I'm teaching myself how to mount deer heads. All I read about is pickle this,acid that. I mounted four deer last year. Skinned out the skulls,rough fleshed them, salted overnight, ran a mini-flesher over the hides to get them really thin, then rubbed rineharts cream tan into them overnight. after I washed them out I mounted them on mannekin. Is this a bad method in the long run because the mounts look great a year later.
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That's the method I used, but I'm not a National Champion, either. It works for me and my customers and THOSE ribbons they give me are green with dead presidents on them. I like those awards.
........take a long walk in to the Archives. Look up pickling as well as tanning. Pickling is a very inportant step in the tanning methods and has many advantages.
It removes undesirable proteins from the skin,allowing the tannin's to latch onto. You'll get a more thorough tan. I dont believe in short cuts and I promise you that you'll see a difference workability of your capes as well as the life of the mount.
Have a great day,
Dave
You should try this stuff once or twice. For years I was told that you couldn't put oil in a tan because it would never work. Rothtrammel actually pours it all in a barrel and his works as well. Pickling is imperative for questionable hides, but way back when, we never bothered. Some never tanned. I don't know the answers but I do know the questions and some things just work in spite of themselves. Glen Conley's Stop Rot is another example. We don't know exactly WHY it works, it just does. JRTS on a fresh hide will shave down to the blue and be as supple and pliable as any pickled hide. The last time I pickled one before tanning it, I ended up with acid swell. And YES, I know what caused it, but when I don't pickle, I don't have to worry about Alzheimers taking over either.
.......oyu made me blush! I love ya to man! LOL
I all honesty,I have tried it myself in the past with sucess. I jsut noticed that even after good shaving I got more shrinkage then when I pickled. But too,we're talking about 9-10 years ago. That stuff's been out for quite some time.
But like you,I'm stuborn and set in my ways! LMAO
Oh,by the way,I'm impressed wth your new tucking tool. Mark Hainalt brought on into the shop and my boss bought one on the spot. Mike used it on a LS Elk and Bear and said it was great. Good job!
Have a great day,
Dave