Not salting skins? Your cheating yourself!

[oldshaver]

Your missing out on stretch on capes, and you are missing out on  softer back skins and wall hangers SIMPLY FROM NOT SALTING!

Look at the drawing below. Imagine it as the skin structure. Also imagine all those holes being full of un-tannable proteins, fats, etc, and the lines being collegen.

What are we trying to accomplish before we tan and oil a skin?(or paint-on a tan)

[muscle20]

  What we accomplish before we tan and lube is prevent bacteria action, separate out the non-collagens and loosen the cross links in the protein lattice, this is accomplished by the acid pickle, salt is added to the acid pickle to prevent swelling of the fibers. To achieve stretch and softness proper scouring, pickling, degreasing thinning of the skin and lubing is necessary and for the tanner to have knowledge of the steps accomplished  and in a dry tan ex. wall hanger proper breaking and finishing , this will be accomplished whether salted before or not. Salting a skin rids it of moisture preventing spoilage, as bacteria needs moisture to live and grow, in other words if you can not freeze it salt it, in other words the skins I process come out soft and stretchy whether I salt or not, and I am not a magician, In my opinion the acid pickle and the knowledge of the process is what does the job, not the salt. 

[SivkoFur]

The cheapest ingredients in tanning are       1. water         2. salt 

can you tan it with out salting it dry ?    yes.      but why would you?

yes it can be made soft and supple without salting it dry but we found that it requires more effort and more of the other products that are not a cheap as salt.   such as  degreasers, acid, tanning ingredients, oil , staking , sawdusting, restaking  etc 

these cost more than if you had just salted it dry to begin with with the 2nd cheapest ingredient

[cyclone]

The following information was found using the advanced search feature...


Some info from the past...
http://www.taxidermy.net/forum/index.php/topic,205531.0.html

[cyclone]

Muscle you need to define "Scouring" for the newbies that may read this thread.  I find no less that 25 posts wherein you mention "proper scouring" but no one has ever asked...

"What is scouring?"  What does it accomplish? 

[oldshaver]

Even the KT users will benefit from salting!

Salt a skin, let dry for 3 days, rehydrate, then put in the KT solution.

It will be ready to shave earlier, and shave easier. Not to mention added stretch. Try it, I gurantee it will improve the WHOLE experience!

Salting,then rehydrating the skin, gives you a JUMP START on the pickling process. It will begin creating voids, and  removing the un-tannables, before it even hits a pickle. A good 25-30% of the "JUNK" you are trying to remove, will wash out durng the re hydration.

[cyclone]

Textbook material OS..  For home "bucket tanners", if done properly, I'd say more than 50% removal if agitated during re-hydration and even beamed afterward..  It really opens up the fibers..gives a cleaner pickle.

[oldshaver]

Muscle you need to define "Scouring" for the newbies that may read this thread.  I find no less that 25 posts wherein you mention "proper scouring" but no one has ever asked...

"What is scouring?"  What does it accomplish? 

[/quote

Cyclone, I think that refers to beaming a skin, with a dull edge knife, to mechanically loosen the collegen matrix. You wouldnt need this, if you salt, and rehydrate first. Scouring is a BIG waste of ones time, that can be accomplished chemically, without breaking one's back!

[cyclone]

Cyclone, I think that refers to beaming a skin, with a dull edge knife, to mechanically loosen the collegen matrix. You wouldnt need this, if you salt, and rehydrate first. Scouring is a BIG waste of ones time, that can be accomplished chemically, without breaking one's back!

I have to disagree about it being a waste of time OS....for us home "bucket tanners", without the luxury  of paddle vats, I believe it is a valuable method for loosening the fibrous network..

[Hartung]

From a primitive/historic leather tanner’s view: if it is “beaming a skin, with a dull edge knife” than I would also call it scudding. I do it with all my hides after having washed the hides. It is the last step before drying and storing them for later tanning.

Scudding doesn’t break my back as does graining/removing the epidermis because the pressure applied is much less. I rather enjoy it because it pushes out water and much of the residues still in the hide and is a last finishing step to get a perfect clean surface on the flesh and the grain side of the hide. That is particularly important for me as I don’t thin the hide on the flesh side as you taxis do. As a side effect, a scudded hide dries super fast.

The rehydration process before final tanning gives a hide (even a thick hide) that, in appearance and touch, is super soft. I’d say it is even softer than a green hide – but I might be wrong there. That’s just an impression.

[Keith Daniels]

I've been trying to keep my mouth shut, but can't do it.

I'm sure scouring to muscle is the same as scouring to me and everybody else in the business, it's simply washing the skin to clean out as much of the fats and fluids before the pickle as possible. I've said it before, and told numerous taxidermists that tan at home over the years they need to rehydrate a skin that has been wet salted simply as a wash/scour and they would see a huge difference instead of putting it straight into a pickle, and they do. The scour can, and is in our case done differently for different types of skins. The basic deer skin is fine after re hydration, assuming you use a good re hydrator with a surfactant in it. Greasy skins, fur skins or problem children, such as most African skins get an extra scour before you go into acid of any kind. Mechanical action does help tremendously, but for the lack of that, you can still help your skins tremendously by using a scour. As far as green, unsalted skins go, a good scour on them before the pickle will make them do up just fine. The biggest difference between an air dried and salted skin is the salted one soaks back easier.

Many principles of the leather industry do cross over into the garment (our) industry, but, if salting is truly that vital in leather, it obviously doesn't transfer into garment tanning, many millions of furs that were stretched and dried each year would tend to support that. We seem to do more than our share of air dried deer and even bear, not to mention skins that had freezer burned spots that never were salted, to go along with the air/trapper dried skins, seldom will anyone be able to tell a difference by looking at the finished product.

The point of the whole thing is, a proper wash/scour/re hydration should be the real issue for the intent of the thread, muscle obviously has the knowledge and experience to have figured that out.

[michael p.]

Man, what a good read.  Now if you will excuse me, o
I must go scour so I am ready for work!

[cyclone]

Just what this thread needed..

Excellent Keith..

Thanks..

[kirby/575.693.6699]

thank you Keith for clearing all that up so concisely.

michael p. don't scour yourself too long or you will be late for work

[oldshaver]

We can all agree partially I guess?

I my opinion, ANY TYPE of mechanical action ON A RAW SKIN, is a NO-NO!

Raw skns should be handled as little as possible, certainly not beaming, or exposing them to higher pH values.

After pickling, sure, "scud" all you want. Before then, epidermis will be lost in key areas.

Its not so much a waste of time, beaming a raw skin, as it is just a "bad" practice, and BAD advice to give. Hair and epidermis both will be loosened and suffer.

IT IS RARE that you see air dried skins, that are going to be mounted. Every once in a while, but not much. When you do, they are usually a pain in the a55 to shave.

For TAXIDERMY purposes salting is the ONLY way to go! I have worked for 3 different tanneries, and have been in a few others, and I HAVE NEVER SEEN ANYONE Beam a RAW skin.


Thank GOD most of the skins coming back from Africa are salted, or more than 1/2 of every safari would be thrown in the garbage!

This thread was brought about from folks calling me, about getting no stretch with their KrowTan, and folks I speak to that didnt salt. Now they do, and whoop, more stretch, easier to shave, and they are not losing any more epidermis around the eyes! NOW, its concisely cleared up.