# Self Sufficiency/Living off the Land or Off the Grid > Making Stuff > How-to Tutorials Only >  Braintanning pelts the easy way

## your_comforting_company

Ok, maybe some of you remember me asking about the black squirrel.
I finally finished it yesterday. It's Oh-So-soft and very nice to look at.
Most likely it will be a scope cover for my gun, or a pouch to carry little stuff in. Here goes.
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I did a good job while skinning so there was 0 meat left on the hide, only a small amount of connective tissues. Gotta get that stuff off there to get good brain penetration. No, the vice grips were for something else I was doing lol.
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after that bit of work, next step is to get him in the frame without drying out too much.. wanna keep it damp. I have a solution of our home-made laundry powders in the little spritzer. the borax in the solution will change the pH just enough to get really good brain penetration.
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now the fun / gross part. mixing the brains. It makes your hands really soft ladies. give it a try next time you run out of lotion!
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as the skin soaks up the brain slurry, it relaxes. this is a great indication that the brains are penetrating the hide.
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tighten up your strings and continue braining and softening
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Once you are satisfied that the hide is thoroughly saturated with brains, allow it to start drying. Check it often to make sure it doesn't need stretching. If it does, stretch it. you want to keep the hide wide open (whitish color is a good indicator that the hide is opened)

as the excess brains dry on the outside of the skin a crust forms. I felt the need to make a tool for more efficient scraping of this crust, so the next bit will be making the tool from a spoon with a hand file.
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then scrape off the crusties
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and the scraped hide. wide open.
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Once it's dry it's time to buff it with my sandstone, take it out of the frame and smoke it. There is a pecan tree in the yard with some rotten wood near the bottom. I mean really rotten. almost crumbles to powder. good stuff for smoking. I just use elmers glue to attach the edges to themselves to make a sort of "pillowcase" of the hide.
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Now it can be washed without worry of it becoming stiff again. After that, it's up to you what it becomes.

Don't hate me Ken!!

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## hunter63

Very well done, I do believe even a cave man can do it.

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## crashdive123

Great tutorial.  Deserves some rep.

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## Sourdough

Well done.........must have been the camera angle but in the first photos it looked like a 40 pound squirrel......

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## Julie362

Makes me wonder what kind of pelt you'd get out of "Fatso", the squirrel that I watched as a small child get past every bird feeder protector... We honestly thought one day he'd blow up.

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## LowKey

Nice!
Thanks YCC.
Did you just use the squirrel's brains? Or a larger quantity acquired elsewhere?

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## your_comforting_company

This particular squirrel was shot in the head by someone other than myself. I like fox squirrels and don't care to kill them. I have only seen one other black one down here, ever, so it's something of a unicorn for me to have this pelt for myself.
Our grocery store sells brains in 1lb plastic containers for $2. Smithfield Farms in VA packs them out. I used about 1/4 lb to a cup of water, and that was about twice as much as I needed. I kept adding to the skin and drying till most of it was gone just because I already mashed it up lol. Each animal is supposed to have enough brains to tan it's own hide. It's holding true for deer, but I always seem to have a little deer brains leftover to tan out smaller stuff too. Hog brains are a good backup plan if I think I'll run short on deer later. Right now I have the brain for the same animal the skin came from sorted in the freezer. Each one is supposed to be enough!

And other than the skinning, this whole process took only an afternoon. If you had several frames you could do several of these just as easily as one at a time. I mostly used my fingers and a tulip poplar twig as stakers. They are a lot thinner than deer so you gotta have a lighter touch.

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## welderguy

Great tutorial, thanks for the details.

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## LowKey

I'll have to check if the weird grocery store in the next town sells brains. Doubt it. I haven't seen those for sale anywhere here for years. The yuppies who've moved out here would faint or probably call the board of health. But the weird store did have 'chicken paws' though...maybe you just gotta ask for them.

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## your_comforting_company

yep. I bought them at Harveys. surely someone sells them. they were in the frozen food aisle. right next to egg rolls, go figure.
of course, if you wanted a whole case, you could probably call up smithfield farms.

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## rwc1969

> Well done.........must have been the camera angle but in the first photos it looked like a 40 pound squirrel......


That's exactly what I thought.

Nice how to YCC! Maybe one of these days I'll get around to trying something like this.

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## flandersander

Does it have to go in a frame, or can it be softened in the same fashion you would do for buckskin? Frameless that is.

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## rwc1969

After having fleshed the deer I now have to ask, did you scrape off the membrane while fleshing or leave it?

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## klickitat

I have a similar question.  When brain tanning do you have to peel the membrane off or do the brains penetrate the membrane? 

BTW: Nice job, I am very impressed.

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## your_comforting_company

Flander, It is not required to frame a fur-on hide, but I highly recommend it because of the delicate handling to keep from pulling out all the hair with your fingers. Softening can be pretty aggressive and using a frame will keep the fur from being damaged. Still, hand softening a pelt can be done.. just gotta be careful!

RWC, much of the membrane comes off in fleshing, so the flesh side only needs a little scraping after bucking. It's the same amount of work, just doing it in a different order, I guess. If you noticed the bone tool up in the "tools" section, it makes a really good flesher that takes off most of the membrane and connective tissue. The teeth in the tool really grab those stringy bits and get them out of there!

klickitat, The membrane needs to be removed before braining. Brains can penetrate that layer, but the more "junk" you get out of the way, the less trouble you'll have softening. On framed pelts, I peel the membrane off; Shaved with a sharp spoon. On buckskin I scrape the membrane off in the graining/membraning stage. The membrane will make the inside (the side touching your skin when you wear it) stiff and bristly if not removed. Keep in mind we are working with wet hides to make buckskin, so there is no "peeling", only plowing with a dull tool  :Wink:

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## your_comforting_company

I mentioned before that eggs and brains were very similar in composition. If you don't want to use brains, just take a dozen eggs, yolk and all, and beat them like you were making scrambled eggs, then proceed. According to what I've read, it often takes several eggings to achieve the softness we want, but if you don't have brains, it's a good alternative.
I have not used eggs, so my only experience with that is what I've read and nothing more.

Soap and oil is another alternative, but I suggest you try your best to find brains. Water is our medium and oil doesn't like to mix evenly with water. The way we counter this, is to emulsify the oil using soap. Dove dish liquid, about half a cup or so, mixed with half a cup or so of neatsfoot or similar oil, mixed with a gallon of water will do.
These oils are not like brains at all.. these are very heavy and greasy oils and will not leave you with the light, airy, breathable chamois we want. These oils will make your buckskin rather clammy and very heavy and it reminds me of commercial suede like you buy at the craft stores.. Not really something I'd want to wear.

I tried soap and oil on a very small scrap of hide and I did not like the results at all. Seriously, try to find brains as they will give you the super-soft product you are looking for.

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## flandersander

I've got a good first try (I think). I managed to catch myself a weasel this week. So I'm gonna try to tan it. I would like to case skin it though, so how do you suggest I go about braining and softening with a case skinned pelt, beings as I can't exactly put it in a frame... Thanks alot, great tut.

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## your_comforting_company

hand softening is one alternative, though it can be tricky to keep from pulling out the hair with your fingers while stretching. It might be possible to rig up a staker of some sort to stretch it over (inside out). Just make sure it isn't too aggressive. thin-skinned animals can have hair pull inward too. If you left the mask on it, that adds a whole new challenge!
I have to recommend using a pre-smoking technique (or re-smoking as I prefer to call it) where you brain and soften a little, then smoke the hide, then rebrain and soften again. This allows less chance of ruining the fur and will make each pass at softening a lot easier.

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## Rick

YCC - You mentioned using pecan wood. I assume you use it because it's handy and of the right consistency. Almost all wood contains phenolic compounds, formaldehyde and acetic acid giving the wood smoke a very low pH. I was wondering if you've found one wood to be better than another based on the chemical properties of the smoke?

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## your_comforting_company

as long as the wood is rotten, I find them all to do the same thing, just with a little different color. In my mind, letting the wood rot gets rid of all the organic junk that would gunk up the hide, like sugars, saps, etc. so that all you are using are the phenols and aldehydes (for the most part anyway..)
Cedar, cherry, oak.. other than the color, I can't tell a difference in softness of the skin, nor the washability. Pecan is plentiful in my yard so I don't have to go far to get it, but I have made special trips to get punk like cherry heart, or live oak.

I'm not sure the acetic acid is left in any of the wood by the time it's suitable for smoking.. remember, it's gotta be rotten enough to crumble with your fingers!

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## flandersander

Okay, I think I'll be able to rig something up. What else can I do, as well as salting, that sets the hair? Or is that it? If I ruin it, it's not a big deal to me, it's all about learning right? haha. And the resmoking suggestion means I would to the stretching and softening little bits at a time? And the smoking is the "save" button? I could see how that would be easier on the fur.

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## your_comforting_company

The only two methods I'm aware of, are salting, and bark-tanning. I'm not sure _why_ salting sticks the hair, but it does, and bark tanning will tighten the skin, making the hair fast.
There are chemical tans, like tawing, which will set the hair without staining, but IMO these are heavy, greasy, and sloppy leathers which don't feel very natural. My neighbor shot a big buck last night and his hunting buddy had a piece of buckskin that was made into a little bullet bag (keep the extra shells from rattling) that someone sent off to have tanned. It felt much like the pigskin leathers from tandy or michaels (craft store). The fella was really impressed with the feel of the buckskin I was wearing. now he wants a hunting bag!

P(re)-smoking is just like using the save button on the computer. It's not that you soften in little bits, but more like a few big bits. braining and softening the first time with any skin with the grain attached is going to leave it a bit stiff, like construction paper (which is why we remove the grain from buckskin). Smoking will preserve all the soft areas, and make them wettable without compromising the softness at "dry". Any areas that didn't soften on the first round will usually soften the second time. If the brains turn "smokey", sometimes you can slide by without a second smoking, but I prefer to smoke properly again anyway. The hide-sack (pillowcase) really is efficient in transferring the aldehydes to the fibers.

Using the frame will allow you access to the entire hide at once, reducing stress on the fur by less handling. This often produces less bouncy hides, though. Not necessarily a bad thing with tender skins. It's a give/take trade-off here. Less bounce means less fur slipping _in use_, while more bounce means softer skins.

Large game like buffalo were tanned using several different methods for setting the hair. Just touching on this as an option... They used canine dung and urine to tan the hides with hair on.

cattle salt is so cheap (like $5 for 50#), that's what I'd use, and after a good rinsing, brain-tan.
Any time you want to stop, or re-do parts, smoke it before you re-wet it, and all your progress is saved, leaving room to experiment.

Wondering and experimenting are great motivators for learning.

Good Luck FS. If you need any more assistance, you know where to find me!

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## flandersander

I wish I would have taken pics, but I skinned it (not cased like I wanted), fleshed it, and threw it in a frame. I couldn't get the brains out of the skull no matter what I tried, so I'm using eggs. It seems really watery, so I'll soften it, smoke it, then use just an egg, no water added. It's going good, the only promlem I'm having is telling the difference between the meat and the membrane. But I think it'll be okay, as long as I buff it a bit at the end. I'm excited, it's going good! It might not be too watery, the strings are going slack. This is fun  :Smile:

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## your_comforting_company

the more slack you leave in those strings, the bouncier it'll be. Glad you are having fun with it. Keep at it. The end result makes it all worthwhile.. and hey, you can't really mess it up! If it gets stiff, smoke it anyway and try again  :Wink: 

(I think most folks just use straight eggs, but let's see how yours  turns out)

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## flandersander

Well, It was sloppy wet, so I left it for a bit, and when I checked on it, it was already getting stiff, so I started working it, stretching it, and my utensil pushed right through the hide. It's wrecked...  :Frown:  Oh well, I caught a coyote today... Maybe I'll try a small section of that...

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## Michael

This is a very well written guide YCC, thank you for the effort involved.  

I am a trapper at heart and have fleshed and stretched many hides, but never knew how to tan it myself.  I sent some out to be tanned, but was always disappointed in the results and honestly I am a hands on kinda guy anyway.  I would love to be able to make my own muskrat mittens and things for family as Christmas presents.

I do have a couple questions though, this stuff might have been covered somewhere else, but I couldn't find it.

First I was wondering if you salted the skin side of the pelt before you went through this tanning process.  

Second, I am wondering how this process would be different with a fleshed and stretched hide, how you would get it soft again to do this, or if you even CAN brain tan a stretched and dried hide.

Lastly I was wondering if you wouldn't mind sharing solution of laundry powders with the borax you use to keep it damp.

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## your_comforting_company

Hey, Michael. I'm glad you're interested! tanning your own pelts, no matter how they are stored is very rewarding.

I do use salt sometimes, but I prefer to freeze them for storage. When I use salt, it is to draw out the ground substance from the skin. It has a similar effect to bucking.. getting the goop (Science word alert!!) out of it. 
If you are wanting to store it dry, it needs to be left salted till it's dry, changing the salt when it turns yellow, then rewet with plain water and rinsed a few times before braining. I do use this same method for doing hair-on deer, and I have one hanging on the ceiling in my shop smoking now. It was fleshed on the beam, framed, salted dry, and stored for a while. I resoaked in a bucket to get it limber and rinsed, reframed it, and as it got damp instead of sopping, I started adding brain slurry and working it in with the stick.
Dry salted hides are totally doable. If you're going to be doing it soon, wet salting is the way to go. Same thing, just don't let it get dry!

The laundry powder recipe is here http://www.wilderness-survival.net/f...-Getting-Clean
I just mixed some (don't know how much) with water in a little squirt bottle. Not sure how it affects pH, but that black squirrel hide gets me quite a few compliments.  :Wink: 

If you have any more questions, or run into any problems, let me know. I'm happy to help!

I have to agree with you about the processed hides.. they just don't feel the same. they are heavy and rubbery and just don't feel natural to me.

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## Michael

Sorry for the delay in responding, my weekends are busier then my weekdays (when all I have to deal with is work).

I appreciate the help, I like to know everything I can before giving something a try, learn from other's mistakes so I dont make the same ones.

I have been trapping since I was a kid.  The way the fur buyer has always wanted the hides was stretched and dried, no salt.  I would skin them, flesh them on the beam, put them on stretchers and let them dry out in the fur shed.  When they were good and dry I would take them off the stretchers and let them hang until time for the sale if it wasn't too far in the future, or I would wrap them and stack them in a big chest freezer I kept on hand (didn't really have to freeze them, but I liked to, and made sure mice and such couldn't get to them).

Am proud of the fact that over the years I got REALLY good up to that point and always brought top prices for my fur, whether from auction or local fur buyers.

I was actually thinking about writing a guide on how to skin, flesh and stretch to get the most money for your hides, profit margin is small enough as it is, no sense getting less then the best prices.  But I wouldn't have any pictures for it other then what I could draw, and that is NOT one of my talents.  Still I might write it and add pics in May or whenever I can find a good roadkill.

I couldn't trap this year as I gave all my traps to my younger cousin who I kinda took under my wing.  Plus that is a LOT of steel to haul all the way to Alaska from Michigan hehe.  I am going to have him set aside a couple pelts for me, and when I go down in May I am going to try my hand at brain tanning them (I will be butchering a hog for the family's hog roast while I am down there so will use the brains from that).  I just wanted to know if I needed to have him salt the hides first or not.  Will have him salt them after reading your post.

Will also try softening one that wasn't salted by soaking it, may as well, wondering why the fur buyers want them unsalted.   And if I use a small hide it shouldn't take long to dry back out.

Anyway, I rambled enough.  Thanks a ton for the help, and if you can think of anything else I am always happy to learn  :Smile:

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## your_comforting_company

If you're gonna keep 'em, it won't make any difference in the end product. If you're selling them to tanners who want unsalted hides, it's best not to.

Salt will make them get wet anytime the humidity is high. It also requires extra rinsing to get the salt out. Maybe they don't want the extra little bit of handling? Not sure since I don't sell my skins.
The benefit outweighs the extra work, IMHO, in that the salt helps tighten the skin to set the hair, and it draws out the mucus which is really in the way for getting brains in there.

Try a small one with salt and see how you like it. It's no big deal to me to rinse a couple times.. or just leave it out in the rain like I did today with one  :Wink:

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## Michael

Lol, sounds like something I would do for sure.

Gonna ask him to salt the ones he is holding for me.  The ones we are selling they will get however they want them hehe.  Now I just can't wait til I get down there lol.

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## your_comforting_company

Good Luck, and remember, they aren't as tough as deer, if you noticed Flandersanders' post above.. you can poke through them if you go at it like a neanderthal (like I do most things LOL)

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## Michael

Yeah, will be just using my hands so I dont over do it (hopefully).  Keep hoping for a roadkill, but there just isn't much here in Anchorage.

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## Michael

Well, finally have some fur to work with, I picked up a 10 muskrats for practice at the auction this weekend.  I also got a beautiful arctic fox to tan after I get good lol.

The rats unfortunately were not skinned with the faces on them, and were stretched and dried with a lot (to my mind any is a lot) of meat and fat on them.  

This weekend I will be softening them again and fleshing them.  This week I will be walking through the woods looking for punky wood, shouldn't be that hard to find, birch tends to rot fast.  I am going to try hand stretching them instead of framing, seems a little easier to avoid tear it to me, though I have zero experience either way.

Not in any hurry, want to take my time and do it right.  I intentionally bought thin skinned animals for practice (figure it is like learning to drive; if you can drive stick you can drive anything).

I will keep you informed of my progress.

Edit: Spelling

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## your_comforting_company

Glad to hear you got some skins to work with Michael. Please keep me informed on your progress.

I will tell you to expect a little bit of fur loss on the edges as you pull. Just can't help but break a few, but don't let it discourage you! The edges are usually so mis-shapen it's hard to use much of them anyway. 1/4" right on the edge is not terrible when hand stretching and can always be trimmed and boiled into hide glue.

Can't wait to see your progress!

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## Michael

Figured the 1/2" outside edge would be rough no matter if I did hand stretching or if I punched holes in it to frame it, so no real loss there.  Not expecting my first one to turn out great anyway, that is why I bought 10 "practice" hides.  Plan to make mittens out of the muskrat since mine are getting pretty rough after years of use.

My main concern is softening them again to work them without the hair slipping.  From what I hear soaking it is the best way to soften it again, but if it soaks too long it will cause the hair to slip.  My plan is to put a damp towel around it (they are case skinned and I dont want to split it until they are flexible again) since muskrat hides are pretty thin.

Going to find out soon enough I guess, just not really looking forward to fleshing them since I dont have a shed or anything to work in and last few days have been pretty cool with the wind.   Necessity is the mother of invention though, got a couple plans hehe.

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## your_comforting_company

the next option for your case would be the towel trick. Sopping wet towels. Given how thin they are (going on your word, I've never even seen a muskrat that I know of) you shouldn't have to soak them very long to get them pliable enough to open. It's the prolonged exposure that gives trouble with the hair. Since you have 10, I'd try at least one in a soak for a few hours, or maybe put it in before bed and start softening in the morning. If you rip all the hair out you'll know it was a bad idea! (haha)
compared to what might take a few days with the towels, I think it'd be worth a shot.

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## Michael

Muskrat is a little thicker then rabbit a little thinner then the squirrel you did.

Going to soak it tomorrow night for 2 hours, then check it, if it isn't soft enough change the water and do it again.  I think it should be ok if I just keep paying attention to it.  Also will dry the hair with a hair dryer once the hide is soft enough to flesh.  Like I said I do have 10 of them so loosing one isn't gonna be the end of the world.  I expect the first couple to not turn out the greatest anyway, but will be happy if they do.  Will be using the rats to make some mittens to replace my old worn out ones.  

Will let you know how things progress, hoping to take pictures as I go.  

Tonight I am going to cut a hole in the side of a paint can to make a stove to smoke it.

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## Michael

well I have been working on the hide for a couple hours now, it only took half an hour of soaking to get soft.  Fleshing it took a while, and due to poor lighting where I was doing it I think I got a little over zealous with it since I could see the hair roots on a lot of it when I brought it out into the light.  went ahead and used eggs on it and stretched it til it was pretty dry, then put a second coat of eggs on it and repeated just to be sure, while it was still a little damp I put it in a bag, sealed it up and put it in the fridge til tomorrow.

I did have some hair slipping, not sure if it was because of the hair being damp while I was fleshing it or if it was because I scraped it too thin, anyway it wasn't really bad slipping, no bald spots or anything so going to go ahead and smoke it tomorrow.  Will post pictures when I am done.

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## your_comforting_company

Glad you are having some success. Hair slipping on the edges is pretty common, so as long as you didn't make bald spots I would consider it great success. Can't wait to see the pics! You'll get the feel for the fleshing, Like I was telling folks yesterday, you just gotta get a little dirty and test the waters. Most of this stuff is something you just gotta get a feel for.
Maybe on the next one, don't worry too much about the tatty fibers, and just focus on the meat and fat.

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## Michael

Fleshing was the hard part, have fleshed MANY hides before but always when they were fresh, with all this dried on it was a real pain.  I looked at the hide again today and notice the fur that I am loosing is the soft under fur, imagine that is because the roots were exposed.  I had read on a different site that I needed to remove the film on the hides, but on a skin this thin removing that film exposes the roots.  I think next weekend when I try another I will just buff it with some sandpaper or something to remove that, or try it without removing it.  My hide isn't too white after stretching it and things you will see on the pictures, but that is because a muskrat's skin is actually a blue / black color.  At least on the back.

Anyway will smoke this one this evening and try to get some pics up.

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## rwc1969

huh, I was pulling hairs right through the flesh side when I fleshed the hockskins i made and they were dried first too.

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## your_comforting_company

Drying causes the skin to shrink in all 3 dimensions. prolonged soaking will cause it to swell back to it's normal state, but runs the risk of causing slippage.

As with most things, there is a balance.. just gotta find it LOL.

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## Michael

Smoked it last night, seems to have turned out ok, but of course it isn't great, this weekend's will be better, just gotta keep experimenting til I get it perfect.  Unfortunately I forgot the camera today so I will have to post pics tomorrow.

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## your_comforting_company

Hey...

Now that it's smoked, brain it again. Try it. You'll like it.

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## Michael

Sorry for the delay, got some pictures here, wish i had more to show you, will take more this weekend.

Never posted pics to a forum before, hope this works, if not just follow the link to photbucket

Here is the rat I did last weekend fleshed, stretched and dried

http://i1097.photobucket.com/albums/.../DriedHide.jpg

Here is the bad fleshing job they did that I now have to clean up:
http://i1097.photobucket.com/albums/...stocomeoff.jpg

Soaking it in a 3 gallon plastic garbage can to soften it (weighed it down with a rock):
http://i1097.photobucket.com/albums/...le/Soaking.jpg

Here it is after 45 minutes of soaking, pretty soft now and easy to manipulate:
http://i1097.photobucket.com/albums/...e/softened.jpg

And here it is after i fleshed it and washed it:
http://i1097.photobucket.com/albums/...le/fleshed.jpg

and again to show the thin area better:
http://i1097.photobucket.com/albums/...e/100_0504.jpg

After that I washed it again to get all the remaining junk off it and used eggs as brains are a bit hard to get here.

I dont have pictures of the rest but I will get them up soon.

oh, didn't have any punky wood (I do for this weekend) but I went down to the store here and picked up some chips for smoking on the grill, cost about $2.  I soaked them over night to get them good and waterlogged, then set them here to dry out just a bit:
http://i1097.photobucket.com/albums/...ingle/Wood.jpg

Let me know if you see anything wrong with it, I tried to get good close ups.  you can see on the lower right side of those fleshed pics that it was scraped too thin there and could see hair follicles.  This weekend I will be able to flesh outside so should be considerably brighter and will try hard not to flesh so much.


*Edit*  Pictures didn't show up, but got the links right.  Will work on that.

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## your_comforting_company

It didn't look rehydrated to me, which would make fleshing harder. Still, that's really good for a first run. I'd like to see how it turned out. And you're right. To sell a skin that poorly fleshed is pretty sad. That should have been free.

see how white and fluffy this whole skin is, and that there are no red veins in it. 
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I use a curved tool, called a fleshing horn, to work faces and small critters, and sometimes an axe handle or something similar which you see in the pic, is a sledgehammer handle.
Decided what you're gonna make out of it yet?

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## Michael

When I get them all done, if they turn out well, am going to tan an arctic fox I have (was a much much better fleshing job) and then trade them to a native I know up here in exchange for showing me how to sew the fox into a hat for my sister.

Will let it soak longer today then.  I thought that I had to remove the layer with the veins on it, but when I did that the hair follicles where showing and I started pulling hair through the skin side of the hide so I thought I was fleshing too much.

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## your_comforting_company

When the skin dries and the "rawhide" sets up the skin becomes thinner in it's 'thickness' dimension. your pelt should be fully white and fluffy to scrape, and as you scrape it turns back that tawny color because you are squeezing out the water. Try soaking a little longer and I think you'll find results more to your liking.

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## your_comforting_company

the word white might not be a precise description, lol. You'll know when it's good and wet  :Wink:

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## Michael

ok will give that a try, going to do one tomorrow  :Smile:

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## Michael

Ok here is the second attempt, think I did much better.  (Hopefully the pictures work this time)

Here it is after an hour and a half soaking, was much "whiter" though was hard to tell under everything left on it
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here it is on the board "literally" to be fleshed, got my work cut out for me.
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It got late on me and I had to stop with the failing light, but I think I did a LOT better.  You can see on the left hand side that I still got a bit more veins to remove.
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And a close up.
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Will finish removing those veins, tan it and smoke it tonight, expect more pictures tomorrow.

Took me almost 2 hours to get it to that point, not including time to resoak it when it started to dry out.  I am using a small putty knife I filed sharp to flesh it, part of the reason it is taking so long is the hide is so thin and easily torn that I am really taking my time.  

Agian I did flesh a spot too thin and had hair comeing through, not sure how that will turn out, but will find out tonight.

*Edit* Got pictures working but they are pretty big, let me know if they are too big and will go back to links.

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## your_comforting_company

That looks much cleaner to me. It should brain and soften much more nicely without that thin layer. It is tricky to keep one moist while you work it. I usually keep a squirt bottle handy and just shoot it every few minutes with a little borax & water. 

you really did have a mess to clean up, there. Very nice work.
And remember you can always rebrain after smoking, and soften again if it does get a little stiff.

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## Michael

I had to work late yesterday and was just too lazy to brain it last night.  Think it will be fine in the fridge til tonight though.  
Obviously these rats are not even close to prime, thus the dark color skin, must have been very early season rats.

Will get some pictures of my improvised set ups, kinda interesting since I am in a condo here in town and they have rules about fires and things.

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## your_comforting_company

Three hours fleshing to get this thing suitable for pictures. I'll hold off on showing the pics of the meat pile that I scraped off. This is a beaver I got early last year but haven't had time until now to work on.
Beaver fat is more like lard than tallow. Gonna try some dry-scrape on the flesh side to see if I can thin it down a little.

close up of the tatty gristle bits between skin and meat. It absolutely refused to come off.
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I don't know what ancient peoples used to cut grease, but I used Dawn dish soap hoping it wouldn't be greasy. this pic are after a good soapy soak and scrub.
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Built a little frame for a big rat out of some scrap wood and strung it up.
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After two days, it's starting to dry.
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I'm going to see how it turns out without using salt. I hate all the rinsing to get salt out of a hide, so this one is going to be sun-dried. We will see!

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## your_comforting_company

It got that "greasy" look to it, so I put a handfull of salt in those areas. I do not see any yellowing of the salt or dripping where the salt has drawn out the ground substance. Rain is expected tonight so I'm going to leave it out and let it get a good rinse. Gotta have this guy ready by next weekend, and hoping I have time this weekend to get the bobcat going.
If anyone here has braintanned beaver before, I'm open to suggestions. I really haven't dealt with anything this greasy yet.

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## randyt

I hate to say it but take a gasoline soaked rag, not dripping and wipe the grease off.

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## your_comforting_company

Had to finish removing a few tatty bits on the face, so a quick shot of tools.
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We started this bobcat yesterday, but it was getting later in the day and I still had all the packing up to do, so when things thawed out this morning, I got to work on it. Found a nice place in the sun and mostly out of the wind. Most areas were ready to be softened (I stuck it in the fridge overnight in a bag), and this pic is after just a few tugs.
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I spent a couple hours with it, gently tugging between sips of honey-sweetened coffee. Try to handle the flesh side of the skin as much as possible to reduce the hair pulling out and breakage. I was told at the class that this isn't the right way to skin one, but I'm not trying to sell any of them, so I think this is a more useful layout. As you can see, most of the skin has turned fluffy white.
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In this next pic, it is done, only lacking the smoking step. I must say that the face is thick, tight, and hard to get soft. Rather than pull out all the hair and mess it up, I gave it some minor softening, and let it get somewhat stiff. I'll soften it more with a rebraining later. It feels a bit papery, anyway, so I went over to grandma's to compare it to the "professional chemical tanned deer hide" that I got from a homeowner whose top I put on. It is only marginally more "papery" than the deerhide, so I think a rebraining will really make this "clothing quality soft".
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I had a visitor too. It's a beautiful day outside. As soon as I finish this samwich, I'm headed out to find something else to do!
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## RandyRhoads

What a beaut. At first I thought your feet were big mickey mouse ears on it.

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## wholsomback

To soften a cased hide you can use a stiff rope tied between two trees then grab the hide and pull back and forth until you have broke the hide to a nice softness.I use this method for coons and all my cased hides.

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## CountryGirl88

Hey you_comforting_company, nice job on the squirrel. I shot 2 squirrels and decided I wanted to brain tan them. When I skinned them out the day I killed them, I salted them. I scraped the salt off but didn't wash it. Should I have washed them then did the brain tanning? I brain tanned them and they are hard and make a crinklring sound. I was working the one hide, but I am wondering how much is too much rubbing/working the fur? So when brain tanning then it is necessary to smoke the hide? I have never done this before.

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