Griz, if you answer the question correctly, I do believe it will be the first post in the Archives to explain the condition, and you will have educated "several".
The question, along with some photos, is at this address, you will have to copy and paste into your browser. There is not a link to this page off the homepage.
http://www.hidetanning.net/AcidSwellCape.html
If we all keep pulling together, we will win the Nobel Taxidermy Prize. Maybe even get our picture on the cover of Better Horns and Antlers.
The rest of you, no fair helpin' him out until after he has given his answer.
P.S. Griz, there is also an answer in this for the Bone Heads. Heavy duty burden, I know you can handle it.
Your hillbilly buddy
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I hate to be the one to tell you this, but Bruce Rittel explains this, and it is the first post in a search for acid swell.
that is only part of the quo.
Re-read my original post:
"Griz, there is also an answer in this for the Bone Heads."
Do the Bone Heads use acid?
I love calling you Youngshaver. I used to think you were some old, broke down man. LOL
What was the question?
Acids have the ability to break down collagen and ultimately it reacts with water n stuff to form gelatin. Thats why using acid baths to remove flesh from skulls is a risky affair. You have to really know what yer doing to avoud over exposre and even then there is an element of reintroduction and consolidation to repair teh 'spongy' effect that acid left. I remember someone from the ROM talking to me about this and they did tests to see how far they could squish duck skulls before breaking them.
I'm sure a lot of people already know this - but the original jello type stuff was made by boiling fish heads. I don't think that's done these days but who knows... but lots of fish soups / bisques still sue fish heads to get the slippery jelly like consistency...
I don't know if any of this ties into what you were posting about Glenn.. I'm just rambling... again - I don't know what the question was that the answer FOR is in there about.. maybe I'll go read the site and find out eh? duh - LOL!
Just thought Id add that SOME acids have negative effects on collagen. Ascorbic acid is required. I wasn't thinking about Vitamin C when I used the broad term 'acid'.
I read your page and I still have no idea what the question was as it pertains to bones though Glen - LOL! I'm leaving the skin questions alone for Griz (re: whats happening n those micro photos).
Looks like that skin needs some Oil of Olay *whistling innocently* ;)
i have a psychotic hatred for quizzes. I appreciate your confidence in me but i think i might let you down. I kinda have a theory but i rather not humiliate myself on this website by saying something moronic, or something even more ignorant than usual :)
Sometimes i don't need to know how i screwed it up but what i need to do to fix it. Although i have never had any major acid swell, i know exactly what i would do if i did,- I would get on here and ask you guys how to fix it and what not to do next time:) LOL
I am curious about how bad the cape was and what you did to fix it, and what you did to let it acid swell in the first place. Well, not you personally but the guy who mounted it or whatever.
And why exactly salt prevents acid swell.
But as to the science of what happened and why it swells, i can't say. Sorry to let you down. But it's been another long day and the brain is kinda slow right now. Anyways talk to you tomorrow night.
it sounds like raven has it figured out. I was answering before i saw either of his posts by the way.
I am amazed at how you guys do what you do. To tell you the truth when raven starts posting about all that technical stuff with molding it goes in one ear and out the other. I know some guys follow right along but half the time i skip the part in his posts when it comes to the technicals and go right down to the part that tells me what product to use or why to use it or whatever. I guess it is that same way with tanning. I don't reckon i will ever get real good at the scientific hows/whys, well not right now anyways, but i still have dumb questions to annoy you guys with :) So i hate to say it glen but alot of times the articles don't so it for me. I hate reading and i don't study them like i should to really figure out what is going on. That is one reason you have my respect. I am glad there are guys out there that know so much about this stuff, that way there will always be new products and innovations for our field.
And i am looking forward to the answer, just cause i have thought and thought and haven't come to a conclusion yet.
WHAT WAS THE QUESTION?!?! LMAO!
I forget most of what I learned in biochemistry.. at the time I was doing it because it was part of the program; I was never really interested in it back then. I wanted biology - not biochem and I didnt want to listen when they told me it was interelated. Now I'm interested in more of the chemistry end of things but feel like Im starting over from scratch - so Griz - don't sweat it man - it jsut takes practice and a whole lot of research.
You sound now like I did then - wanted to know - but didnt want to put the effort into it. That effort can only come from an intense personal interest. Funny how so much can change in 12 years. Oh if I only had those biochem professors to talk to now!
If yer interested Griz - just take it little bits at a time. If ya don't understand a word or something - then put your current research on hold and study about that word. Little nibbles of info - it's a BIG world of confusion when ya start getting into this stuff... take too big a bite and yer gonna choke on it.
K - Im tired and rambling... and again - I still don't know what the question was ;P
Easy. Easy.
The question was the one on the page that said:
The Griz QUIZZ QUESTION is:
What has taken place to create an "acid swell" condition?
Calm down, think it through. You can do it. You're hitting all around it! LOL
I was trying to find a thread that I thought I had added to just recently. Didn't find that one, but over time, I have put the answers to the question in the Archives. Kinda hard to find if ya don't know the keywords though.
Whats the question as it pertain to bones though? You said there was an answer for the boneheads, but I dont know what the bonehead question was? Im not going to explore the acid swell in capes thing too much.. thats like taxidermy or something - I have enough on my plate without learning all that - LOL! You mentionned bones though and that caught my interest...
It sez on the webpage that this is a quiz, and that I wasn't going to "give" the answer.
Next question:
What's the difference in the collagen in skin versus the collagen in bone? Correlate! Correlate!
Gun season starts here in the morning. So don't be surprised if I'm not right back checking out your answer.
Yall are tanning furs for Taxidermy purposes. Dont you think these photos are a little too extreme? Glen, my last name is Young-antonym-old-get it? With all the skins I have been shaving lately I am starting to feel a little old. LOL-not really,but everyone else seems to use LOL and LMAO so much, I figured it was the in thing to type.
about getting you to change it to Aubrey Youngshaver. Ya gotta admit, that does have a "ring" to it.
Allow me to do the abominable copy and paste for accuracy of a quote.
"There is a long list of things working against the preservation of those skins, that we know much better now, and how to overcome them."
Recognize that? You had some pretty good stuff going on in that thread, but you got so far, and you got stuck. As a result you went to citing the works of others. What's wrong with citing YOUR work and experience to defend your argument? You knew you were right, but felt like you had no way to back yourself up.
By the same token, Uncle George knew in his own mind he was right, and he just simply said to look at those mounts in the Smithsonian.
Don't suppose you BOTH could be right do you?
So, from that aspect, the photos are very much extreme. That is indeed what they show EXTREMES. Whenever there are extremes, there is always something in between.
Back to your quote, someone always has to venture, before we know much better and how to overcome.
Sometime back, I did a microphotography article, published it to the web, and then sent out 187 e-mails from my personal address book. Many of those people lurk the Forums. Articles of that nature pull a fair amount of web traffic from the search engines. The stats don't tell me if the visitor is a kid, taxidermist, tanner, or rocket scientist. I was wondering if I was spinning my wheels, and wasting my time, so I asked these folks for their opinions.
I thought if I got half a dozen replies back that I would then go with what those folks thought for any future articles.
I was just a tad surprised. I lost count at over 100 positive responses. There are a lot of "sharp" people that simply lurk the Forums.
The photos are kind of like an armed robber trying to argue that the picture taken by the surveillance camera isn't him. They cut out the guesswork, they can support or refute an opinion. Simply stated, they can answer questions. There is a lot to be seen by those that bother to look.
Now quit foolin' around, you are going to get Raven confused, and he's got questions to answer.
Yall go at it. I will just read. Might learn something-never too OLD for that.
K - for now I am going to ignore skins and talk about collagen and how it relates to bone. Then I'll go back to skins and try to make some connection. Keep in mind I am NOT a taxidermist or a skin guy so all I know of tanning etc is what I pick up from little comments you guys make out here, so if my conclusions are off the mark - it's to be expected because I am merely hypothesizing. All numbers iven are close approximations as I'm trying to remember stuff from over a decade ago.
Bone is approximately 35% organic material. The rest is mineral material. Of that 35%, 90% or so is collagen. So all told - bone is approximately 30% collagen (if I remember my classes correctly). This collagen gives elasticity to the bone and thus compression strength. The triple helix collagen strand of protein molecules can be broken down in various ways. Certain bacteria, acids and heat can all tear it apart. Take the collagen out and you get brittle bone. It might break, it might crack, it might go chalky. This is why I'm always coming down hard on the ‘simmering' method. The heat required to break collagen down is a mere 58* C - less than simmering temperature. Adding sal soda to the mix can also replace calcium in the bone. So simmering WITH Sal Soda damages both collagen AND calcium components. Anytime I try to explain this, I get ripped on though and told "we've been doing it this way for decades) sort of thing. In general, taxidermists just aren't ready to treat skulls properly and provide QUALITY. Looking white and meat free and being an example of quality osteo prep are two VERY different things! Taxidermists by definition work with skin. Only by lack of more suitable professionals to do the skull mounts do they do such work for customers. I believe the majority of taxidermists have no clue the damage they are doing to bones.
So there we go, I've hit on some things that can break down collagen. For my work and what I do at this stage in my life/career, this is more or less where my interest in collagen ends. No collagen = weak, brittle bone. This is where I switch to deductive reasoning and hypothesis to try to apply that knowledge to the pieces of conversation I've picked up from you skin guys over the years here and see if I can explain how the break down of collagen might affect your skin work.
When you guys are tanning, you put the skin in acids right? This opens up the skin to accept the tanning chemicals I believe? While some acids like vitamin C (ascorbic acid) help collagen do it's thing, other acids can break down that strand. When collagen breaks apart, it's ‘bits' can reconfigure and soak up water. I think this is what you guys call 'acid swell' and why you put salt in your water - to keep the water from being sucked in. What his does NOT do however is rebuild collagen. Once it's broke, it's broke. With no collagen present you lose elasticity. A bone will still LOOK the same despite being biochemically weakened (drastically) since it's mineral composition is rigid and holds it in place. This is why most taxidermists don't care if its weak - soak it in white glue and water and it's strong again. In my opinion this is a cheap fix to a problem that should never have happened in the first place. BUT - you can't do that to a skin, so this whole collagen issue is more important to skins. If your collagen turns to gelatin then 1) you have a gooey mess to clean up and 2) you are going to have weaker skins, ya? Maybe?
As far as the taxidermy industry goes, it cares about skin; it doesn't care about the integrity of bone material. To me this is a horror! To have a skull look good but not be chemically strong and balanced is just not acceptable. When you use sal soda and heat - you no longer have bone (calcium and collagen are gone, so now your European mounts are "bone-like)).
I guess this is why I didn't get the connection you were making between skin and bone, Glen. I was thinking more of an industry approach than a biochemical one. I don't think collagen in bone has a current role in the taxidermy industry since most taxidermists routinely destroy it. Collagen in SKINS however I would think is FAR more important and something they would be worried about. The steps you go through with the salt etc are there to prevent collagen forming in to gelatin, but it's like they go out of their way to make that happen in skull mounts.
See how I can distinguish between the role of collagen in skin and bones? It's more an attitude than science.
Now for the sensitive ones amongst us... please don't be offended by my above comments. They were not attempts to belittle taxidermists in any way. As I've said in many a post, I have nothing but respect for the work you do with skins. However the way skulls are treated in this industry is sub par at best for anything beyond aesthetics and I find this unacceptable. True quality in a mount should include more than what the customer sees. Just like you guys use quality materials inside the mount that the customer will never see, what hide paste you choose etc., this is how I feel about bone work. Using methods that compromise the composition and integrity of the bone are ones I think should be dumped. I'm glad to see more and more people specializing in osteo prep. Taxidermists doing skull work makes no more sense than me doing skin work.
Glen, what is the condition called when a vegatable tanned skin is exposed to too much SO2, and begins to deteriorate?
don't quit on us just yet!
Would you mind answering these questions as a professional, full time tanner? If there is anything you would not want to answer, for any reason, just say so, that would be understandable. You don't have to take the Fifth or nothin'.
I would suspicion that you are very familiar with formic acid.
If you were to pickle a whitetail cape in formic for an alum tan, what would be the pH of your pickle?
How long would you leave it in the pickle, and at what temperature range would this pickle be?
How long would it take YOU to shave this cape, and how long would you have it out of the pickle?
Throw in any more details you would be comfortable with.
condition as you are asking about a form of dry rot.
The sulphur cycle and nitrogen cycle are two of the most complicated cycles known in biochemistry. And here we are, trying to deal with both of them in taxidermy and tanning.
58 C = 104.4 F
A temperature of 104 F in a feverish mammal or bird, would not be at all uncommon. The problem would be with the duration of the temperature. The bigger problem would be what is causing that high an elevation. As you already know, in most cases that would be bacterail or viral infections.
From memory, the melting point of most proteins, as crystalline organic solids, is 50 to 90 degrees C., or 90 to 162 degrees F. Again from memory, the melting point of the proteins that make up collagen, glycine, proline, and hydroxyproline has been reached by 70 degrees C., or 126 degrees F. However, the proteins are in a state of disassociation at 100 degrees C, or 212 F. There's part of the answer to the quizz.
notice this is the Griz Quizz, and now we're all quizzing each other!
Sodium bicarbonate, what is it?
Sodium carbonate, what is it?
When either are heated in water, what is produced at what temperature?
I hope you have a clean pair of jockey shorts by your computer.
Your quote: "Once it's broke, it's broke. With no collagen present you lose elasticity."
I just added two more photos to the Griz Quiz Page.
www.hidetanning.net/AcidSwellCape.html
The Griz Quizz Page now also has a link off the homepage of hidetanning.net, and a link back to this thread in the Archives.
Raven, you just brought up some more good points. Like your statement "Certain bacteria can tear it apart".
Remember in the article on Protein Data Base that it points out that the triple helix of the collagen structure isn't affected by most systemic enzymes in a living system.
K - so much goin on - Im gonna limit this post to the answer about what is created. As usual my head is in about 10 places at once so I hope I didn't misinterpret the question.
CONCEPT 1. ‘Carbonates' in general are all forms of salt derived from a reaction of metals and carbonic acid.
Sodium is a metal. So sodium carbonate is a salt created by an interaction between carbonic acid and sodium
CONCEPT 2 is the destruction of that salt. At high, maintained heats, those salts break down into carbon dioxide and an oxidized sodium residue. Not sure at what temperatures this break down happens at exactly however.
So to answer the question "What is created?)
Answer: Soda pop bubbles and sodium rust.
Mmmm nice chalky sodium rust on those skulls. But of course Sal Soda (sodium carbonate) has no effect on skulls now do they? ;)
Very foggy memory here... something about gaseous gangrene bacteria having the ability to cleave collagen strands.
Thats more of a disassociated thought than anything... I'd have to hit the net and read to remember it's exact correlation in the equation. I do plan to do extensive osteo prepr research over the next year or two and tie it all together into one volume, but havent gotten to the collagen cleaving chapter yet ;)
There are more and more books coming out on the topic but most are just about mounting skeletons and how to ID bones. Nothing I've seen yet goes in depth on how to safely prepare osteo material AND explain the processes that are happening. The closest thing I have seen is a paper sent to me by Stephen Rogers which touches on some of those points, but there are still lots of holes. I could go back to school and use this for a PhD, but I think writing an extensive text is more feasable. I gotta get workin on this thing seriously or Glen you are gonna make my brain turn to mush tryin to remember everythin all at once - haha! =)
I am going to have to make a big cup of tea in the morning and really read your site Glen - admittedly I haven't gone over it that much. I've read Piglets contributions about skull cleaning - but not the chemistry aspects of skinwork. If I develop an interest in tanning and skin work Glen its YOUR FAULT! With all my writing, helping here, emailing, sculpting, mold making and casting for people as well as fossil stuff at work... I don't have time to get into taxidermy, stop drawing me in and making me want to learn about it you sneak! LOL! 8)
Glen, you were close enough. I am not a full time tanner. My Boss is the one with all the chem knowledge. I am a full time Shaver and shaving quality control supervisor, that also keeps track of what is going in and out of 19 wet drums, and 16 paddle vats, not to mention still tanks for big skins. (rhino,giraffe,hippo) We have to use a crane to lift those. I know the answers to all your questions, but I am only able to answer one-shaving time. Wt cape 6-min have a good one
The post isn't going anywhere... you can answer the rest of his questions when you get back =)
I gotta think over my own answers to his other ones.. I *think* I have the ideas in my head somewhere.. that hard part is piecing it all together.. wish me luck!
This is the Tanning Category, not the Soda Pop!
Good answer, but not the one I was fishing for. Is your brain just a little wound up in high gear? Too funny.
Sodium bicarbonate, what is it? Baking soda.
Sodium carbonate, what is it? Sal soda, potash, washing soda
When either are heated in water, what is produced at what temperature? Carbon dioxide, water, and sodium hydroxide at 138 degrees F.
Any one creating their own caustics should read up on sodium hydroxide if you are not familiar with it's properties.
Aubrey, if you had asked me what was Red Rot, I probably would have asked you if you meant Red Heat. Then I would have told you that Red Heat is the sign of a bacteria that can be very skin damaging.
Thanks for that smokin' time on the whitetail cape! Doesn't leave much time for "things to go wrong" because it was out of the pickle too long does it?
Me? Over analyzing things? Brain woudn up to tight? NEVER - LOL!
OMG I'm such a geek.. of course I knew sal soda and baking soda, I wasn't expecting YOU of all people to be looking for something so simple. Leave it to me to break it down into the reactions of the sodium metal and acid and blah blah blah...
But.. in your follow up post, it doesn't explain what it IS... rather you noted what else is it CALLED.
I missed the temperature and the water creation, but got the CO2 and the Sodium Hydroxide.... isn't that similar to the oxidized sodium, ie. sodium rust, that I mentioned? Trying to figure out if I got it right or not ;)
the answer for the Bone Heads.
Sodium hydroxide is a caustic, a corrosive. In concentrations, it can burn up skin (read proteins) just as well as an acid. It was made from chemicals as "innocent" as baking soda, sal soda, and water.
Compare the 138 degrees F to what I had posted above, "Again from memory, the melting point of the proteins that make up collagen, glycine, proline, and hydroxyproline has been reached by 70 degrees C., or 126 degrees F. However, the proteins are in a state of disassociation at 100 degrees C, or 212 F."
Now that's just accounting for the thermal reactions as far as temperature, and does not include the exothermal temps that would be reached at "contact" points.
Anyone that has boiled skulls or bones in this solution, and remembers what the tissue on the skulls or bones looked like, should see a remarkable similarity to the piece of acid swell cape (read acid burned) that is next to the pencil on the microscope slide.
I had picked up on a number of people missing out on the "simple part", that's why I brought it back to light.
While Raven is resting his head for next week's go round........
The microphotography articles shows the effects of an acid on skin, but only on what remains of the proteins after the fact.
All the solubile proteins that were "feeding" the system were the first to go. How much of those structures were left after being burned by acid, but rebonded to the remaining collagen fibres at open bonding sites, I don't know.
An obvious thing you will see is that the remaining proteins were restructered.
Formic acid occurs naturally in wasps, and bees. That is their venom, toxin, poison that is passed through the stinger.
Anaphylaxis is actually a reaction to a foreign protein. The formic acid has altered the structure of the body's protein to the point that it is not recognized by the system. Foreign protein rejection.
The damage illustrated in the photos was citric acid.
The damage done to YOUR skin, at structural levels, by a sting would probably share some similarities with the acid burned piece on the slide.
Osmolarity, osmolality, relative ion load of solute vs. solvent.
The cells in the cape swell because they are passively transporting acid across a fixed membrane and the osmotic pressure cannot equalize fast enough, so the skins swells and then the cells burst and you have ruin... adding additional elements to the water (such as salt) will prevent or slow this down... this is not rocket science, and I don't know why all the banter is still up?
Glen, just tell 'em what you're thinkin'.
Heh, just tanned 2 pelts with NO SALT whatsoever in the past 2 days and they came out great, still amazed.
Banter? This is OUR idea of a good time! If you think we are fun on here, you should be with us at a Proctologist Convention!
In regards to my thinking, your thread addition just proved my thinking to be correct. Many people are more than a little confused when it comes to skin structure, and how it needs to be manipulated for tanning and taxidermy. In exactly two months from today, that will mark 4 years on the web that I have been telling people what I'm thinking. Comparatively recently, digital photography, and microphotography have been added to show WHY my thinking is such that it is. That gives everyone the opportunity to see with their own eyes instead of trying to sort out an answer from a string of words that makes about as much sense as teenage mutant ninja turtles.
Bear in mind, there are a lot of people that keep wanting to improve the quality of their work. Facts that are new to them could well have practical application in their every day routine.
You are just a little bass ackwards in your dissertation above. The salt and acid combination as you described above was used years before most on this Forums was ever born TO rupture cells. In the early days of DNA research, increasing osmotic pressures to cause the cells to rupture their contents into the fluid was the way chromosomes were collected for early karyotyping.
Another thing, a person has to be careful in rupturing cells. Too much rupture, and the integrity of the cell membrane is destroyed to the point it will not keep follicles in place for hair on tanning. Epidermal slip.
The cell membrane, phospholipid layer, in some bacteria, phospholipid bi-layer, is primarily phosphorous, saturated and unsaturated fats-NOT protein. Contents of the same is a different story, and quite multi-faceted.
A lack of awareness of simultaneous reactions is another thing I see on a real regular basis.
I attempted to bring this to light some time back, but the thread had a couple of a$$hole attacks that was enough to cause those involved in the thread to drop it as an exercise in futility. None the less, at least SOME of the sound material was archieved.
The thread I am referencing to is:
Salting and its effect on cellular material http://www.taxidermy.net/forums/IndustryArticles/03/e/03CECE023A.html
However, without a basic knowledge again, most people are only going to pick up on the effects of salting in regards to bacteria, and miss the other points. The other points being the proteases and lysosomes that are already in the cell structure, and now unchecked because of death.
Even then it is pointed out that the nucleic content desired for DNA research is destroyed in the tanning process (read acid, or pickle). Do we have a correlation here now?
Now we're working up to this acid swell condition thing, it just takes longer when everyone has to get caught up to speed. There is a reason I don't simply "give" an answer. That keeps too many from using their own brain and eyes. Independence is a comfortable feeling.
If some of this doesn't make sense in words, I have photos and an article at this address:
http://www.hidetanning.net/HairSlipTanning.html
If this were in book form, it would cost you money. It's FREE on the web (In order for it to be FREE, it cost someone else a lot of money and time. You're welcome). You may have print capabilities, which can make for easier reading, and cross referencing.
One of the photos you will see is that of a cross section of tanned skin. I should point out that the photo was of the thickest part of the skin on a back hide.
If you look at the first photo, you will see a lime green oval circle that takes in part of the hair shaft and an area around the hair follicle. Immediately below the oval circle, you will see where the skin is darker. Where the skin becomes darker, YOU RAN OUT OF CELLS! The rest of the skin below that is structural, meaning the collagen that we are talking about in the above threads. To someone that doesn't know BASIC skin structure, the above thread probably wouldn't make a lick of sense.
Measure the width of the widest part of the hair shaft as seen on your monitor in milimeters (10 mm on mine), and then measure the skin section at a right angle from the outer most edge of the epidermis to where the dark section starts in milimeters (50 mm on mine).
Now, long divide 10 into 50, that equals 5.
If you had measured the diameter of the hair with micrometers before taking the picture, you would have found it to have measured .011. (You did measure the hair so you would have a number to use as a standard didn't you?)
Now, you take 5 times .011", and that gives you .055".
(Another note, the cell layer of the caribou was much thicker than that of any whitetail skin I have ever checked.)
Now what would have happened if the cape had been shaved down to .055"?
The hair would have fallen out, this ain't rocket science!
The supporting collagen is still just as an important function in a tanned skin as it was in a live skin. Something has to support the cell layer, or what's left of it.
Side note: The naturally induced form of hair slip/shed/burn that I wrote about on this page in fresh dead deer.............I had the opportunity to work with a live fawn with the condition this last summer. About all I can and will say about that at this time is that victory was mine! But I do have a few people that I get to rub with, "I told you so, I told you so!" However, I can share my photos, and I might just have to do that.
Before I get busted for lack of accuracy, I meant to write lysozymes above where I wrote lysosomes above. Sheesh, that was close. Hope I didn't create any confusion myself.
Lysosomes produce the lysozymes. While we're at it, fibroblasts produce the collagen structures.
Practical application? Give YOUR fibroblasts what they need in order to produce. Raven indicated the beneficial effects of ascorbic acid above. Maybe this paragraph should have been put in the Health Category.