I started to tan the hide of my first deer after 12 years of bowhunting. After skinning it I through the hide in a bucket of water for a day. The next day I took a knive and just starting cutting as much skin, membrane, etc on the underside as I could. In the middle of the hide, there's a circle that's brown and hard. I figured this was the part of the hide that was completely sumereged in water......CORRECT? Is there any way to fix this or just cut that part out? Also, I'm looking for Alum which sounds like a must. At Ace Hardware I found aluminum sulphate, but w/ 15% sulpher. Is this ok? By the way, this is no trophy hide. Currently the hide is sumereged in water again and I'll go back over it. What should my next steps be.
Thanks in advance,
Kacy
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Dont know why you put the hide in a bucket of water.
Salt the hide as posted in the archieves. Many postings on how to tan a hide are contained here. Pick the method you like.
Check with another lawn and garden store for ORTHO brand aluminum sulphate.
I just found this site today, and I assumed keeping it wet in a bucket of water would be better than leaving it out. I didn't plan on tanning the hide until after I got it skinned. Because I soaked it in water is worth continue doing?
Thanks in advace,
Kacy
...the hair will fall out. If it was my hide, I would peel off the hair and grain layer and tan it into buckskin.
Go for it!
That's what I'm wanting to do.....Buckskin.
Ok, here's what I've got done. Please help with what my next steps should be. I skinned the deer on Sunday and set the hide in water. Monday I took it out of water took a filet knife and started cutting all I could from the underside. I worked for about 4 hours. It still has a lot of the sticky membrane on it. I did all I could Monday and set it back in saltwater. Tuesday I couldn't work on it, but would like to tonight.
What should be my next steps? Take it out of water and try to get all of the membrane left off? Let it dry then try to get the rest of it off? Soak it in something different?
Any advice is appreciated.
Kacy
take the hide out of the water and let it drip dry for a few hours (you can help it along by lightly wringing it). Next, put it in a plastic bag and freeze it. Sounds like you need to do some learnin' before you proceed. First, sounds to me like you mean you want to "flesh" the hide before you tan it (not skin it). Second, if you want buckskin- you don't want alum. Mind you, I don't see anything wrong with a chemical tan, if that is what you choose to do- but that is completely different than buckskin. Now, if you do want buckskin, I would suggest going to www.braintan.com and order Matt's book. It is very affordable- and worth the investment (if you are going to make buckskin). If you want to chemically tan it, it might be worth while to buy a kit from Van Dykes or one of the other fine taxidermy suppliers. On another comment you had- personally I would not recommend fleshing a skin with a fillet knife. I like a good stiff blade hunting knife (or better, a fleshing knife) for that process. I think a fillet knife would be a bit dangerous due to the flexibility. If you would like to email me, I am at ram_man1996@hotmail.com . Please put deer skin tanning in the subject line.