I have a guy who Ive mounted some whitetails for in the past call me and he wants an axis hide tanned and made into a throw or a wall hanging. Ive never done any rug work before so Im looking for some advice. I use a well known tannery for my capes but all my whitetails are wet tanned.
My question is does the tannery break bodyskin hides or do they just tan and dry and return them to you. I looked on my price list and it dont say. If they dry and return them to you I assume I will have to rehydrate, then stretch and break the hide. Ive searched the archives and I think I have a good idea on how to handle this process, so now Im trying to come up with a price figure and how much labor will be involved. Any advice?
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If your customer simple wants the hide tanned to put on wall, couch, etc, send it to your tannery. No extra work is required when its returned. If your customer wants a rug(felt border, padding) its much easier to send off to a commercial rug maker. I use Big Bear Rug Service in Montana. They just did a bear & axis rug for me. Super job. They handle the tanning & mounting the head. Axis rug including tanning was $125. Cost to customer $350. All I did was flesh, salt, ship. Easy money.
What is an axis? Is it an animal or is it a type of rug? Go easy on me. Thanks. Chris
The "AXIS" is an old Nazi...finally captured and skinned alive for all the atrocities they've done on human beings during WW-2...a Rare Trophy.
FYI stuff - "The Bitch Of Buckenwald" (her name)...was commondant of Nazi torture camp in Buckanwald Germany. Daily...she would have all the prisoners stand naked in formation...walk among them for inspection (I'll keep it clean here)...selected the guy she 'wanted'...had him showered, cleaned up and smelling like roses.
She had this prisoner brought to her chambers...had sex with him...then had him shot and skinned.,.and their skins tanned...and made into lamp shades, decorative 'mounts'.
Guess you can say...in a sick way...she loved taxidermy specimens to behold in her trophy room...True Story.
~ ETCC
I guess thats one axis, but somthing tells me that charles brown is refering to a different axis. Thanks for the info above, I have heard of the human lamp shade thing but never heard of this version of getting the skin. Chris