Tanning bear hide at home

[MadMango]

Do you mean trichinosis?

[MadMango]

https://globalnews.ca/news/7335041/d...ary-apartment/

These nosy apartment managers I tell ya.

[marshman,]

You can do it, hardest and most important is the fleshing, an ironing board would probably work & You can pickle it in the bathtub, get a commercial tanning kit or a formula off the net. I don’t know anyone that drank any blood, but maybe just consider eating it’s nuts.

[pin_head]

I used this stuff a couple times. It works but the hide was pretty stiff afterwards. Should be good enough to hang on the wall.

https://www.cabelas.ca/product/61349...anning-formula

I will tell you however, there’s a reason taxidermy costs so much. It is a frickin pain in the cunning linguals. I had a deer hide in my basement bathtub for weeks going back to flesh, wash, dry, repeat.

go forth with vigour, but understand you’re going to battle!

Brad

[MichelD]

All I can say is that just scrapping fat and flesh of the hide prior to salting is a Phuq of a lot of work.

I gave a hide to a buddy and we laid it out on a 4x8 piece of plywood, scraped and scraped and scraped until just the hide was exposed and then put a thick layer of coarse salt on it, with the plywood tipped up at at angle and you wouldn't believe the volume of water that soakd out of th ehide intothe salt and ran on to the floor. fortunately the garage was not level and it drained outside.

We did this as prep prior to taking it to the tannery.

[MichelD]

If your planning on hunting bears i recommend being familiar with tuberculosis.

Why do you write that?

[chappy]

first you have to shoot the bear. skin it out without damaging the hide then being its a fall bear is the coat thick enough to make it worth while.then home tan it. sounds like a tough task.

[Rieber]

Yes. Make sure you slip the bear out of his pajamas before griping him into the bathtub of brine. These guys scratch like a housecat when they get wet.

Out of curiosity, have you ever stepped into a taxidermist office - stinks to high heck to someone not accustomed to that smell. Consider that when you try doing this in your condo. Should be an interesting learning opportunity. I look forward to learning of your results.

[Rieber]

I saw on mountain men, Tom the oldest guy boiled the brains as a tanning step. Is this really done or is that just a backwoods old school method? Or is the commercial kit something that replaces using the brains rendered down?

I’m getting a little more interested in this now. I would also give it a try if I had any use for a bear hide or any hide for that matter.

[WWBC]

Did one this spring

step #1
flesh hide as well as you can then salt the hide heavily, fold skin to skin and let sit over night. ( preferably on a slope so some of the liquid can drain off.
Step #2 make a pickling solution using citric acid and salt. ( google will give you a ratio and PH level )Make enough to half fill a plastic garbage can. You want to fully submerge hide. Let sit for 2 or 3 days.
Step #3. Pull hide out of pickle solution and flesh hide again. You’ll see the hide will have plumped up and will be easier to flesh.
#4. Quickly neutralize in water with baking Soda then make a degreaser bath. Dawn dish soap works okay. Soak and agitate for a few hours.

Step #5 repeat step 3 with another pickling bath for a couple days. ( make sure your PH is low enough. You may need to add acid after a day for so.

Step #6. Repeat step #4

Step #7 stretch hide out on a board and let dry. You can thin the hide with a wire wheel on a grinder or drill.

Now that the hide is preserved you can move to tanning. The Orange bottle tanning solution you buy from amazon does a good job. just don’t use too much as it has a chemical smell.


Fair warning this is tons of work.

have fun