I can tell you all the way I do my hides.

First if you get your deer done by a processer like I do, you tell him to save the hide. When you pick it up with the meat from the deer there will be alot of chunks of meat still on the hide they couldn't get off. The first thing you do when you get the hide is thaw it out because it will be frozen, there is no special way of doing this , just leave it out for a few hours untill you can stretch the hide out. Then I tack the hide to a big pieace of plywood. Or cardboard will work, or any piece of anything that is bigger than the hide that you can stretch the hide out on. Then you cut all the meat and crap off the hide. There is a membrain on the hide that is extreamly hard to scrape off, don't worry about it now just get all the fat and meat off. Then wash your knife off and get a big bag of salt. Like cattle salt. I think it comes in 50 or 25 pound bags. Table salt will work just as good but you need lots of bags of it. I'd say at least 12 pounds or so. Then spread the salt about an inch thick all over the hide, try to work the first little layer of salt into the hide. It's not all that important but it gets good results. Then leave the hide to dry out for about 2 weeks, or untill the skin side of the hide turns a blue color. Then dump all the salt off the hide and and take a very sharp knife and scrape all the hardend salt layer off the hide, this takes that membrain off. Scrape all over the hide untill it gets a smooth texture to it. Then you can take it off the board and it will be stiff but preserved so if you don't have what comes next you can leave the hide untill later and it won't hurt it unless it gets wet. Now the interesting part! Get some hog/cattle brains. You can get them at most food stores. Butcher shops can give you brains too. Or you can just ask your processer for a deer brain. Now you have all you need to tan the hide. You can rub the brains (warm brain) into the hide or you can do what I do and get a 5 gallon bucket and fill it with real hot water, not boiling but as hot as you can stand to put your hand in it. Fill the bucket about 1/2 full with water and put the brain in it. Mush it around untill it disapates in the water. Now put the hide in it and soak it for an hour or two. Get the hide out and wring it real good. Work it over a board or with a boat paddle or anything, stretch it alot and just keep it moving untill it is dry. This is like 4 hours of constant movement. When the hide is no longer cool to the touch and is a white color. Now the hide is tanned.

Or you can take the easy way out and buy something called "trapper's hide tanning formula". It comes in an orange bottle. You do the exact same thing with the salt and scraping it and all but instead of all the water and brains you just work this formula into it and let the hide hand for a few days, it'll be all hard when you take it down and then you just take a paddle and work the hide for about 2 hours and it'll turn white and soft. It's great stuff. Makes an off-white tan. It comes with directions but I think they were a little complicated so I just did my own thing. Hope this helps you all, If you have any questions on it I have alot of time to type.

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Or you can take the real easy way out and ask your taxidermist where he sends all his hides to get tanned at. Sending a hide off to get tanned or just having your taxidermist doing it will cost about $80 or so, don't ask for a rug, just an indian style tan. Hog brains in the store are about $3 here. You can use ivory soap and mayonase to tan hides too. I've used egg yolks to tan small game hides. It works great. You can use neets foot oil and rub that in the hide. I've never seen that done so I can't comment much on it. It's not much work if you know about what you are doing. The most easy way to learn is try tanning a squirrel hide. These take about two hours. The salt saves alot of energy getting the membrain off. Rabbit hides are very thin but fairly easy to do. I would not try a deer untill I did a squirrel or possum or coon or something. It's great fun and the hide lasts a lifetime.

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Kool, I'm gonna give this a try in the future! maybe a coyote or something to start...

Some mag had an article claiming deer leather was better wearing than cow leather.

I worked a small portion of deer hide last year, came out ok. I plan on keeping the hides, and having someone make some gloves, maybe a possibles bag, maybe a soft sided briefcase, and if I find a design I like, a long coat.

I think a lot of people throw out a very useful part of the deer, one I plan on working with from now on.

--Jim

You can get deer hide as solf as flannel. Much better than cow hide.

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i got an elk hide from our local swap meet for $5.00 it's kinda stiff will the neets foot soften it up for me too?????????

IF IT IS TO BE......
IT IS UP TO ME......

I'm sure it will. Just remember to put the oil on a rag and rub the rag against the hide. Like dusting with pledge.

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