My question regarding salting is, When you guys salt your hides and let them dry, are they usually hard as a brick bat? If so, how long does it take for them to rehydrate? I usually dont salt my hides long enough for them to get that hard. I usually salt them overnight, shake excess off and resalt overnight. Then rehydrate in a salt bath, wash, rinse, dry, tumble and flesh. I let a Mule deer cape salt for a couple of days and it turned very hard. Once I got it rehydrated I noticed there was some tough places on the hide when I was fleshing it. Any suggestions? I dont think I'll let any of the rest of them salt this long to avoid this problem in the future;
Thanks in advance,
Bojack
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I split lips eyes and remove ear cartilage. salt for 24 hrs rinse and wash in Kemal 4 and then put in pickle for 1 day. take out of pickle, rinse, tumble ,flesh, put back in pickle for 1-2 days. Neutralize and then tan. You can salt dry the hides and store to be worked on later, and then it takes soaking as long as overnight to rehydrate. pickling for 1 or 2 days befroe you shave the hide really makes it flesh easier.
I always let my hides get flint hard,This helps set tne the hair. As far as time it takes to rehydrate,generally 4or5 hrs. with 6 gal. of wtr. and a capful of Basacryl.With the tough spots, sounds like you need to rehydrate longer work the tough spots which usually are around the neck and ear bases by hand while it's in the bath. good luck