found a salted hide I forgot about in the garage and have no Idea where to send it haha. I'd tan it myself if I didn;y live where I do. Anyone know someone or can do it themselves? Thanks- Jimmy
You can take it to your local taxi or you can send it directly to a tannery. Check to see if the hide is still good because if its not, it probably wont tan very well.
As long as it isn't rotted It should be fine. Also I would recommend not sending it to a tannery, they use harsh chemicals and it doesn't come out as soft as with brain tanning. Look up Deer skins into buck skins book by Matt Richards if you get a chance, or Braintan.com: Natural Hide Tanning and Leathercraft and they have a quick tutorial to do it.
Had the local taxidermist flesh it out and salt it for me, but he didn't send it in. So I have it now, trying to figure out if anyone has heard of a good tannery, if I had the space to tan it here I would- but I don't. It was the first deer I shot last year, November 2nd.
I asked because even fleshed and salted it should ideally be kept cool / frozen. Are you looking for a hair on tan or just leather? If you pull on the hair does it slip or stand fast? I am just concerned that 8 months of storage in a garage would be pretty rough on the hide. I have a batch of hides that I need to get done fairly soon.
I'm looking for a reliable tannery as well - last year used a tannery in Michigan and the result were poor. 3 hides and 1 turned out ok, the 2nd drops hair pretty good and the third came out of the box with hair flying everywhere. I skinned them, did not flesh, folded and froze - then shipped frozen. The condition of each hide correlated to the time of shipping off - Oct kill turned out the best - the Nov kill drops hair and the late December kill is the one that is a mess. When comes down to it I have to wonder if its the tannery or if I should be doing more prep -