this is the problem, did not shave hide after pickling, neutralized and tanned with McKenzie, then placed in freezer. thawed in salt water. now this hide is 2 inches shorter and lost 4.5 inches in circumfrance. can i re-pickle and thin or eat my losses and purchase a replacement cat? i did check the archives and didn't find anyone who had this type of brain fart thanks Rollie
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did not get a bob cat hide thin enough before i tanned with McKenzie can i re-pickle and thin. i think this is why it shrunk so much that it will need a different size form was 31x19 is now 28x15 help!
Were did you get your first measurment from, the carcess or skin? A cats hide will stretch way beyond their body size, just grab a house cat by the neck. If you overstretched the hide when it was green your size will be off. A cats skin is fairly thin to begin with, so not thinning will not be a major factor with shrinkage as you stated. You can redo the tanning procedure and thin the hide after the pickle. It should not hurt anything.
thank you for responding and i am confussed by you saying that a shrinking should not be a major factor, this cat shrunk enough that it will not go around form even with legs out. will re-thin and hope for the best, worst comes to worst i'll order smaller form
final flight, I would thin the skin now. If the skin took on the pickle and the tan, the color will be pretty much the same throughout the thickness of the skin. You can shave a tanned skin and then go right to mounting it. If you decide after thinning that it needs to be retanned it's no problem to throw it into a pickle for a couple of days, neutralize, tan (again) and oil. A tanned skin is pretty easy to thin down as the skin texture is very much changed.
bobcats usually are thin enough to spit through to begin with. Sound to me you got the wrong form or need to alter. Just about every lifesize animal I mount needs to be altered to some extent or another. As for the measurements that shrunk, 2inches in length? Even if you left it to dry rock hard and rehydrated it it wouldn't have gone that much. You may have read your tape wrong or looked at the forms page too long and got away from your actual size you needed. Good luck to you.
thanks be to WASCO also this is a wonderful site
Or did you say that you tanned it, froze it, then thawed it in salt water?
Why would you put it in salt water after it has been tanned?
With the McKenzie tan you just rinse it in cool water after it's tanned?