I had a large whitetail come in today that appears to have a scar on its shoulder (old scar),the hair isn't set on the cape in the area of the scar and is coming out with very little effort.Will a commercial tan set the hairs or will I lose the cape.Jobn
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No tan is going to set hair that is that loose. When it's done just cut the scar out and sew it up. Heck most of my clients want it there and please make it flesh color to make it look even more real.
Will peel away in the commercial tan process. The epidermis over the scar has a strong likelihood of coming off, hence the additional coloring mentioned by Frank. The hair loss is probably not actually in the scar itself, but rather around the edge of the scar. Once it begins to fall out, the processes in commercial tanning are rough enough (i.e. wet drumming and/or dry sawdust drumming) to cause any loose hair to continue to fall out before it is set in the tan.
Good Luck,
Lonestar
My customers are like Frank's. They like to see the old battle scars on thier deer. I guess it makes the story behind the deer even better. I also like to point them out when they bring the deer in, that way they know about it, and I don't get the blame. I like to mount my critters "as is" , when they were harvested. I even had one customer who shot a nice 10 pointer, bring the buck in with about 7 of those big round burrs stuck to his head between his antlers. He made sure I would put them back the way it was when he shot it, and he calls that deer his "burr - head buck" Bullet and arrow holes are about the only exception.
I have seen those bullet and arrow holes with the recreated flesh and blood still visible because the hunter has a morbid fascination with the "real kill look". Anything is possible with the right amount of imagination.