Tuesday, February 12, 2008

Our Deer Tanning Story

Hi Y'all,

Here is our deer tanning story in pictures.

Tacking it up

Ready to be scraped


Knife man!!

Working...
Fleshing

Close up

"I don't want to touch it with my hand"

Time to go into the tanning vat. Our tanning solution was: sulfuric acid, salt, and water


The vat which the hide was in for about 3 weeks.

Mixing the rinse which consisted of: borax and water

Squeezing out the hide


Into the rinse


The hide after the 30 Min. rinse


Tacked up to dry



After a week it was too dry around the edge and too moist in the center...So we rinsed it again and hung it up to dry


After it had dried enough to apply the needsfoot oil it was molding. After trying to deal with the mold we cut out three sections that had tanned properly...

This is what we ended up with.

Any suggestions for the future? We had never done this before. We used Little Bear's outdoor guide for the first while (until we had the dry out problem). The we tried to use the Back to basics guide. What did I do wrong? Has anyone else had experiencing tanning?

In Christ,
Andrew

11 comments:

Amanda said...

that's only a little but gross. :)
Maybe it will turn out better next time

Unknown said...

Very interesting! We enjoyed the pictures.
We tried tanning a cow hide once, but as with yours, it molded.:/ Since then, Peter has only tanned squirrel hides. He uses salt and eggs. It works! :)I have no idea how it would work on a larger, thicker hide however.
Good luck on the next one!

The Dischers

Stephanie Cosby said...

I was right Andrew. That was NASTY! lol
It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. I just don't like stuff like that. :)

Stephanie

Valiant for Truth said...

Dischers,

Could you have Peter email me some instructions on tanning squirrels? I have thought of trying that too! It is interesting that you had the same mold problem that we had.

Stephanie,

I am glad that it was not quite as bad as you thought!

Andrew

Walter said...

I confess, I am not experienced in the back-woodsy skills! (Raised in Surburbia - what can I say?) :)

Looked pretty good to me, though!

Lizzie said...

Sure! He will PM them to you on Steeple. :)

Valiant for Truth said...

Thank you! I will be waiting for the PM.

-Andrew

Valiant for Truth said...

I got the instructions! Thank you!

Stephen Higginbotham said...

The gross part was the fleshing after that it wasn't that bad.

Stephen

Stephanie Cosby said...

Stephen
I think the whole thing would be gross! :) But since I have never done anything like that I guess I shouldn't talk.LOL

Stephanie

tyrell said...

The whole process should take no more then 4 days. you soaked it too long it must have been very stinky.