Im experimenting with tanning a bear hide for a rug, it is well salted (twice) and had sat in the salt for 3 days, now it has dryed for 2 days also. it is not to hard yet, can i go ahead and put it in the pickle or should it dry hard first?
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If it's stopped dripping water, the salt isn't going to do anything else.
there is no realy reason to dry a hide hard?
drying your cape hard is to remove the soluble proteins in your skins that bacteria needs to survive, some people say drying a cape hard will tighten the dermis around the hair root thus preventing slippage, i think this is a misconception as a cape with bacterial damage will still slip in the pickle or tanning stage, even if it was salted hard. I salt my skins hard simply because my tannery wants them that way and there's less weight to ship. you will have a harder time drying a bear hard like a deer cape simply because of the grease content on a bear skin. now you are about to find out why most of us ship our bears to the tannery, now if your bored have nothing better to do have at it. your going to work real hard to produce a nice supple clean grease less bear skin for a rug
Exceptionally well put.