(just wondering) i presently mount fish and ducks and im haveing great results and im tempted to try deer im an avid hunter and have no trouble getting a doe to practice on but what i dont know is does everyone do their own hides flesh/wash/tan or do you send them out and have a tannery do all this work for you and when you receive the hide back is it just a matter of mounting it
thanx
mike
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Mike, For sure do a deer! You have some good experience so why not branch out? Lots of different ways to approach the hide prep but you might want to send out the first couple so you can consentrate on the mounting part. Info on this under the "search". When a tanned cape returns from the tanner and you rehydrate it, probably there will be considerable thinning required to the face area. Depends on how much you did prior to sending it out. The most labor on a cape is the shaveing and the tanner does most of this but any thick areas need to be reduced to get good results. Enjoy, Aaron H.
I enjoy tanning my own capes. When you tan your own skin you have more control, if there's any holes in the hide after shaveing your resposable because your the only one that has worked on it.
I'm new to this art still, so to me I'm just learing another aspect of this industry. Now, even if your only taking in 10 capes a year I would probally send them out just because of the time factor. Home tanning is a pain in the ass but I think it's worth while to learn.
With joe. doing it yourself obviously gives you a better prespective on what to expect,alot of people doing there first deer will give you a million and one ways to how to do it the first time around most beginners doing first deer will use dry preserv, then the guys will send there hides out, but myself personally i like useing Ben Mears spray tan, you can turn a deer out very fast with this method and thus far, i have had no problems with any slippage what so ever.
very easy to use and you get alot of stretch with this product and hardly any colorloss on the nose and eye areas. just something to think about. Best of luck Ray.