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Learning tanning will require some trail & error. There are many ways to do it sucessfully, no matter how you do it, patience & elbow grease are in order. Will you be doing hair on or hair off tanning? Para tan, a Knobloch product works well for hair on, Bark tanning works well for hair off, so does traditional brain tanning even done with soap worked in. If you have access to a few hides, you may even want to cut a hide in several pieces & try different methods to see what works best. Smaller pieces are easier to manage as well. One tool that has helped me is a wire cup brush (hardware store item) chucked in a drill. These are used to remove rust/scale from metal originally, but works great for treating tanned hides after stretching & before oiling... leaves a nice soft suede nap. If you ever want to talk tanning, I have tons of resources. A very practical & useful skill to have.
Here is my step by step process1 Measure split and flesh2. Salt and re salt after 24-48 hours 3. Dry to white hard condition 7-10 days4. Re-Hydrate5. Pickle 3-5 days Keep PH below 2.56. Shave7. Neutralize8. Tan9. Wash10 Finish prep and mount
Yes, the double salting & the pickle steps are important! get some pH test strips if you can, they will eliminate the guess work for the pickle & tanning solutions. If you desire soft pliable leather, the breaking/ stretching, & oiling steps are time consuming/ tiring, but necessary. This is where the cup brush makes a difference ( you could also try coarse sand paper 60 grit before the oiling( final step) I have used the ez tan 100 with good results also.. Bruce Rittel product