I would only use it on the dry skin as a sprinkle, not wet, and only if you need to protect it from insects that eat skin. There are moths and beetles that will attack dried skins sometimes if they are stored for a long time. Dont worry about it unless you need it.
So I want to keep my hide soft is my only option salting?
You need to tan it. I don't have anything about tanning with fur on, which is what most people want, but there might be other videos that do. My stuff is all on tanning with the hair off.
The bahco file your affiliate link goes to is $134- that seems put of character for your normal recommendations, also I can't imagine thats what you want files are usually like 10-20, just wanted to inform you. Love the content and I agree consumerism is replacing actual activities so sad
thanks. There is no link to a single 10 inch bahco and hasn't been for a while. I might habve to just buy some and put them on my site.
@@SkillCult ohh ok I understand. Thanks for the reply and the content.