Stripping a hide Gunnut, consists of fleshing or scraping the entire hide free of all, and any fat, and or meat, left behind the skinning job.
After that ...there isn't a mammal alive today that doesn't have what I call a membrane on the inner side of their skin. It's a paper thin layer of translucent flesh that needs to be fleshed away to allow the tanning chemicals into the skin. You'll know when you have it removed, the flesh side of the skin will be perfectly smooth and have a milky white appearance to it.
Ears turned...means turning the ears inside out. The ears, (every mammal) will have cartilidge in the ear on the inside part that faces the other ear. (towards the inside of the head) It needs to be seperated from the inner ear skin. If this is not done, and on fox especially, the ear hair will slip and eventually lead to a bald ear.
Lips split is more or less a concern for folks that are having their hide mounted. The lips need to be turned inside out also, and scraped clean of fat tissue before tanning and then the inside out lips are tucked into the form as the original lips on the mounted species.
Cartilidge removed means the nose, and the base of the ears mostly. Any part of the hide that has any cartilidge in it and isn't removed, that part of the hide will eventually draw insects because the tanning chemicals could never fully penetrate it. The results are very much like tanning a pound of hamburger and hanging it on your gun rack.
Pads scraped...any hide getting tanned with the paws left on it need to have the paw pads scraped clean of fat, which is what the entire pad is made of. No tanning chemical on the market today can tan any fat tissue of any kind, I don't care what anyone says. It don't happen.
Shaved down to thickness means just that. Running the hide across a fleshing wheel several times to thin down the skin so it's able to absorb the chemicals and tan evenly.
If this isn't done, the thin parts of the hide turn out real nice and soft (if broken properly) and the thicker parts towards the neck will be stiff and rigid..
As far as chemicals, Van Dykes Supply is probably the nations leader of taxidermy supply related chemicals and will have the best price for a home/non commercial user.
I won't comment on the one step, paint on processes. My time in the business has shown more then once that there is no such thing as a single stage, multi purpose, cure all tan, that actually
tans a hide of any kind with one easy step.
That reminds me, I'm an extremely avid engine builder in my spare time. The more ponys the better
A close freind of mine in the Nascar Busch series machinists crew, told me once "there's no such thing as a wrench in a bottle", and was proven right several times.
Same goes for tanning, there are really no short cuts, and no do-all chemicals.
~River Runner~
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[This message has been edited by River Runner (edited 10-25-2001).]