What is the difference in curing, tanning, and preserving hides. I want to do a squirrel using only salt?
bigbucks27 asked:
hunting bow archery taxidermy gun riflery dog treestand blind farm country corn arrow broadhead mount
its to lure in more answerers
ya buddy im gonna make a coat out of squirrel hides
Bowhunting
hunting bow archery taxidermy gun riflery dog treestand blind farm country corn arrow broadhead mount
its to lure in more answerers
ya buddy im gonna make a coat out of squirrel hides
Bowhunting
Bowhunting
What’s with all that random crap you wrote related to hunting?
Don’t click this if you can’t stand the sight of blood or exposed flesh:,-Squirrels-Rabbits-etc../
archery hunting
you can preserve a hide with just salt but it will be stiff and hard kind of like rawhide with fur. Scrape all the flesh and fat from the hide and rub it down with salt. Stretch it on a board by tacking it all the way around. If you don’t stretch it, it will shrink up alot. The salt will pull the moisture out of the hide. If it looks wet scrape the salt and any flesh remains off and re-salt. In a week or so it will be hard and dry and will last quite a while. I’ve got a fox hide and a coyote hide preseved this way that are over 10yrs old.
archery hunting
What you need is non-iodized salt. It is available in your grocery store. Do not use ice cream salt. the grains are too large and will spot your hide and cure it unevenly. Use the non-iodized table salt. Then go to the drug store and get some alum. It is also avaliable whereever fod canning suplies are sold. Mix teh salt and alum together and thoroughly coat the flesh side of the hide with a heavy layer of the salt/alum mixture. Allow this to set for a couple of days and then scrape it off and throw it away. Replace it with another layer of salt/aluim mixture and let it set for several days. This will cure your hide and keep the hair from slipping. At the end of this time, your hide should be dry and hard. Now get some Neats Foot Oil and work a good coat into the hide. Now the work begins. Get an old baseball bat and make sure that the end is smooth. Fix it so it will stand up with the bat end sticking up. Start working the hide over the end of the bat to break up the collagin in the hide. The collagin is what makes it hard. Keep adding oil and working it until it is soft enough to do what ever it is you want to do with it. Be patient, this last part takes some time and work.
Another method is called brain tanning. For this process, you actually use animla brains to tan the hide. If you are interested, just Google “Brain Tanning” and it will give you complete instructions on dong this historical type of tanning. It makes beautiful soft hides that can be used for making garments.
Bowhunting
I am a long time Alaskan hunter and trapper.
Every animal has just enough brains to tan it’s own hide.
First – home tanning is a terrible messy thing and it takes years of practice to finally get a hide tanned you will feel proud of.
Salt does not tan or cure. All it does is prevent critters and grems from breeding and eating the hide. Salt pulls moisture, but, will eventually attract moisture to a salted hide – mold and fungus will grow and ruin the hide……. unless you live in a place with 0% humidity like Arizona. A salted hide is always stiff and nasty. This is the way hides are temporarlly preserved before tanning by people who do not know how to professionally skin or flesh a hide.
You are better off sending it out to be tanned. Might cost you $5. You get a discount when you send it 20 or so. 20 you can make a hat – with a few hundred you can make an awesome coat. Once professionally tanned they will last a life time!
Hope this helps