THE HIDE OUT STORE HOW TO
THE HIDE OUT STORE FULL

If you do not have an environmentally responsible way to dispose of salt, no freezer, and you’re tanning a lot of hides, this may be your only option. Using the bucking process as illustrated in Deerskins into Buckskins makes dried hides scrape considerably easier than they otherwise do, so I don’t discourage it as much as I did in the past. So if you have some old hides out in the shed, soak them up in plain water for a day or two and go at it. This allows the dressing to easily enter and prepare the hide for softening. The aging process has an effect similar to the alkali, causing the mucus in the grain layer to break down. In fact there is no need to do the bucking or rinsing steps. Hides that have been stored dry for a few years are exceptionally easy to grain and soften. Hides that have been stored dry for more than a year will grain fairly easily. There are however a couple of exceptions to this rule. The grain will never swell and loosen to be as easy to remove as on fresh hides.

THE HIDE OUT STORE FULL

Think of a dried apple…When reconstituted, no matter how long it soaks or is manipulated, is it ever as soft, full and luscious as a fresh apple? When re-soaked, it doesn’t reconstitute fully. Drying shrinks the grain and causes it to adhere tightly to the fiber core. For wet-scraping this can make it much harder to remove the grain.

Drying Hides For Storage Can Make Tanning Harderįor four years, I fleshed and dried my hides for storage. It might take a beginner four or five hours.

It takes an experienced tanner about an hour’s work to get their hide to this point (not including soaking time). So, if you take them through the grain scraping stage and then dry them, you are not creating any unnecessary work for yourself. Drying unscraped hides makes them considerably harder to scrape later. Then you can dry the hide out and store it indefinitely. To do this, you must flesh, buck, grain and rinse. Some-how the ground causes the hides to rot over time. The only way to really screw this up is by storing salted hides directly on the ground. Wet-salted hides should feel as loose as when they first came off of the deer. Even if they feel damp and pliable they may still have dried enough to affect scraping. The more they dry the harder they will be to scrape later. Storing salted hides in tarps or other permeable containers causes them to dry slowly over time. This is the most practical method for people who tan alot of hides. After one week drain any water that has accumulated at the bottom of the container. One or two hides will fit in a five gallon plastic bucket, while a big pile can be put into a garbage can. Salt will rust metal, which will then stain the hide. Use air-tight plastic and wooden containers. Store in cool place with no air flow, so they won’t dry out. To salt the next hide, lay it directly on top of the first, and so on. Spread fine salt over the entire surface, all the way out to the edges. Lay hide out flat with the flesh side facing up. If you have the freezer space, this is the easiest way to go. Roll hide up in tight bundle, tie, put in plastic bag, and freeze indefinitely.

THE HIDE OUT STORE HOW TO

This hide wasn’t stored so good How to store hidesįreeze.

The hide out store