I do!
This is a re-post. I'm sorry, but I didn't get many replies the first time, and I know there are many who frequent this forum who have experience with this situation. I'm hoping it was just lost among the heated political posts and the server changes.
A while back I had a client go to South Africa on Safari. I went to the trouble of making him up some shipping tags with routing info, etc. in order to get the salted capes to my tannery. While there he was talked into letting some tannery in South Africa tan the hides and ship them direct to him in the states. Well, he showed up with the usual over-boiled skulls and charcoal like horns, as well as some tanned capes as hard as if they were salt dried. I took a Kudu and soaked it for about 30 minutes, put it in a bag and let it sweat for 24 hours. What I end up with is a cape with zero stretch, and still fairly stiff. All the archive stuff I could find deals primarily with rehydrating the flint dried, or salted skins. I haven't found any help on softening these African tanned, African capes. Would one of the relaxing products be advisable on an already tanned cape? I could sure use some advice.
Thanks in advance
Return to Tanning Category Menu
....Was to accept the capes! I don't know what they do to them, but I've never been able to relax the African tanned capes either. Fortunately I bought mine cheap for my own use. I tried all the relaxing agents and nothing worked, You will never get them as soft as they need to be and there is absolutely no stretch. At least not in those that I had. The only soft tanned skins(not hard like the capes) that I have encountered from Africa were full body(not for mounting) and in about 5-7 years they started to deteriorate very badly. Never Again! I would suggest that you contact the customer immediatly and tell him of the problem and give him two options. ONE, take them to someone else,because they are not worth the headaches you will have! TWO, spend some money on good capes. You will regret it if you try to do something with them!