I am just beginning the hobby of tanning. What is exactly meant by "slitting/shaving lip" and "turning" the ears while fleshing?
Return to Beginners Category Menu
Splittng and shaving the lips refere to splitting the inner and outer lip skin. Usally the gray part of skin in the inside of the mouth. after you split the lips , you have to get all of the meat off of the skin, (shave it very thin but you want to leave the outer part of the skin) now turning the ears refere to separtaing the cartliage for the ear skin all the way to the exterme edges. if these two steps are not done correctly then you will have hair slippage. the lips need to be split all the way to their extreme edges also.
When you sploit the lips you will see a fine red line. This ia a thin layer of meat that seperates the lip skin. This in not the only area to be done. You will also need to split the eyes, they need to go right to the eyelashes. Plus you will need to split the nose catiladge and remove this. The next step is to split or seperate the ear cartiladge. They have ear openers to aid you here.
As for shaving a hide. This is best done when a hide is pickled. The pickle will swell the hide up. Up to three times the thickness. Now it can be shaved by hand or by machine. What is to be done here is that skin from the flesh side is taken off. This inreturn makes the hide thinner and makes the tanning process easier and better.
To shave a hide you take a knife and remove the skin till you see a bluish color to your hide. this is when you stop. Beyond that you will cut into the hair roots and the cape will loose hair. It's best done on a machine. This is just a quick run down on how to it. There are more explaintion if you go to the search button. Or check the archives in the tanning area.