I was curious if I need to let my hides dry completely before I throw them in the pickle or can I shake the salt off and chuck it in? Does the hair need to (set), b4 it gets pickled? I put this question on here b4 but did'nt understand the answer. Thanks
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Experience is the best teacher. Unfortunately, the experience has to be a bad one. Dry them hard before pickling.
No one's ever convinced me that drying a hide hard ever did anything except perpetuate the myth carried over by frontier trappers who dried all their hides simply because they didn't have any other way to store them long term. Once the salt has stopped leeching water out of your hide, that's the end of the story. The hide is just begging to rehydrated with the pickle and the tan and will suck it up on contact. If a hide is going to slip, that process started LONG BEFORE the salt was ever put on the hide to begin with and the salt isn't going to stop it from happening when you rehydrate a dry hide and then introduce it to the pickle.
unless I plan on keeping the skins for myself, then I will dry them hard simply because I don't have the freezer space. I haven't lost one yet.
merry christmas!~!..:-)