Successful hide tanning

Anyone tan hides themselves. I just started trapping got a red and grey fox, not gonna sell. I would like to keep to hang.
They are skinned and hung, how well do they need fleshed i was told not to flesh the saddles.
Also should i worry about ear cartilage.
Has anyone had success with orange bottle tanning formula.

If you are tanning them, take off the saddles and flesh them clean. I would remove the cartilage as well. I haven't used the orange bottle, prefer Lutan-F myself.

I alum tan my wall hangers, flesh them as good as you can for a tan. After I take them out of the tanning solution I dry on the stretcher, flip and finish drying fur out. this will not make them garmet soft but the are flexable and keep some shape while hanging on the wall.

You will need to flesh those saddles off, but be careful, as you may know, foxes have paper thin skin and it will tear easy under too much pressure.

I have used the orange bottle, alum, The Home Tanning kit from that Idaho company, and Lutan F. I have had the best results, by far with Lutan F. It is easy to follow the instructions, and it consistently produces good, soft tans for me and for my customers.

Foxes generally turn out pretty soft because of their thin skin, the head and between the ears might come out a little stiff. Just be sure to clean all the thin meat off the face and you should be in good shape there.

Good luck!

Teg

I just tanned a mink with rittels ez tan. Instructions were easy to follow. I used a little too much oil but after working it good it broke fairly easy. It's super soft and pliable. All I gotta do now is buff the leather and then polish it in the dryer on air only. No heat. I will probably buy some lutan F as I have heard nothing but good things about it. The head and neck area are soft and broke but a little stiff. I plan on sanding these areas down a bit when I'm buffing the leather. It should soften up for me, so I've been told. Only my second tan. The first time was an otter and I used brains. Turned out pretty good for my first time, although I wish I had shaved it down some.

Well i hope i fleshed it well enough, this is my first try.
How long does it take to know if the tan was successful or not, I am in the drying process now

The skin should turn white during the pickle process. I pulled my mink out after 2 days and then removed any left over fat or meat with a dull beaver knife. Spoon for around the head. Once I removed all that I put it back in the pickle for almost 2 days. It was really white. Once I tanned it the skin was kinda bluish which I was told indicates it took in the tan. Once it's drying and you start breaking it it turned white. I used to much oil on mine so it's not so white anymore but it turned from bluish to white when I was pulling.

If you are drying it inside a house at room temp, so long as the fur is completely dry, and the skin side feels completely dry, then you should be able to gauge how well the tan turned out. Usually, after a week of drying at 65 degrees, 20-30% humidity, with a fan on them, I call it good and let my customers know there stuff is all done.

Teg

I use rittles ez tan. It works really well

How do you all do the ears? My fox (one that was pretty much destroyed on the road) still has damp ears.
Also, what's the best way to get the oil out of the fur? I read cornmeal works, but I'm curious to if there are other things to use. I don't want to spend money on the smashed fox since I was mostly seeing if the home made vinegar tanning solution would work.
FYI, this fox is just for experimenting. The poor thing was completely crushed and half the fur, including the tail, was gone.

You can tan without doing anything to the ears, but I wouldn't recommend it. I usually leave the cartilage in if it is going to be a wallhanger as it is easy to shape as it dries and then they hold the shape nicely. However, I split the ear on the backside all the way out and I remove all meat from the base along with the majority of the thick cartilage. After doing a few it is easy to understand what I am talking about. The risk of not splitting the ears is that the pickle wont penetrate, the tan won't take, and the hair will slip on the ears. If you don't shape them as it dries they will clump up and fold in on themselves, like what you see from professional tanneries. Those can be rehydrated and shaped easily though.

Oh, lutan is my personal preference. I've had excellent results with it and tanned dozens of critters without problems...and I have a box of pelts I paid a professional to tan that I couldn't sell, which would have been sold if I just took the time to do them myself.

Oops, double posted.

Thanks! I've skinned coyotes and taken out the cartilage. I didn't split the fox since I didn't know about that. (I'm assuming by splitting, you mean separating the cartilage from the back side of the ear like you're going to cut it for stretched pelts, but without cutting?) It's certainly not good enough to hand on a wall since everything past the neck got smashed, but I wanted to learn on it so I don't mess up something I want to put on the wall.
EDIT: Looks like the ears are slipping. The corn meal worked quite well to make the bit of pelt that survived pretty though.

Correct about the splitting.

I also have a question about Tanning a Fox.
i`ve had to freeze the pelt, as i had nothing to flesh the animal with, It was in the freezer for a year, i finaly took it out, fleshed it, took the ear cartilage out. Im using the Orange bottle solution, ive salted, put it in the salt water for the 15 mins like they mention, and so on and so forth. im at the drying stage, i notice as im brushing the fur a lot is coming out. is it due to the freezing so long? will it not work? not much i can do with it at this point?!

Its hard to say exactly what is happening.It could be many different causes.Is it coming out in big clumps leaving bald spots or is it just loose hair all over the skin?

Its coming out, as if you were to brush your own dog, as they shed, thats how i can explain it. No bald spots that i can see a the moment, wondering if it also has to do that the fur is still wet from being washed, i did flesh it fairly well. No saddle left or anything.
Thx

Don't brush it until the pelt is dry.The hair follicles haven't tightened up yet.

sounds good. thx. ill give that a go. I was really getting scared. My son is wanting this fox in the worst way.

just remember that even when dry some hair will come out as they all shed some. don't worry unless its coming out in big clumps leaving bald spots. I had one that I messed up on that slipped. I could pull the fur out by hand

Someone mentioned the stuff in the orange bottle. Does this work very effectively and is it very hard to use?:
http://www.minntrapprod.com/mobile/Trappers-Hide-Tanning-Formula/productinfo/HTF-001/

Thank you, seems to be ok now. A few coming out but not bad any more. Whew

I've used the orang bottle on muskrat ,weasel and this time fox. So far so good. All intructios are on the bottle, very easy to use. I would do it again. But then again I havent used anything else yet. Good luck

I'm guessing that orange stuff works better than leather oil mixed with warm water and dawn dish soap?

Half the directions are there, some steps that would save your hides are not there.

What directions are missing? I am going to try to do a couple small beavers.

The pickle and neutralizing steps. Without that you are risking loosing parts or all of the hide.

Some good info on this site. Been dabbling with fur tanning, and using the orange bottle stuff. The orange bottle stuff will work, but I don't think it's the best or easiest way to achieve a nicely tanned fur. Tanning isn't gonna be easy regardless of which product you use. It's pretty labor intensive if a quality result is wanted. It's shown me where proper skinning and put-up are impoetant to the finished tanned fur. I love the idea of being able to catch the animal, and then processing it into a ready to use fur. I appreciate you guys sharing your knowledge and experience. Sure beats fumbling around in the dark. Tanning fur is a pretty exciting process to me. I am ordering a few supplies soon to try some other products. Thanks again for all the useful info posted on this site.

I was`nt saying that the orange bottle is the best thing since sliced bread, this was my first attempt on tanning. and it seemed to have worked out for me. I am well aware there is other items and solutions out there that are far superior. Just thought i would pass along my findings on this product and if it could help someone out, that`s great.

My first attempt included salt and vinegar for pickling, then rinsing and adding baking soda to neutralize. After that, I used some oil for leather mixed with dish soap and water. It didn't come out that well when I did it with half a fox, but I'm not sure if it was the recipe or one of the things I messed up on. (I forgot to heat the water/oil mix before applying it and the baking soda was expired.) No big deal since the fox had been run over numerous times before I peeled it off the road.
What recipe does everyone else use? I'm hoping to try my hand at a coon sometime, since those aren't worth much. Coyotes are too valuable to experiment on.

Straight vinegar isn't that strong of a pH for tanning, distilled white at best is 2.4-2.5. Wine and cider vinegars are even weaker.

These days I use citric acid. Used a formic acid pickle(krowtann) a few years ago...that stuff is nasty to work with and you better have safety gear with it.

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These days I use citric acid. Used a formic acid pickle(krowtann) a few years ago...that stuff is nasty to work with and you better have safety gear with it.[/quote]

I wonder how safe the orange bottle stuff is to work with, or that Rittel's EZ tan-100 stuff. Those are the 2 main home tanning kits I'm aware of.

I agree with you on the formic ..have used oxalic acid with good results but now use citric as it also helps with degreasing

I think I was using the white vinegar, but I hadn't known there was a difference, so thanks for the tip!

The OBC is a tanning oil, usually these are sulfenated oils and generally safe just use gloves. But never use their directions.

Another thing people need to watch for, especially if you dont have the pH strips(never try tanning without these) is that a lot of tap water in the US is hard water and has a higher pH than the rainwater that most tannning kits recommend. That and if you use something to weigh down the hide so it stays in the pickle, it needs to be something inert(like a jug of water) as somethings like masonry(concrete, bricks, etc) can really screw up your pH's.

Thanks for the info, Sniper. I know our water's PH is really high, so if I tan another hide, I'll have to make sure to use rainwater with my white vinegar. What effect does high PH have when one is neutralizing the hide?

If you meant pickle, a weaker pH will not be able to prepare your hides well enough to absorb the tanning solution and could allow bacteria growth(cause slippage)

This tanning thing seems to have become an extention of my trapping addiction. It's pretty fascinating. Not only to do, but to see and read about the experiences of others. I'm just getting into it and learning, but it is fun. LOT of work involved in the fun, but still fun.

Sniper, that web site you made is pretty cool. Valuable tool for finding info quick. Thank you!

Thanks for the info