Welcome Home...THANK YOU FOR BEING A PART OF OUR COMMUNITY

iKnife Collector

The online community of knife collectors, A Knife Family Forged in Steel

Bobcats

I sure would like to get one of these in my sights. I have only gotten two pictures with a fawn in them this year. I wonder if the bobcat is getting the fawns?

0 members like this

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by allanm on September 15, 2016 at 12:53

Do you tan hides Charles? If you had a use for them, I bet that hide would look nice.

I tanned 3 deer hides this year, from last year's hunt, that I had previously salted. It's quite a bit of work and home tanned takes quite a lot of work to make as nice and soft on the inner side as professionally tanned, but home tanning is not hard and saves a lot of money. I think the biggest thing in softening is to remove the dry inner membrane. I've been wondering if I had kept them "raw" rather than salting through winter, or if I had simply tanned as soon as I came home, if they might have been softer from the start.

Basically, I'm wondering if salting first, then re-hydrating causes the tough inner membrane that is best peeled away to soften the leather side. Of course if they are used as mats / rugs on a floor, that leather side doesn't need to be softened as much.

Permalink Reply by John Bamford on September 15, 2016 at 13:37

Isn't there any info on tanning on youtube Allan , so far I have always been able to find information on anything I wanted on there .

Permalink Reply by allanm on September 15, 2016 at 13:50

There is plenty of info available John. As always on the internet, more than we could ever see and use.

I actually picked up my tanning techniques from a few different sites, including wikihow and instructables. Generally though, they talk about the tanning process rather than details of a) should you salt and dry hides then rehydrate at the time of tanning, b) tan immediately, or c) store "raw" in a freezer then tan later.

There two main home methods are traditional brain and smoke tanning (yes, brain - as in use the brains to basically make a paté and rub it into the hide, then smoke it over a fire), and acid tanning. Acid uses various types of acids as a bactericide to kill any bacteria and preserve the hide while not damaging the hair, and then oil such as Neatsfoot oil to help soften and preserver the leather side after the acid bath, also known as pickling.

A professional tanning system I have been looking at costs between $3,500 and 6,500 depending on tanning equipment size and uses safer chemicals than basic acids like batter acid that some recipes use. So far, it is just my theory that using salt to dry and store a dried hide until ready to rehydrate and tan might cause the outermost (or rather innermost, since it is the inside of the animal) layer to harden. I want to research that more, and do some tests. Next time I tan a hide, I'll try just doing it raw, without first salt drying it, and see what difference that makes.

Permalink Reply by John Bamford on September 15, 2016 at 14:26

I know what you mean about information overload !!

I tried tanning a deer hide once didn't work out at all well . It was along time ago so I have forgotten but seem to recall wood ashes were in the mix some where . I heard about tanning with brains but these days the Yuck factor would put me off , I didn't use to be like this !

I think tanning might be one area where I would leave it to the experts . I bought a razor strop a while ago , vegetable tanned they said and it had the most wonderful smell .

Permalink Reply by allanm on September 15, 2016 at 14:40

I agree, the brain stuff is not very nice. When I boiled out two skulls for preservation and possibly one day European also known as Texan style mounts, I had to scrape out the brain paté. The thought crossed my mind at that point that there may well be a market for brain paté too. :-)

My process didn't use ash, basically rehydrate, rinse, then make a mild saline solution with hot water, slowly add battery acid and stir. Put the hides in and stir them around for a while and agitate every now and then to ensure full penetration of the acid "pickle". Remove and rinse, allow to dry and while still partway damp start rubbing in Neatsfoot oil. So far it seems to me that they worked very well aside form taking a good bit of work to soften.

Actually, the recipe I had also said to use a few pounds of bran flakes boiled in water then strained off to get the liquid only, and add that to the pickle mix. I did that but some sites said bran flakes add little or no real known value. I will likely not use bran flakes next time, because it made the hides rather messy because even straining the bran flakes with a fine sieve, I had quite a lot of bran bits in the liquid which left chunks on both hair and leather sides that I have spent quite a bit if time brushing off.

Permalink Reply by John Bamford on September 15, 2016 at 15:01

I will be happy to watch your endeavours, from a suitable distance Allan .

FeaturedPermalink Reply by Charles Sample on September 15, 2016 at 18:20

No I don't Allan. And I will be the first to admit that I don't know the first thing about tanning. It sounds like more of an endeavor than I want to get involved in. If I should get one of the bobcats I would like to have something made out of the hide. But I would have it professionally done even though it would be expensive. I wouldn't want to ruin a nice hide like that by trying to do it myself.

allanm said: