Help. I have an old, stiff zebra hide that I want to restore. It's got several holes and tears. From what I've read so far, the way to go is to use Barge cement and glue the zebra to a leather or pleather to strengthen it. Then I can pull the tears together and try to patch the holes with some sort of matching hide. Does this sound about right? Thanks.
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If you are trying to make the skin less stiff, then glueing it and pasting it will only make it harder than it is. How was the skin preserved in the first place or do you know? It would be best rehyadrated then pickled and then tanned and the tears and holes sewed the propre way. You would have a skin that is worth something then. If it is a raw hide and is older than say ten years, good luck doing much with it at all. the hair will be loose after rehydrating and the skin will most likly have a host of skin mites that are already breaking it down.
E-mail me and we can talk more about it if you wish
gossard@gtelco.net
Unfortunatley I have zero info on the zebra. The store said it was very old. I hope it isn't a raw hide, I'm not sure how to tell. I'm pretty handy with large projects, but I had no idea how involved this might be. I talked to a couple of taxidermists in my area but they said they were swamped and said that it would not make sense for me to have someone work on it because of the amount of time and money it would involve. They said I could probably wing it. If the zebra is very old or a raw hide would it hold together better if I just glue it, or should I study up on pickling and tanning? Maybe I can rehydrate it, sew it up, and then glue it. I don't know if its a bad sign but my God it smells horrible when it's dampened. Thank you.