Last November on a snowy morning, I was fortunate to take a nice doe with thick winter coat with the flintlock on public land. I had since had this hide stored, well salted, in my freezer.
You can read that full story here:
It was July and time to make some space in the freezer!
This was not my first tanning attempt, and I already had two successful fur-on pelts hanging in my man cave.
I had some Lutan FN tanning chemical leftover from a Van Dykes kit, as well as some tanning oil, so I decided to use that instead of the egg and ivory soap method I used last time I tanned some buckskin. Refreshing my memory, I decided to do some internet searches on the process.
I found a tip about using a pressure washer to flesh out the hide. This process was always the most trouble for me in the past as it is messy, it is hard to avoid holes, and it takes some sort of setup like a fleshing beam. I found that by using a pressure washer, all I needed was two adjustable clamps and a piece of plywood. The method saved me an estimated 3-hours of scraping, and I'll never know how many hand cramps! I had the best cleanest fleshing job with no holes in about 30-45 minutes.
Here you can see the flesh coming off in one big sheet. The clamps keep the plywood propped at an angle, which helps "push off" the flesh and sinew.
Viola! The cleanest hide I have ever tried to tan.
I picked the hide for 24 hours with vinegar and salt, then soaked it in the tanning solution in a 5-gallon bucket with 12 oz of the Lutan and salt. It dried and worked wonderful for my softest and best-looking hair on hide.
I had intended this tan to be cut up and used for dying to produce deer hair bug material for fishing poppers, but now I may use one of my older hides for that.
Save those deer hides!
