Ok I'm trying to mount a raccoon. I am a rookie this is my first mammal mount. I have looked with the search button for past posts and now I'm totally confused . I'm not sure to pickle or not to pickle . I am using liqua-tan in the directions on the bottle it doesn't say to pickle but in the archives I've seen where it says to pickle.Is it just me that is confused?(lol) so far this is what I have done
skinned and fleshed
salted for 24 hrs
salted for another 24 hrs
rehydrated with salt water solution 2lbs per gallon of water
now what?
In advance thanks for the help you guys and gals have been a great help hope to make it to some of the shows
Ed
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With topical tans like JRTS and LiquiTan, pickling is listed as an "optional" step. Pickling is the best way to insure that the hair is locked into place and if the hide is questionable in any way, it's no longer an option but a necessity. If you got the coon fresh, skinned it in a timely manner and didn't get the skin heated up by prolonged contact, then you have a choice. Without pickling shortens your process and no real harm will be done to the mount longterm. The "book" answer, however, is always pickle before tanning. I just never read the book well enough.
pickle
There are shortcuts...but if you take them...they suddenly pop up to give you nightmares later...too late then.
I'd probably toss a degreasing step in there for a coon. I do mine before pickling but there are those who do it afterwards.
...that a tan bonds to the skin at a certain pH? If that pH occurs at the surface only and not in the thickness of the skin, that the tan with bond to just the outside? Now, knowing these things, is pickling optional? Whether some say it is, and some say it isnt, its very easy to sum it up and see the obvious. If its going to be truly tanned, it needs to be at the compatible pH. If the pH is not compatible to the tan, paint on tans are merely oiling the skin and not much else. The shrinkage youll experience might bear this out. Cyclone is right on target with the degreasing step, too. BTW, George is right as to how some text lists it as optional and thats what hes pointing out.
Yes use a liquid tan or some tanning cream or Van Dykes D.P. but also check-out the archives because there is lots of tips there that I'm sure will come in handy for you
Your thread sounded almost "Democratic". Though your statement on the pH is correct, the jump from pickle pH to tanning pH isn't that much greater than the jump from skin pH to tanning pH. Some of our vaunted "masters" of the past eschewed tanning all together and maintained that pickling was all that was necessary to begin with. If a hide is salted, applying a low pH solution will hydraulically imbed it to the same degree, REGARDLESS of pH simply because of the astringency of the solution. If permeation is what you're soliciting., then the simple solution to that is apply the solution to both sides of the hide. Then that produces the method I've always endorsed: submersion tanning. You guys who love the brain tan can attest that pickling is a newcomer of sorts on the scene anyway. So as for being "obvious", I don't think we'll ever get any farther than the "opinion" stage on that one.
Thats not what I said. ANY tan (submersion or paint on) will bond to the skin at the compatible pH level, INCLUDING just the surface, if the pH isnt correct all the way through. That doesnt mean paint ons vs submersion tans. I used the critical pH throughout the whole skin to illustrate that the skin needs pickling, thats all.