Stiff Cow Hides?

If I'm not mistaken, directions on most pickles that I have used say to rehydrate salted skins prior to putting in pickle for at least 72 hours for a deer cape prior to shaving and they are relatively thin skinned, cow hides simply are not. I also think you are washing too often. I wash skins after they are rehysrated, prior to the pickle and then again after tanning is complete, if needed.

 

Ok one thing that caught me was you never hydrated the salted cape. Salt pull a lot of moisture plus non tannable fluids. I’ve also never hydrated a hide 72 hr and it may be a mistake as that would cause slippage the most is 48 in a salt brine and if that doesn’t work, a pressure washer helps in that or reverse osmosis.
Usually a fresh salted cape would hydrate in 2-12 hours. Then rinse and in the pickle.
You may need Luba stretch oil to help you as you still may not have broken it well enough. It sounds like you got it thin enough and if not that could be a reason. You’re working on a tough skin to soften.

 

I either wrote that wrong or you misunderstood I meant to say that it should be in the pickle 72 hours not rehydrated for that long. A hide takes as long as it takes to rehydrate, yes most take less than a day.

 

If tanned properly the tan likely can't be washed out of the leather/skin. I should rephrase my post, on dry tans I only wash the fur side after the tanning and oiling are done, and before the final breaking. On brush on wet tans I shampoo the whole skin prior to mou nting.

 

Anytime we salt a hide it pulls moisture and non tannable fluids out and that starts to dry a cape out. Prior to a pickle we need to put back what was taken out. ( a pickle won’t hydrate a cape properly)
So we need to place that cape in plain water or water with an additive added to it to speed up the process.
Hydration can take from 2-48 hrs depending on the thickness of the cape. Once hydrated ( that’s all skin pliable) I’ll then rinse the cape and place it the pickle. This will help ensure the cape gets fully pickled. The pickle after 3 days of soaking and agitation gets pull out and drained, shaved and degreased if needed, then back into the pickle. The pickle makes shaving easier, plus it’ll pull out more non tannable fluids and aids in preparation for tanning.

 

The use of a pressure washer is only used mostly in hard dried skins like those from Africa.

 

Make a mixture per gallon of tepid water 4 oz of salt
1/4 cup of fabric softener
Sponge it on the cape, fold and fridge it overnight. Repeat if necessary.

 

Would help a great deal if you had yourself a 6 foot tumbler. 200 pounds of sawdust and 3 hrs of tumbling/breaking/softening/polishing would make that hide look and feel like a million bucks.

 

6 foot tumbler

 

For thick hides , I like to use two coats of TruBond 1000B. When the first coat has sucked up most of the tanning oil, apply the hot second coat and wait till it is almost dry. Break your hide and then place it into your tumbler for three hours. I then pull the hide out and hang to air dry overnight. As it is almost completly dry, tumble three more hours in dry sawdust. My 6 foot tumbler runs at 17.5 RPM. Just enough speed to lift everything to the top and then drop to bottom. The 2x12 inch paddles in the tumbler allow for that to happen.

 

My 6 foot talll by 4 foot wide fur tumbler spins at 17.5 revolutions per minute. Sides were made of 3/4 inch 4x8 sheet plywood (2 sheets). For paddles inside the tumbler I had four 2"x12"x4 foot boards spaced 90 degrees from each other screwed to each plywood side. Had another four 2"x4"x4 foot boards doing the same thing but in between the 2x12's for added strenght . This created the paddles inside my tumbler . I used 2 sheets of 4 foot by 12 foot 14 guage galvanized sheet metal for the outer skin all the way around tumbler and heavily screwed to plywood and 2x12's and 2x4's. Had a reducer that was 80 to 1 spinning the tumbler 17.5 rpm. Pillow block bearings make the "HEAVY" tumbler spin very smoothly with 200 lbs 0f sawdust. As far as the drive system goes, try and find the largest toothed sprocket you can get and mount it onto your drum. A chain driven tumbler will not fail you. With the weight of this tumbler, v-belts will just want to slip.

 

Deer and moose hides. I have a fleshing machine that shaves the hides down to a perfect thickness to allow the tanning oil to penetrate. All profesionally tanned hides are broke and tumbled this way. Only difference is they are 8, 10, or 12 feet high. The higher the drop, the more the fiberes loosen and seperate giving a softer hide. They also have staking machines that beat the hides to break them before they go into the tumblers.