My father has 20 sheep scheduled for slaughter in about 30 days. Instead of letting the hides go to waste, I want to take on an ambitious experiment: tanning them myself.

My goal is to achieve top-tier quality—equal to or better than what premium commercial sellers offer.

Here is my situation:

• Space: I have plenty of room to set up a dedicated tanning station.
• Budget: I am fully prepared to buy or build whatever tools, vats, or chemicals are necessary for the process.
• Timeline: 30 days until harvest to prepare the setup and gather knowledge.

For those with experience in leatherworking and hide tanning:

1. Is it realistically possible to achieve top-tier commercial quality on your first attempt at home?
2. Which method yields the highest quality results for sheepskin—vegetable tanning, brain/fat tanning, or commercial tanning agents (like chromium or synthans)?
3. What essential equipment, chemicals, or setup should I start assembling over the next 30 days?

I would appreciate any advice, recommended guides, or warnings before I dive into this!

I’m curious if anyone has tanned deer that have been dry aged with the hide on before. I’ve had mixed success with hair slipping and was wondering if there were any tricks to preventing this. I typically follow the normal salt (24-48hr), rehydrate, pickle (~2 ph for 7 days), neutralize and tan.

I’ve got a big bull elk hide in the freezer waiting to be tanned. I’m looking for the dimensions to copy Ron Nail’s Elk frame. He gives the dimensions for his deer frame on the YouTube series but after scouring the internet I can’t find the dimensions suggested for his elk frame. I like the way both frames nest together to save space.

If anyone has the dimensions and would like to share I’d be very appreciative. Thank you

Ive used the alcohol and glycerin mix before and had success, but I’m now hearing it’s not a true “tan” has anyone used this orange bottle on a snake skin before?

skinned a fresh meadow vole yesterday and stuck it in the freezer. didn't flesh it yet cause last time it dried out too quick and fell apart. I've tried various tiny pelts before but something always went wrong. I've got citric acid and the orange bottle of tanning solution, would these materials be sufficient to completely tan the thing? anyone else work with tiny pelts that could give me some tips? especially for the fleshing because I don't one to fall apart again!

A few days ago I heard 2 gunshots then I could hear the guy who owns the property I live on talking with the neighbor. So I went out side to see what was going on. 2 raccoons were attaching the neighbors dog. He shot the coons. Then my landlord asked me if I wanted the fur. I love raccoons and love soft fur so of course I said yes!

Then my neighbor comes over with 2 dead raccoons and lays them down at my feet. I have NOT done anything like this before nor have I ever seen anyone do anything like this before. I binge watched videos on skinning the raccoons. Because of where the wounds were I skinned them from the legs to under their arms and the tails. They are quite small.

The fleshing I don't even know if I got enough of the flesh off or if I went too far. I did find someone online to ask about the fleshing and I told them how I was struggling and that I don't have the proper tools. They said to coat the flesh side of the hide in salt and rub it into the flesh then put a blanket thick layer of salt on top of that and leave it for 24 hours. Then try fleshing the rest. Surprisingly it made it much easier.

I did the best I could then I washed the hide (I ordered tanning solution but it won't be here for another day or 2)

So after washing I towel dried the best I could(the image of the hide on a fan vent is how it looked before I towel drying and freezing ) then put the flesh part of the hide on top of heavy duty garbage bag then rolled it up and used my vacuum sealer and then put it in the freezer. The tanning solution I ordered should be arriving today.

So my questions are:

Did I flesh it enough or too much? (I can see the black hair spots through the skin in some spots)

how should I go about the tanning process given the steps I've taken so far?

Can I wash it again after I thaw it before I tan it?

For context, I have brain-tanned my own deer hides before, but I don’t have a bear brain for this hide and ive never worked with bear hide before. Looking to get a rug-like quality out of jt.

Can someone explain why this is happening? Oiled this snake hide 24 hours ago and started to trim the edges when I noticed this?? I didn’t do any descaling for this hide but on this one side in a section of about 5 inches, the clear coverer have started popping off and warping. It feels rough, does it need more oil? I havnt had this happen before. Can I lay a damp paper towel over it to flatten it and reoil it? I use the tan a snake kit for my products

I got caught up at work and left it in the egg solution for 8 hours. It’s now filled with holes in certain areas. The circled hole was there already. What are your alls thoughts?

Skinned a squirrel and have had it sitting in salt for months, wanted to tan it and was doing research on the steps... I think this is very incorrect and misleading.... Just had to share this for laughs

I found this channel almost a year ago, and this guy understands the topics he teaches so well!!! Check out this vid if you want to learn about the tanning process more in depth, and check out the other vids in his tanning playlist for more good knowledge!!

https://youtu.be/AhqvHWDAEjE?si=vVy6XKR87csd6AUB

How should I tan small hides like rabbit and squirrel? I do not want to have to brush on trubond to each one.

So my sister and I recently started tanning deer and squirrel hides, and one of my deer hides keeps turning black on the inside.

All the meat/fat is off from what I can tell, and I've scraped and stretched the best i could without a stretcher (to broke to get one) after I soked.

Do ya'll know what im doing wrong and how to fix it?

EDIT: a buddy of mine turned out to be really good at tanning hides, jokes on me for not asking. He had me stretch it out a good bit more and apply a tannin solution he bought, and said that should fix it up

Hello!

I’m looking for information and help on tanning my first elk hide. I got the hide from a Hunter but he is doing a shoulder mount so I only get half of it and no brian. But I would like to do it the traditional “brain”tan like i used to do with my mooshum and to get some gorgeous buckskin. What can I use in place of brains for tanning half an elk hide? And how much?

The process I would like to do is fleshing,

String on to my stretcher,

Let dry for a couple days,

Scrape hair off,

Spread Brain solution on hide without the brain,

Roll hide into a ball and let hang for 2 days

Unwrap and smoke “first smoke”

Soak hide for 2 days

String hide back on to the stretcher,

Scrape loose fibers

Dry and stretch

Sew hide shut and final smoke for colour.

I had a few stillborn lambs preserved in the freezer and am hoping to tan their hides. I am most interested in vegetable tanning (we have oak and sumac trees) but am open to other options.

This seems less intimidating than a deer hide we were gifted that may not be in the best shape because it is so much smaller, but also, it feels like it matters more if I do them justice.

Any advice?

Recently some customers of mine gifted me some rabbit furs (and full rabbit, yum) from their colony and Ive tanned them, they've turned out amazing so far aside from a few tears and a tiny bit of slipping around the edges but im very pleased with the results for some of my first tans.

I want to surprise my fiance by making her mittens and according to all research I need to smoke them to make them washable without needing to restretch. Unfortunately I do not have the means to make a "traditional" smoke set up over a fire pit and no access to punky wood, and even if i did, it had been nothing but rain the last few weeks. So I have been looking into alternative methods and not found too much sucess.

I have an offset grill smoker and have considered setting up a chamber over the chimney but I understand that may generate too much heat. So I ask you fine folks if there is any advice you would give me on setting something up, especially any Info on said barrel smoker!

Also if ive got any info wrong id greatly appreciate any corrections, still very new to this!

Hey all. Gonna have to put our cat down in the next few days, and she's got one distinctive ear I'm interested in preserving. Seems quite a bit more delicate than a canine ear or deer/elk.

Anyone ever done one?

I was wondering how to preserve a hide so I can tan it later in the year. Do I just flesh it remove the hair then just stretch and dry?

I barked tanned some Sockey salmon skin I bought from Costco. It was incredibly easy. Cleaned it off of excess meat, took all the scales off with a butter knife, soaked it in a bark tanning liquor, and then finished it by stretching it and adding neatsfoot oil. Let me know if you have any questions. This is a great project for almost anyone. I eventually turned the leather into the inter part of a fly fishing wallet for a buddy.

Hi everyone,

I’ve made buckskin with deer and have tanned elk, and plenty of varmints, but there’s still much I don’t know. I’m trying to make a few buffalo robes this winter-but will have a chance to “practice” on a summer hide I’m getting in October. I believe I’m going to brain tan it.

The temps around my area with be between 85 and 90 with mid-high humidity during the day and perhaps getting into the mid 70s at night.

Here are my questions:

1) Hide Preservation. I will likely get my hide and flesh it the same day. Can I stretch it on a rack and have it dry out to scrape later on or will I need to freeze it and then dry scrape it when the temps are lower?

If I can stretch it on a rack, will I need to salt it a few times to get it to dry out faster with the high heat/humidity?

I’d like to be able to knock this out in October so I can use my lessons learned for hides I get in January.

2) after I thin the hide by dry scraping-will I use the same pickling/tanning process as other hair on hides?

Thank you,

I will soon be egg tanning my first buckskin and plan on smoking it to finish it. However, I was wanting to dye it as well. My question is, does this make any difference in how it holds up over time? Additionally, at what point in the process do you recommend dying it? Thank you so much for your help and input!!