I posted a question around 1 month ago due to having some capes in the pickle (oxalic acid)and had to leave town in a rush due to my grandson arriving a few days early, My worry was that they would slip over the PH and that they couldn't be stirred each day. After returning home 3 days after they should have been removed I removed, neutralized and tanned with McKenzie Tan, I didn't find any slippage , last night I was working on one that I had thawed and found a 1/4" X 1" slip behind the nose, It may have been a damaged area from fighting, I ordered some Stop-Rot a few days ago and was wondering if this will work on a skin that has already been tanned. The area is re-pairable, I just don't want it to go any larger. Any ideas?
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your thinking has merit. Give me an hour or two to assemble some data, and I'll get back with you.
Have yer Mad Scientist hat on!
Glen
If you are going to email the info about STOP-ROT, Don't be bashfull, you can email it to me too! thanks! Joe
We've used stop rot on some hides that were slipping some after tanning. (shoulda applied the stop rot after skinning as both hides we did this on while not slipping at the time were suspect due to smell and some color). What we found was it depended on how bad they were slipping, if just mild to slightly moderate we had some luck, any thing slipping worse than that and the stop rot didn't help much.
first off, at this point, we still have NO IDEA as to how many spin-off applications that will be possible with STOP-ROT.
To answer your question on STOP-ROT use on an already tanned hide, that has been done more than once. One that stands out in my mind is a report from a fellow that had used STOP-ROT in conjunction with Mc Kenzie tan and he had stopped the slipping, but the area he used it on had stained. He asked me it there was any way to get the stain out. I suggested once again using the STOP-ROT on the stained area, but this time cut it one part STOP-ROT with two parts DISTILLED water, brushing and combing the STOP-ROT down to skin level and to keep wiping the area down with CHEAP paper towels until clean. I would have to assume it worked because I didn't get a call back..............bad news always travels faster than good.
The spot behind the nose that you are referencing to, with out seeing it, I would be inclined to think like you and call that a result of injury.
Head, neck, and shoulder injuries is just part of deer. As to how well these injury areas stand up to pickling and tanning seems to depend greatly on the age of the injury. An injury that is fresh, or one that has healed over to the point that the dry scab is present seem to hold up best to pickling and tanning.
Injuries that are in those in between stages tend to slough off the most epidermal tissue. These areas will have had hematoma, inflamation, or mild infection take place at best. Hematoma and inflamation will have blocked off circulation to those areas at least temporarily as part of the body's defense mechanism to keep infection and toxins from being spread through the system. With circulation being impaired even normal "waste removal" from the damaged sections will be kept in place. Add enzyme and acid activity from bacteria, and that section WILL suffer structural damage. Pickling and buffering (neutralizing) will most generally finish those already weakened areas off until what had been healthy tissue has been reached, but I imagine there has been more than one of us see epidermal sloughing continue on past that point at one time or the other. That can always be a reason for concern.
A couple of other areas that can go along with deer being deer is the obvious being insect and tick bites causing minor to some fairly major skin damage. One that I think is often overlooked is what stockmen call rain rot, or rain scald.
Rain rot, or rain scald is a term describing a skin infection that is brought on by climatic conditions that are usually not all that normal for given geographical areas. Animals that roll and bed on the ground tend to get organic materials trapped between hair and skin. If precipitation is heavy enough, the organic debris simply gets washed away. However, if rain fall is short, and more sprinkle than rain, there may only be enough water to dissolve the organics and carry them down next to the skin. If conditions remain moist enough, some of the microbes contained in the deitrus can wind up attacking the epidermis. When we have the condition show up in deer around here as a result of precipitation, or lack of, it seems to manifest it's self on the skin on the back of the ears more so than any where else.
Our horses around here that are kept on dry lots will frequently exhibit the condition. But for some reason or the other, mine don't (ahem, cough, cough). But for some reason or the other, mine don't.............................
In all cases, those are all areas that need to be recognized as FRAGILE areas. This doesn't mean you can't turn out a mountable cape, people do it every day, you just might want to be a little more careful when you're faced with these known problem areas.
One thing that I have found, and others have repeated, is that some of these areas will hold up better to "neutralizing" if spot treatment is done with STOP-ROT BEFORE neutralizing, even on a cape that had been treated with STOP-ROT before pickling. This seems to work especially well around the exposed epidermis area around the eyes. Treat both flesh side and hair side. Some guys have been going back over the whole cape before neutralizing.
One of the things that STOP-ROT users always notice is a "gooey" product being produced with usage on the flesh side of a raw skin.
The produced goo is not especially limited to raw skin.
In a recent post by Doug Siebert:
Stop Rot fixes more things than duct tape! http://www.taxidermy.net/forums/IndustryArticles/05/d/05A7430204.html
You will notice that he made mention of an oily residue. His quote, "Mr. Conley suggested I wipe down my lab with Stop Rot. It worked! I decided to wipe the vinyl siding with Stop Rot. Odor gone! The SR left an oily residue on the siding so I followed up with a Windex wipe."
His lab in this case was NOT a laboratory............our dogs around here that get skunk sprayed will frequently stink like Hell. But for some reason or the other, mine doesn't (ahem, cough, cough). But for some reason or the other, mine doesn't.............................
Speaking of dogs, did you guys ever see a picture of my dog? You really need to see a picture of my dog. Culture shock is good for you. I keep password protected web pages for documentation and communication purposes. I will change the password back in a few days, after you have had a chance to look. Password is case sensitive, so enter it just like you see it when the panel appears requesting the password:
password: stoprot
http://lesion.homestead.com/index.html
The nodule at the end of the photo sequence HAD been what would have clinically been referred to as dead and dry. It was the point of a three corner tear. The nodule now is about half that size.
Back to the oily residues. I expect the next BIG find to come about from the chemical conversions that are taking place to form these gooey and oily residues. Perhaps the substance formed will have the next application in taxidermy and tanning.
It looks like there is going to be a lot of room left for exploration into STOP-ROT and tanning oil combinations. That "room" is totally wide open. Actually, there is a lot of room left wide open.
I have been instucted as to what I can and can not "say" in public. Gray areas and advertising claims kind of thing. It's a total pain in the butt, but I do have to respect the reasons behind it all. You guys as consumers don't have your hands tied when it comes to putting your observations and claims in front of the public (barring slander and libel). There should be enough information above to get several of you thinking, and then carry those thoughts out into practical applications. Keep us informed with your findings.
im down to doing this as i get older to mostly a hobby
but
ive been doing it since 18 when i mounted my first
ive never seen anything have so much affect on a green hide
when it comes to preserving the integrity as stoprot
and i live in a brutle climate in Louisiana
before using stoprot sometimes no matter how hard i tried to save some capes
i usually had to replace them
this year i know of at least three i would have lost
2 before tanned
1 after tanned
so i can add to observasions that it is somewhat usefull after
the cape is tanned