Send your skins to a fur-dresser that offers fleshing and tanning services. Your main objective right now, is to increase your client base! Fleshing and tanning should be your last worry.
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you're a beginner....
If you are a beginner, You probably don't have a cliental base. Now is the point in your carrier when you have Time. Valuable time to practice, to discover all the subtle nuances of the craft that will make your understanding of the work produce a better mount. Only by working on as many hides, and specimens as possible will you discover those little things that make your Job easier, and more effective. The Money you spend having someone else do the work, wile you sit around doing nothing, Is wasted. Use and enjoy the lean times, polish your Skill. The time will come when you wish you had them back.
You are never going to build a solid client base if you mess up half your skins trying to flesh and tan yourself. I would think that a new Taxidermist should be honing his or her skills on mounting a nice deer head, rather than tanning that skin!
I think that the first thing a beginner should learn,is taking care of his own hides.If he doesn't know how to tan and shave a hide,he probably doesn't know how to properly mount it either,and therefor should not have a customer base at all! I also read your next thread about tanneries not knowing what they're doing.Make up your mind.
Pull your head out of your a__. Since when is tanning a hide a pre-requisite for being a taxidermist! Before tannerys popped up, and shaving machines became so wide spread, taxidermists fleshed the skin with a knife, and then used borax to preserve the skin. Read the post about tannerys again. Obdviously, the point went went way over your head. Knowing how to flesh and salt a skin is important, but is it worth their time, at $19 or $20 a pop?
Evidently,it is you that has your head up your a$$.A beginner should not be building a customer base,PERIOD!He should be learning his trade on his own stuff or that of his friends.Once he can do that properly,then he should worry about buildind a customer base.Otherwise he will be just another Hacksidermist.Therefore I think your advise was TERRIBLE!So if you think I have my head up my a$$,so be it.
I think OS is right, if practice makes perfect shouldn't a taxidermist spend time practing mounting heads instead of worrying about what kind of bottled miracle tan to use or if a hide has been in solution for the right amount of time. Bullet, besides missing the whole point here, you did say "He should be learning his trade..." thats what OS is trying to say.
I respect your oppinion.I just don't believe any beginner should be taking customers money.If you start a business souldn't you be past the beginner stage by then.He made it sound like a beginner should already have customers.I think a beginner lacks the knowledge to take money from anyone,and should instead be encourage to know what he is doing first.
When I started, they didnt even offer fleshing and shaving services, I still had to learn myself. I didnt just powder them, either. I got by somehow, too. So will most beginners with the gumption to succeed. The thought of using a tannery never crossed my mind until it was needed as I progressed enough to need time saving help and dependability...a good tannery. Once I knew how to do it myself, I was in the position to choose a tannery who could help. Thats the progression Id suggest to any beginner.
Head up the a-- remark was a little much. My post was being twisted a little though.
Don't worry about it.Have had worse said to me!
What if you send out your stuff as a beginner and what you get back is of lesser quality then you could have done yourself with practice? How would a beginner even know things could be better. I tanned my own stuff the first two years, and now with less time sent out some to be tanned. Although the differences are small, I think I did a better job tanning than the tannery. I agree with learning how to do it first and practicing with practice capes, as Tenbears suggests.
I consider myself a beginner. Having done only about a doz deer heads. I send them off to be wet tanned and they have all come back great shape. If i had to do my own it might take forever to get enough to practice on. Do some for freinds and as I found out If you do good work they'll spread the word around. Building clients will come but build quality mounts come first.
i am a beginner taxidermy,and i only mount my specimans, sometimes i buy horns and capes to mount, but i would never take a stranger speciman and charge him. ill do my and my family, i only charge for material, and they know if the mount dont look like a professional one, they only blame themselfs.they choice is ,me? less money but not a professional mount. or a taxidermist and more money. the choice is up to them