Oiling and folding over to soak in the oil is done, so now the drying begins! In a couple of days, or when it's dried enough, I'll start working the hide to soften it up.
The hide has drained and dried to a dampness, so now the flesh side gets oiled! Very carefully at the edges, so the fur on the skin side doesn't get oiled.
This will sit for a couple of hours, then the whole skin is folded, oil sides touching, for about 12 hours or so.
Then the next step, another physical one - drying and working the hide to soften it up.
FINALLY, we get to the tanning part of processing this hide. I raised the pH of the pickle bath some by adding baking soda. Now this sits in the bath for up to 12 hours and then it comes out and drains.
Shaving is done, after about two hours of work. Back in the pickle till tomorrow afternoon, then I'll add baking soda to raise the pH and it goes back in for another 12 hours or so for the actual tanning.
Shaving wasn't hard, but it wasn't easy and it was tedious. Again, this is my learning hide, and I can see where I chewed up the hide when it had dried out quickly after defrosting.
Pickling is done! Letting it drip/drain for a bit, until it's just damp and done dripping. Then on to shaving any remaining bits on the skin to get it nice and thin. Then back in the pickle bath for a day, then on to the actual tanning!
To tan, I'll raise the pH of the pickle bath by adding baking soda and put the hide in for about 6 to 8 hours.
Pickling has begun! This helps to set the hair and prepare the skin for taking the tan. It also gets any membrane and "bits" on the skin side all ready for the shaving part.
After two days of salting, the hide was pretty stiff. It went into a rehydration bath. I'll leave it there till about noon or so, then remove it, let it drain and prepare it for pickling.
At this point, I'm way further (and more successful) than my first attempt back 16 years ago!
Removed the salt after 24 hours and some of it was pretty moist, so I resalted the hide. We'll see how it looks tomorrow. Then on to the rehydration bath.
Folding the hide over some well soaked shop rags overnight in the cool garage did the trick. The inner membranes and flesh that had freeze dried loosened up.
The pic is after an hour's worth of work and learning how to do it by ... well... doing it. How to scrape, how to angle the knife, how to apply tension, it's something that is really learned by doing. I probably have another hour's worth of work and then on to the salting.
A #GrayWolf killed in a January #coyote hunt in #Michigan's southern Lower Peninsula; #DNR investigating how it got there.
The harvest was potentially the 1st time a gray wolf has been identified in the Lower Peninsula since the species was wiped out driven to [#extinction] from the state in the early 20th century, MI Dept of #NaturalResources said.
"It's possible it naturally got there, but it's also obviously possible it had some help getting there," said Brian Roell, a large carnivore specialist for the #DNR. "Those are things we want to understand better. We want to know when it was actually harvested, where it was harvested…."
The #Michigan#hunter who harvested the #wolf reported harvesting "a large animal," the #DNR said in a Tues press release. Genetic tests confirmed the animal was a #GrayWolf.
The hunter was participating in a legal #CoyoteHunt & was accompanied by a guide. He said he believed the animal to be a large #coyote. The wolf weighed 84 lbs [that’d be a huge coyote], while Eastern coyotes typically weigh 25-40 lbs, the DNR said.