Wet cardboard hide

No can save and sorry to hear this. Also nothing can be done at this point in time. One thing that one should always be careful of buying is a dry tan from unknown dealers. You have no idea on how long or old the cape was dry tanned.

Always buy from tanneries who will replace a cape if it does end up being bad or just buy wet tanned hides which can be frozen for ages and never have a problem, or shouldn't have one.

It sucks cause it's always buyer beware!

 

Do me a favor if you would. If you have a pH strip handy please wet the hide, squeeze a bit of the water out of it and put the pH strip to it. Tell us what the pH reads..

 

Rats....I'm always interested in the pH of these type hides...High pH could indicate over-neutralization which would cause collagen to disintegrate. Low pH could indicate acid rot, not enough salt in the solution.. Just a hypothesis..

 

Yes Rick it's really a bad idea to buy dry tanned hides for future mounting. But and here's the but. You can dry tan a hide but it needs to be stored in the freezer. Over time oils will normally leak out along with having elasticity lose and then it becomes un-mountable.
Any hide you want to mount needs to be stored properly, so I advise you to get wet tans and freeze them to you are ready.

 

Lesson learned here as well. Thought they should last for ever! ... Question Cyclone or Frank?? At what range should the PH fall on an older dry tanned hide??

 

Can't answer that exactly. It's going to depend on the tan and type of hide I'd guess.

 

Dry tanned hides are usually having a shorter life span for rehydration and the best way is to keep them (yes the dry tanned hides) in the freezer. and they will last a lot longer..
or rehydrate them and then freeze them.