- #ALL ABOUT TANNING RABBIT HIDES HOW TO#
- #ALL ABOUT TANNING RABBIT HIDES UPDATE#
- #ALL ABOUT TANNING RABBIT HIDES SKIN#
- #ALL ABOUT TANNING RABBIT HIDES FULL#
a few tablespoons of alum in a gallon of water, roughly. soak the hide in an alum (like you use for pickling) solution for a day or two. the salt will contract this fleshy material and it will peel off quite easily. salt the flesh side of the hide heavily. no need to worry about the membrane just yet, only get the fat off. Here is the basic steps I have used for tanning rabbit furs.
#ALL ABOUT TANNING RABBIT HIDES UPDATE#
So, go look as some natural recipes, and I will help where I can.Feel free to email if you need to, it just may take a while to respond.I should get an update when you post here next.
#ALL ABOUT TANNING RABBIT HIDES HOW TO#
Rabbit is actually one of the easier "fur pelts" to work with though can tear or "slip" if you are lackadaisical in attention.Īre we going to move into traditional sewing methods also? If so, get some sinew and/or learn where and how to harvest it.There is good stuff online for that also. "Stiff skins" are what I sold from my trap line as a kid.They are "fleshed" and salted but still considered "green skins" and/or "hides" if fur is off.įully tanned and worked hides feel like velvet felt or shammy cloth. There is just gobs of info on line (good and bad) so if you look into "natural tanning" (aka brain, tannin, soap, oil, etc) I can help you with "fleshing out" (no pun intended) the details.
#ALL ABOUT TANNING RABBIT HIDES FULL#
I do not condone or support "Kits" as they typically are chuck full of nasty modern chemicals. Gosh Joe, I was hoping someone would take you through this start to finish.I am swamped right now with work but don't want to leave you hanging on your project.
Perhaps if you sanded them and then moisten them and tumble them dry they would be usable. We sold most of the hides but from what I remember, once the varnish layer was broken up they were quite supple.
#ALL ABOUT TANNING RABBIT HIDES SKIN#
Once dry the growth layer of the skin would be stiff like varnish. Occasionally an old rabbit would have fat on the skin but the young ones needed no further treatment. Then with a length of pipe on each end two people could bend it into a "U" shape narrow enough to fit in the hide. To make the stretcher we would file a notch in the spring steel to snap off a pice a little longer than twice the length of the hides. To stretch and dry them we used cable wire from the Tacoma Narrows Bridge. When I skinned them I basically had a slightly tapered tube with the fur on the inside. My experience was in the 1950's with giant chinchilla furred rabbits. Maybe tumbling them in a front loading dryer with wooden balls might work. I suppose that is too labor intensive for modern day. I think you are supposed to chew on them after they are dried to get them supple.
I would worry about damaging the fur/pelts by putting solid objects in with them, though.Īgain, I'm still learning as I go, but since no "experts" have chimed in yet. I do remember someone saying that tumbling in a cool dryer with short pieces of wood to work the hide would make it pliable.Ī few articles I read (including the one above) also mentioned placing them into a dryer with no heat. They used battery acid instead of alum - perhaps that breaks the hide down more? On the other hand, this post by Rise and Shine Rabbitry says that it's quicker. They're still stiff, but fortunately I don't need them to be soft for my purposes. I did it for about an hour total on the last four skins I was tanning, then decided that it wasn't worth the effort. You work them over with your hands to rub the skin this way and that - carefully so that you don't tear or stretch the hide - over and over again as it dries. I hope someone with more experience chimes in, but so far I have found it to be very time and labor intensive to make the hides soft. Joe Camarena wrote:I've also identified a market that would purchase them if they are soft and subtle.
0 kommentar(er)
