Could some please tell me how to tan fish skins. Please email me.
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Are you tanning for mounting or for wear? either way there are answers in the search button that will answer both questions.
I will tell you the ways I have done it. First of all you are not actually tanning a fish. You are preserving it. I skin my fish and soak it in 50% water and 50% denatured alcohol. I willsoak mine for about an hour. I have mounted it after this and also I have taken it from this mix and soaked it in a mixture of:
1 gal of water
1 cup of Borax
1/4 cup of zinc sulphate
capful of bacteriacide
also you can leave it in the alcohol mix for 1 day or (10 years if you keep a lid on the mix so the alcohol does not evaporate).
I have had great success with doing my fish this way including customer and competition fish. Fish tanning chemicals from suppliers are a waste of money in my opinion.
Todd B
My uncle was a taxidermist and I have several fish that he mounted in the 50's
and they are still fine.
And he did not use any kind of preservative whatsoever!
The only thing that I use now is I soak them in stove fuel
for an hour or so before mounting to remove grease.
All these so called tanning processes for fish are a scam as far as I'm concerned.