I did my first batch of pelts this winter and it was a LOT easier than I expected. My tanned pelts didn't come out as soft as I'd wanted, but I think I let them dry too much before I started "working" them.
We used a basic salt-borax-alum solution, soaking the hides for 3 days, scraping off the inner layer of muscle, soaking for another 4 or 5 days and then folding the hides in half (flesh sides together) to let the fur dry for about 24 hours without the skin hardening. Then once the fur was dry, we rubbed some neat's foot oil into the flesh side and massaged it and stretched it back and forth until the skin was dry and warm to the touch. That part was the most labor-intensive...
I didn't know you were supposed to wash the wet hides when they came out of the tanning solution, so I'm definitely going to do that with the next batch (Murphy's Oil Soap or Dove or another mild soap apparently works??). They smell like tanning solution. Yuck. But they look and feel like tanned leather otherwise.
I just did a batch of Creme d'Argents yesterday and I can't wait to tan those pelts. Even though they're technically all one color, the individual skins range from light creamy white to orange. Looked so pretty.
We are storing the pelts, fresh and unsalted, in the deep freeze, BTW. I still have a couple of dry stretched pelts in the basement (they're like 3 years old) but I haven't tried those yet. LOL, they've kept this long, so what's a few more months??
