Whats going wrong???

the way it sounds to me is that you are throwing the hole cape in your sink when rehydrating. Try and turn the cape so the hair is on the inside let the head soak in the water just the head and the ears. when its done soaking use a sponge to wet the rest of the cape.

 

of cousre turn it so the hair is out put it in a plastic bag and sweat it over night. sorry should 've finished it in my last post

 

Use a different tannery, they may not change out there solutions as much as they need be and bacteria will reek havoc on your skins. And a side note, never place skins straight on concrete if they are raw or wet, there is Lime in concrete and that speeds up the slipping process.

 

Greg, you mentioned something about washing tanned capes in Tide. Will that cause hair to slip? Just curious because I did that with a fox the other day and noticed the hair slipping between the toes.

 

I would defer that to George if he cares to weigh in. Tide has it's uses but NOT on a conventional or commercial tanned skin from what I have learned. I'm not going to go where this thread might end up. LOL!

 

Called the tannery and they told me that if you wash in tide or soap, it will "pull the tan out". They also said if it needs to be washed you can wash in fabric softener such as downy. I know you said you didn't wash your cape but maybe this will help for future reference. It helped me ;D

 

Salting in low temps isn't the problem. I salt in all kinds of temps. In the middle of season, or when I'm fleshing hides getting them ready for the tannery it's can get very cold in my salt room. I've never had a problem. Like someone mentioned, if the hair is staying on during the tanning process then it should stay on when re hydrating. I submerge my hides fully in water for the 30 minutes, take them out and squeeze most of the water out before placing them in the bag.

Good salt penetration to me is a key for a lot of things during hide preparation. How are you fleshing your hides? When I flesh I like to get everything off so my salt goes straight into the hide. I'm really kinda curious what you do have going on because I've never seen this.

BTW, I would like to see a pic of a hide before you rehydrate it. Do you have one to take a pic of?

 

I've seen this before with wet tans. They tan up and hold the hair but once they are pulled out for washing / mounting the hair is just falling off. They tracked it down to not using nearly enough salt in the pickle. The salt content wasn't high enough to buffer the acid and the bases ofo the hairs "burned" / acid burn. The dermis wasn't falling off but the individual hairs were. Don't know if this helps....

 

So it's not slipping then? The individual hairs are pulling / falling out?
We salt capes in all conditons, that's not rocket science. It's probably the pickling process if I had to guess.

 

Try rehydrating for 10 minutes--drip drain and place in bag and SWEAT overnite. Im no expert but sounds like a 1 to 2 hour soak to rehydrayte could be your problem. That seems excessive to me. The ear cartilage will still be hard after 10 min soak. but is much softer after overnite sweat. JMO

 

Wet is wet to me. Moisture is moisture.

 

ive only had 1 cape ever do that to me, and it was my 1st deer mount,
i was unsure of what i was doing, so i kept it in a bag for a few days, froze it and thawed it a few times, and when i mounted it i pulled on the fur and it ripped... to this day if i brush the hair , it will fall out... (that was tanned by moyle, but i believe it was due to my screwups)

now, my process is as follows...

(all done in a basement, concrete walls, and various temperatures)
skin
turn
flesh
salt
stretch to drip
i dont resalt, within a day the skin is just about dry, and any new salt doesnt even stick
i resalt certain animals or spots that look wet
after a few days i remove from the stretcher and fold into a box
they sit in the box until it is full, then i ship to MI (wildlife gallery)
i always use dry tan, only because of freezer space being minimal
3 - 5months later:
i rehydrate them in 2 cups salt : 10 gallons of water for 30 mins +/- 10 mins or so
i remove them from the water and right into a washing machine on "spin" mode
min or 2 later i remove them, and cut the tan # off the ear, and put each into own bag, then reattach the tan # to the bag (for ease of identifying)
i leave them on the basement floor (concrete) at whatever temp the basement may be at that given time, about 24 hours to sweat.
then into the freezer until time to mount
time comes, remove, stretch, mount.

only had 1 problem, and the tannery called me up and told me about it.. said i can cancel the process and not be charged...
i went ahead and paid for it, feeling it would be okay, and turned out the slippage was cut off anyway, so i was in luck.

I cant say enough good things about the service at wildlife gallery.. they are terriffic people to deal with... try them out and see if your luck changes

 

Its called slippage man. Stop rot, use it or lose it!

 

Sorry I wasn't trying to be a smart ass with my last post, I only read your problem after I read on to see what was really happening then I realized my 2 cents don't mean anything.