I am just a beginer so please excuse this probably dumb question.If pickling makes fleshing easier,why not pickle,flesh, then dp
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James, Nothing wrong with that-it's how I learned way,way back. Still you need to remove most flesh before pickling so the pickle can reach the skin. The way I do it is rough flesh, salt, shake off salt and get any other flesh that's of any real concern, salt, dry, rehydrate, pickle, flesh/shave as needed, neutralize, tan. NOW all can be the same for dp if that's how you want to do it except for the last tanning step. Pickle for 1 day on thin stuff, then fine flesh--3 days on deer etc before fleshing/shaving. Return all to the pickle at least 1 day after shaving and then proceed. Other important step is to enjoy, Aaron H.
The idea about DP was to evade that pH monitoring and all the things that went with it. Early on, hides were JUST pickled. Sometime later, they were just tanned. It's been rather recent that we've come to do BOTH. DP is simply a drying agent. If you are going through all that work to pickle your hide, you're just a few short hours away from tanning the darned thing. Why go forward only to step back?
aaron,
just read your response to another question. i have not ever used
a pickle for my deer capes. i usually go from the second salting to
rehydrating and shaving and tanning. am i making a big mistake skipping the pickle?