Tanning A Bear Hide

[mpetty04]

First time poster here. Not entirely sure if I'm posting in the correct forum.

I've got my first bear hide, working on it, and I have a few questions.

Repairing holes - there are a few holes in my hide that I'm fairly certain I can repair. What is the best stage to do this? After the tanning solution, but before the stretching? This seems like the most logical.

Sanding - do I sand the hide once or twice? Once after the salt bath, and once after the tanning solution? I'm seeing both ways in my research.

Stop Rot - I did not know about this initially. My hide was harvested on 4/12, and was salted by 4/15. It's been salted every day since then. Can I still apply stop rot? Is there any need or benefit?

Paws - I think the paws may be failing. The claws are starting to split (not fall out, just split). Will the stop rot help with this? Can I save them? I plan to leave them intact until I'm sure they are no good. Is that wise?


This is the process I have laid out:
Salt/scrape
Salt bath 6-10 hours
Dry to 80% dry
Thin hide with sandpaper
Wash twice with Dawn
Dry to 80% dry
Apply tanning formula 12-16 hours
Dry to 80%
Make repairs
Stretch

Am I missing anything? Sound good?

 

[Deadfall]

Shouldn't need stop rot if salting properly. Rub salt into all of hide, not just pour on. Never tried sanding to thin the hide. sanding will give it a suade type feel. Suppose a belt sander would work for thinning if you were careful with it.

Are you just preparing it for the tanner or tanning yourself?
If tanning yourself you should use a pickling solution. Then a neutralizing bath. Then tanning/breaking (time consuming with bear).
There are several pickling agents. PH is a big deal during this part. Make sure you can check the solution after every soak.

What type of tanning solution. soak or brush on? Brain?

If you going about it like the indians did, then you will need a smoker

 

[TheGDog]

All I can say from doing my deer hides is make sure you've gotten off all attached muscle tissue and viscera off the hide before salting, because after salting it's A LOT of work to scrape off hardened leftover muscle tissue from the hide. You don't wanna do that to yourself.

Due you have a fleshing knife and have you looked at YouTube vids to see how they make themselves a simple fleshing-board for making the process of using the fleshing knife a lot easier?

First ones I didn't have a fleshing knife. Ended up just using a Buck Omni hunter (a Wide Drop-point blade for skinning) and their caper from the Paklite series for scraping off tricky small pieces.

One thing I did that helped was I laid the hide out upon a sheet of concrete Hardy Backer board. I would use rubber covered spring clamps to clamp the hide to the board sometimes when needed.

Soon as you've got the hide fleshed well, then do the Salting. You want to get the fleshing and Salting done ASAP in order to inhibit Bacterial growth from being able to cause hair slippage.

When you order a tanning kit that comes with the acid to do the pickling bath, you also order this pH testing strip paper for testing in the range of up to 3.0pH. In mine the instructions said to keep the 5gal pickle at something like 1.0- pH over the 3 days. (Adding more acid to the solution to up the pH if/when needed) Then it has instructions for doing the neutralizing bath.

Then... after you've hosed off the neutralizing bath and let it drip off pretty good.... Then lay hide... I think it's flesh side down on a large towel or a couple of towels if a larger hide.. and then roll it up in the towel to wick most of the water out of the hide. Gently applying pressure here and there upon the rolled up hide in the towel. Let it sit a lil bit like this, then unwrap.

After unwrapping.... hrmm... I think that was when you then brush on the tanning solution and leave it to sit with that stuff on it for a few days until it fully draws on into the hide.

I never went back and done the process of "breaking" those hides (pulling/stretching the collagen fibers of the skin) yet.

Haven't gotten a bear yet so haven't dealt with the paws & claws issue yet. Sorry.

And the Bobcat I have, I'd sent that one to the taxidermist to full body mount. That one I left in the paws+ankle+first leg bone and let him deal with whatever needs to be done there.

I know the 3-day pickle is what's done to "cure" the tissues so that they'll become denatured and no longer be able to support Bacterial growth. Cures those tissue so the Bacteria can no longer "eat" it.

I'd have to imagine repairing holes is done after breaking the hide, right? Since if you did it before, what would happen if you had stitches in there while trying to stretch/break the hide, ya know? Plus I figure you'd probably want all that thinning out with sanding to be all done before bothering with stitching. I'd figure stitching would be the last thing you finish up with once you've got nothing else left to do to it and it's how it's gonna remain from now on.

 

[mpetty04]

Shouldn't need stop rot if salting properly. Rub salt into all of hide, not just pour on. Never tried sanding to thin the hide. sanding will give it a suade type feel. Suppose a belt sander would work for thinning if you were careful with it.

Are you just preparing it for the tanner or tanning yourself?
If tanning yourself you should use a pickling solution. Then a neutralizing bath. Then tanning/breaking (time consuming with bear).
There are several pickling agents. PH is a big deal during this part. Make sure you can check the solution after every soak.

What type of tanning solution. soak or brush on? Brain?

If you going about it like the indians did, then you will need a smoker

I'm tanning it myself with Deer Hunters and Trappers tanning formula.

I've definitely been rubbing the salt in. This is day 6 of salt and there is a definite difference.

 

[mpetty04]

All I can say from doing my deer hides is make sure you've gotten off all attached muscle tissue and viscera off the hide before salting, because after salting it's A LOT of work to scrape off hardened leftover muscle tissue from the hide. You don't wanna do that to yourself.

Due you have a fleshing knife and have you looked at YouTube vids to see how they make themselves a simple fleshing-board for making the process of using the fleshing knife a lot easier?

First ones I didn't have a fleshing knife. Ended up just using a Buck Omni hunter (a Wide Drop-point blade for skinning) and their caper from the Paklite series for scraping off tricky small pieces.

One thing I did that helped was I laid the hide out upon a sheet of concrete Hardy Backer board. I would use rubber covered spring clamps to clamp the hide to the board sometimes when needed.

Soon as you've got the hide fleshed well, then do the Salting. You want to get the fleshing and Salting done ASAP in order to inhibit Bacterial growth from being able to cause hair slippage.

When you order a tanning kit that comes with the acid to do the pickling bath, you also order this pH testing strip paper for testing in the range of up to 3.0pH. In mine the instructions said to keep the 5gal pickle at something like 1.0- pH over the 3 days. (Adding more acid to the solution to up the pH if/when needed) Then it has instructions for doing the neutralizing bath.

Then... after you've hosed off the neutralizing bath and let it drip off pretty good.... Then lay hide... I think it's flesh side down on a large towel or a couple of towels if a larger hide.. and then roll it up in the towel to wick most of the water out of the hide. Gently applying pressure here and there upon the rolled up hide in the towel. Let it sit a lil bit like this, then unwrap.

After unwrapping.... hrmm... I think that was when you then brush on the tanning solution and leave it to sit with that stuff on it for a few days until it fully draws on into the hide.

I never went back and done the process of "breaking" those hides (pulling/stretching the collagen fibers of the skin) yet.

Haven't gotten a bear yet so haven't dealt with the paws & claws issue yet. Sorry.

And the Bobcat I have, I'd sent that one to the taxidermist to full body mount. That one I left in the paws+ankle+first leg bone and let him deal with whatever needs to be done there.

I know the 3-day pickle is what's done to "cure" the tissues so that they'll become denatured and no longer be able to support Bacterial growth. Cures those tissue so the Bacteria can no longer "eat" it.

I'd have to imagine repairing holes is done after breaking the hide, right? Since if you did it before, what would happen if you had stitches in there while trying to stretch/break the hide, ya know? Plus I figure you'd probably want all that thinning out with sanding to be all done before bothering with stitching. I'd figure stitching would be the last thing you finish up with once you've got nothing else left to do to it and it's how it's gonna remain from now on.

Well, now that's a good point on repairing holes. I was asking because I read that you would cut and sew the armpits while you were setting the hide to dry. I can absolutely see waiting to the end, though.

 

[mpetty04]

Just curious, did you apply any type of chemical agent which may have damaged the claws, or did you "physically" damage the claws while processing the hide? Bears sometimes damage their claws, and claws can become "worn" as well. But bear claws don't "split" unless they've somehow been damaged by humans or the original ursine owner. I've owned hundreds of claws, and have never witnessed claws attached, or unattached "split" after harvesting bears which I've killed, or others have killed. You might try cleaning the claws with shampoo, body wash, or some other type of soap, and water to remove any chemical agents which may have caused the problem....

Absolutely nothing but salt has been on this hide, not even water. But the nails are definitely splitting. And it has been treated like royalty. I've waited my entire life for this bear, and I'm not taking any chances

See the attached pics. You can see that the first ones are not split (the night we got the bear). The other pics are from today and are clearly splitting down the center and flaking.

 

[Deadfall]

I'm tanning it myself with Deer Hunters and Trappers tanning formula.

I've definitely been rubbing the salt in. This is day 6 of salt and there is a definite difference.

6 days of salt seems like alit to me. Is there still wet salt?

Something seems off. If fleshed and washed good. Dried right in between. Shouldn't take 6 days for salt phase.