Ok... kind of a small detail question here, but when you guys salt dry anything, what's your method - like what do you put it on?
I lay mine on a horizontal surface with holes in it to let the fluids drip down away from the hide. The other day I turned a whitetail hide over and found a nearly dried section of blood - where the blood was dripping down. It looked like the flow of the fluid had chased off the salt in that area. This hasn't happened to me before. It looked like a thin layer of redish glass over the hide with no salt visible. I'm hoping the salt penetrated the hide there... I know I salted this cape very carefully the day before. It's in the pickle now.
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i have wire stretchers for coyotes & large coon. i flesh the cape real good & turn everything. then rub salt in real good. put on stretcher. you can hang or lean it to wall. next day remove. scrape & shake off, resalt put back on stretcher. when starts to get hard i take off & roll up. wooden stretchers work good too. pretty easy to make.
If they are cased skinned with feet on you would want to stretch them like Roger said then salt them down heavily do not hestitae on how much salt to you use. Also salt the ears on the fur side and skin side on the feet and on the paw side as well as the skin side. If its dorsal skinned down back for life size salt it heavily then lay it on a table with a ten degree incline and let the oil drain out. You should use the same method if its a deer or anything else not cased skinned. Last wait till the hide is completely dried ( not oily at all and rock hard and stiff like card board. You will then have to rehydrate it afterwards prior to pickling to soften up the skin.
P.S.( I usally put old newspapers under where the oil drips so that way when the skin is threw drying I can throw the news papers away.)
What do these stretchers look like? I've seen some for prepping deer capes prior to mount, and I've seen some for stretching rugs flat. Are you using the same things?
Kristi
http://www.buckeyetrap.com/ They have all kinds of cool stuff!
They sell these for a deer hide or cape check Van Dykes catalog online or a paper one if you have it. If its just a deer hide then put it on a table at a ten degreee andgle salt it and let oil drain and salt again until it drys out really good like cardboard then rehydrate it before pickling.
For the initial setup, after thoroughly salting and folding the hide, skin to skin, I lay it open side down in a 55 gal Poly Drum cut in 2 lengthwise and slanted into a collector (like those cheap cement mixing plastic containers). After shaking out the old salt the next day & repeating the process a I lay the hide skin side up onto a framed 4x8 sheet of the plastic Lattis (sp?)you get at Lowe's or Home Depot. Works great for air circulation to dry the fur side and avoids the problem of rust from wire racks. Hope this helps.
Paul
This is my first hide and I would like some information on how to keep the hair on it. I'm not sure if tanning it will keep the hair on it.