home Magazine How to properly tan sheep skin. Primary processing of cattle skins at home

How to properly tan sheep skin. Primary processing of cattle skins at home

After the slaughter of farm animals, the question arises of what to do with the skins. Leather and fur are popular goods on the market, so simply throwing them away is not rational, and handing them over to specialized enterprises for processing is not always profitable from an economic point of view.

You can tan the hides at home. True, the dressing process is quite lengthy and includes the following stages: soaking, fleshing, degreasing, pickling, tanning and fatting.

Tanning hides involves working with various chemicals, including acids and alkalis, and requires strict adherence to safety precautions. Deviation from the rules can, firstly, spoil the skins being processed, and secondly, harm your health.

If you are dealing with freshly skinned skins, they must be cooled and treated with salt before dressing. Using a knife or scraper, the remaining fat and meat are removed from the inside (the flesh) of the skin that has just been removed. The cleaned hide is spread fur side down on a flat, level surface, such as a concrete floor. In order for the skin to cool faster, the sun's rays should not fall on it.

When the skin becomes cool to the touch, its interior is thickly sprinkled with edible non-iodized salt, which absorbs moisture, thereby preventing the processes of skin decomposition and fur loss. It takes from 1.5 to 2.5 kg of salt to process goat or sheep skin. For skins of smaller animals, appropriate adjustments should be made.

It is important that the entire core is evenly covered with salt. If some of the salt falls off when moving the skin, the bare areas need to be sprinkled again. The salt-coated skin is laid out on a flat surface, while its edges should not bend, but it should not be stretched either: this will cause the product to lose its strength. Depending on the thickness of the hide, salt treatment can take from several days to 2 weeks.

Dry skin can be tanned. Moreover, you must prepare equipment and substances for all stages of processing in advance, so that when the time comes for the next operation, it does not have to be postponed due to the lack of one or another chemical. A hitch will not have the best effect on the quality of the final product.

On the Internet and specialized literature you will find a large number of different methods for tanning hides: from methods that almost exactly replicate industrial tanning technology, to amateur recipes developed through experiments and based on personal experience. However, any of the proposed methods will include a sequence of standard steps for tanning hides. The chemicals used and the time allocated for each procedure will differ. We don’t see the point in describing many existing recipes step by step. Instead, we will present a certain generalization of the methods of each stage of dressing, listing possible options for its implementation. Dried skin loses elasticity. To restore its ability to interact with chemicals, the skin is softened by soaking in water with antiseptics and table salt.

SOAKING

Remember the general rule for carrying out all procedures related to immersing skins in water: you need to pour so much liquid so that the skins in it can be easily mixed, i.e. not too much, otherwise the water will splash out, but not too little, otherwise all the liquid will be absorbed into the lower layers without properly moisturizing the upper ones. For 1 liter of water, dilute 40-50 g of table non-iodized salt and some antiseptic substance: 0.5-1 ml of formalin; 1 g sodium fluoride; 2 g zinc chloride; 2 g sodium bisulfite; 1-2 tablets of norsulfazole, sulfidine or furacillin. For 1 liter of water, you can also dilute a mixture of 1 g of zinc chloride or sodium silicofluoride and 1 g of sodium bisulfite. To soak thick skins, it is recommended to add 2 g of washing powder to antiseptics. The water for soaking should be at room temperature, i.e. at 18-20 °C; if it is above 25 °C, it will lead to fur loss. Soaking takes several hours. If after 12 hours in water the skin is still not softened enough, the solution is replaced with a fresh one. A well-soaked skin is soft over the entire surface; there should be no hard areas left on it.

FUCKING

The soaked skin is laid out on a flat, level surface (board or block), the remaining fat and films are straightened and scraped off from the flesh.

The tool is a scraper or a blunt knife. If the skin was well cleaned during initial processing, fleshing will not take much time.

DEGREASING

No matter how carefully the initial treatment and fleshing are carried out, subcutaneous fat will definitely remain, and it seems possible to remove it only with the help of chemicals. To treat thin, non-greasy skins, use laundry soap dissolved in warm water (18-20 °C). A more universal method is to treat the flesh with washing powder (3.5 g per 1 liter of warm water). To degrease skins with a particularly thick fat layer, surfactants are used: sulfanols NP-1, NP-9 or santamid-5. 3.5 g of one of these chemicals is dissolved in 1 liter of water at a temperature of 30-35 °C. Surfactants can be replaced with a mixture of 8-12 g of soda ash and 2-3 ml of oleic acid. The skins are poured with one of the described compositions and stirred gently for 30 minutes. After degreasing, the skins are washed in running water, the fur is wrung out or beaten with a stick, then the insides are wiped with a clean rag, removing excess liquid.

PICKING

Pickling (from the English pickle - “pickle”) is the process of treating hides with acid. In industry, sulfuric acid is used; at home, it is replaced with acetic acid.

The 3% vinegar pickle is universal and can cope with the task regardless of the type of raw material. To obtain it, 42 ml of 70% vinegar essence or 250 ml of 12% or 330 ml of 9% are diluted with water to a volume of 1 liter, after which 30-40 g of salt are dissolved in this composition.

Pickling takes from 5 to 12 hours. The readiness of the skin is determined as follows: lightly squeeze it, fold it in four, strongly squeeze the fold and immediately straighten the skin. If a dryer (white stripe) remains on the fold, pickling is completed. Initially, due to lack of experience, it will be difficult for you to recognize the dryer, so start checking the skin even when it is probably not ready. Each time the dryer appears more and more noticeable. A sharp, distinct drying will indicate that it is time to remove the skin from the pickel.

If the skin is intended for sewing clothes or other products that will be in direct contact with human skin, it is advisable to neutralize the pickle with a solution of baking soda (1-1.5 g per 1 liter of water) or photographic hyposulfite (10 g per 1 liter of water). The skin is kept in a neutralizer for 20-60 minutes. This reduces the strength of the skin, but reduces the risk of an allergic reaction. In other cases (for example, if the skin is tanned to make a carpet), you can limit yourself to washing the raw material with running water.

Pickling is sometimes replaced by fermentation. This is a more complex, but at the same time more effective procedure. It is carried out with various mixtures, which include coarse rye or oatmeal flour or oatmeal, ground in a meat grinder.

The skins are fermented at a water temperature of 37-40 °C for 2-5 days. About 3 liters of kvass are consumed per 1 kg of raw materials. The readiness of the skin is determined, as with pickling, by drying.

Bread alum

Recipe 1

Stir 200 g of oatmeal in 1 liter of hot water and add 10 g of malt. Infuse this mixture for 6 hours at a temperature of 60 ° C, then lower the temperature to 40 ° C and add 20-30 g of kefir or yogurt.

Maintaining the temperature at 40 ° C, leave the mixture for another 12-20 hours. Then dilute the resulting mixture with 1.5 liters of water, add table salt at the rate of 50-60 g per 1 liter and place the skins in the solution.

Recipe 2

Stir 750 g of oatmeal in 1 liter of hot water, add 20-30 g of kefir or yogurt and leave for 12 hours at a temperature of 37-40 ° C. Dilute the mixture with 5.9 liters of water, add salt at the rate of 50-60 g per 1 liter, put the skins into the solution and keep them at a temperature of 37-40 ° C.

After fermentation, the skins are washed with running water, and then, as after pickling, they are skinned again, after drying them and removing excess moisture with a rag.

TANNING

During the pickling process, under the influence of acid, collagen fibers in the skin tissue are destroyed, causing the skin to become soft and tear easily, and tanning restores its strength. Tannins bind collagen fibers to each other, envelop them and prevent fibers from sticking together even when exposed to water.

There are 2 main methods used at home: tannin tanning and alum tanning.

Tanning is called tanning with vegetable decoctions. So, to prepare a tanning broth, pour 500 g of willow or oak bark into 1 liter of water, boil for 10-15 minutes and add 50 g of salt. After a day, the infusion is filtered. The efficiency of tanning will increase if you add a decoction of horse sorrel roots (prepared similarly) to the bark decoction in a ratio of 10 liters to 2-2.5 liters.

The flesh is impregnated with a tanning compound. To do this, the skins are either soaked in a container with tanning agent, or it is applied to the inner surface of the skin with a brush (painting).

Periodically, a thin strip is cut from the skin and the cut is examined through a magnifying glass. As soon as the yellow-brown tanning agent saturates the leather completely, throughout its entire thickness, tanning is stopped. The skins are spread out on a flat surface to dry for 1-2 days.

Among the numerous recipes for tanning with alum, the most popular and reliable is the use of chrome alum. To prepare them, take 7 g of chrome alum and 50-60 g of salt per 1 liter of water. If you want the tanned skins to become even softer, you can add 10-12 g of potassium alum to the described composition.

The skins are dipped in alum tanning agent for a day. The degree of readiness of the raw material is determined in the same way as with tannin tanning - by the cut. At the end of tanning, after 1-2 days of drying, neutralization is carried out.

RINSE

Washing is only required for hides that have been soaked in tanning agent. When treating skins with ointment, this step is skipped.

The wool is washed with running water. To make the fur silky, you can add shampoo to the water. However, be careful to

the detergent did not get on the inside. Tanned leather is strictly contraindicated for washing!

FAT

Fattening is carried out in order to make the skin elastic and soft. To do this, stretch the skin over a straightener and coat the inside with a fat emulsion using a brush or swab. The emulsion should be warm (about 40 °C).

Fat emulsion

Recipe 1

Mix egg yolks and glycerin in equal parts, beat the mixture with a mixer.

Recipe 2

Grate 100 g of laundry soap and dissolve it in 1 liter of boiling water. Then, stirring continuously, add 1 kg of pork fat. Turn off the heat and pour in 10 ml of ammonia.

When applying the emulsion to the skin, try not to stain the fur. If contamination of the fur still cannot be avoided, remove the emulsion from the hair using a cotton swab dipped in gasoline.

After fattening, the skins are dried again in the open air. Depending on their thickness, drying can take from several hours to 1 day.

DRYING

Having dried the skin after fattening, it is slightly stretched, and the inside is treated with pumice or a scraper. This procedure is carried out after white spots similar to drying marks begin to appear on the skin when stretched.

To ensure that a fur product does not deteriorate from environmental influences, is not damaged by pests and lasts a long time, it must be made from properly dressed skins.

Tanning hides at home involves the use of chemicals that can be harmful to health, so all procedures should be carried out carefully, in compliance with the rules for handling hazardous substances and safety precautions.

There are relatively simple and affordable methods for tanning skins that may be suitable for those who want to try their hand at producing fur products. The main task is to preserve the high quality of fur and give the skin qualities and properties that are convenient for cutting and sewing.

Let's try to figure out what tanning hides at home is like, how to make a blank for a collar or fur frill at home from dry skinned skins?

The work of tanning hides is conventionally divided into several stages: preparation of raw materials, their dressing and final finishing.

Harvesting hides and preparing for dressing

Only the skin removed from the carcass should be cleaned of residual fat and meat. After cooling, it is generously sprinkled with non-iodized kitchen salt, which should absorb moisture from it. As a result, the skin should dry out and become crispy. This process can last several days or even weeks. The skin prepared for storage should be dry to the touch and tough; it retains its shape well.

Tanning hides at home begins with sorting. They are sorted by size and thickness of the inner layer into groups for ease of processing. All skins are weighed to accurately calculate the required amount of reagents for their extraction.

The leather after dressing should be thin and soft, and the fur raw material should not show signs of shedding. The best quality products are obtained from processing animal skins that are 6 to 8 months old.

Soaking

After storage, tanning hides at home begins with soaking them in two stages. The first is for 4 hours in clean water. The second stage is up to 12 hours in an aqueous saline solution (20 g of salt per 1 liter of water). For 1 kg of skins for soaking, take 8 liters of solution. For freshly removed paired skins, it is sufficient to carry out only the first stage of soaking.

After soaking, the skins become elastic, and their subcutaneous layer should be easily separated. If this does not happen, the aging of the skins in the salt solution is extended. If left in water for a long time, the raw materials may begin to rot.

There is another version of the solution - with the addition of antiseptics to prevent the proliferation of putrefactive bacteria in the water. For 10 liters of water, such a solution requires 500 g of non-iodized salt and 6 furatsilin tablets.

To remove fur and dirt from fur, some experts recommend adding up to 2.5 g of detergent that does not contain biologically active substances to the solution.

Flesh

Fleshing is the process of removing the subcutaneous fat layer. It is knocked down by hand using a blunt staple or carefully cut using a sharp scythe. This operation for thick-hide skins can be performed using a sharpened rotating disk knife.

The dressing of hides at home during the fleshing stage is carried out carefully. The subcutaneous layer with the remains of fat and muscle tissue is cut off superficially so as not to touch the hair follicles in the thickness of the skin.

Thick-hide skins can be processed by cutting off thickenings at the base of the ridge. This process requires certain skills, as careless movement, especially when using sharp instruments, can damage the integrity of the skin.

The cutting of the flesh is usually carried out in the direction from the tail to the head, then, if necessary, a thick layer is removed from the center line to the edges, trying to achieve the same thickness of the entire skin.

Washing

In order for the processing of rabbit skins at home to take place in accordance with the technological process, after the fleshing stage the raw materials must be thoroughly washed, even if detergent was added to the solution during soaking.

Washing is carried out in warm water with simple shampoo. It is allowed to add special dishwashing detergents to the water for more thorough washing of greasy and heavily soiled areas.

In the old days, this process was carried out using ordinary laundry soap. To prepare the solution, grate 10 g of soap and dissolve it in 1 liter of water, add soda ash (0.5 g) and wash the fur until the hair squeaks slightly.

Pickling and pickling

To change the structure of the skin, a pickling process is performed. The skins are placed in a special solution: for each liter of water heated to 35 degrees, add up to 15 g of acetic acid and up to 4 g of sodium chloride. The solution is prepared in sufficient quantity so that all the raw materials are covered with liquid.

Exposure time - from 6 to 12 hours or more with periodic movement. The skins should also be moved from the bottom of the container to the top layers for even processing. The readiness of the raw material is determined by the white stripe (drying strip) on the fold of the skin when it is squeezed.

Surface treatment of the flesh without continuous soaking is also allowed. The solution concentrate (half the amount of water) is applied with a brush to the surface up to three times, leaving 24 hours between repetitions.

The technology for tanning hides at home after pickling involves keeping them for 24 hours after stacking them. Before the next stage, excess moisture is removed by squeezing in drying rollers or in a drum-type washing machine.

The pickling process can be replaced by fermentation in an aqueous solution of oatmeal or barley flour. The process requires constant monitoring, since when raw materials are overexposed, the connection between the hair and the skin is quickly lost. This composition is prepared as follows: for each liter of water heated to 45 degrees, take 60 g of salt and 100 g of flour with preliminary infusion of the solution for 8 - 10 hours.

Tanning

To maintain resistance to moisture, chemicals and temperature changes, the skins are subjected to a tanning process. For this, it is best to use special chrome tanning agents. Their active ingredient is chromium sulfate. An aqueous solution for tanning is prepared from one liter of water and 1.5 g of chromium oxide, the temperature of the solution is 40 degrees. The skins are kept in this composition for up to 6 hours with occasional stirring.

In the absence of chromium oxide, tanning skins at home is possible using chrome alum. To prepare a working solution, take them in an amount of at least 6 g per liter of water.

Another option for replacing chromium oxide: the solution is prepared from aluminum alum, they are taken in the amount of 100 g per 1 liter of salt (50 g salt) water. Stretched skins are treated with this composition superficially along the inner layer 2 times a day for 4 days.

In the old days and now they still use natural tanning agents (tannins) extracted from plant materials: oak bark, willow branches, alder, wild rosemary, and nettle. The solution is prepared from 250 g of crushed raw materials and 60 g of salt per liter of water.

The components are boiled in an enamel bowl for 30 minutes, cooled, and strained. The skins are loaded into this composition and kept, stirring, for at least 6 hours until completely saturated with the solution, followed by storage in folded piles for at least a day.

Fatliquoring

The preparation of rabbit skins at home at the fatliquoring stage is carried out with a special emulsion. To prepare it, dissolve 200 g of grated laundry soap, 80 g of fish, pork or lamb fat and 10 g of ammonia in one liter of water heated to 45 degrees.

With this composition, the inner layer of the skin is evenly treated using a tampon or brush, avoiding contamination of the fur, followed by storage in piles for storage for at least a day.

Another option for fatliquor composition: 50 g of fat (preferably fish), 1 liter of water, 10 ml of ammonia at 25 percent concentration, 25 ml of oleic acid. The solution is prepared in two containers. First, oleic acid is mixed with fish oil in one vessel. In another vessel, ammonia is diluted with water heated to 25 - 30 degrees. The contents of the first are added to the second vessel with constant stirring. After treatment with this composition, the skins are kept for up to 6 hours.

Making rabbit skins at home. Step-by-step instructions for processing using bran

The composition recipe is designed to process 10 medium skins. To prepare the solution, boil 12 liters of water and add 16 cups of oat or barley bran to steam for 1 hour. Separately, boil 15 liters of water, pour it into a suitable plastic container, add 16 cups of salt there and mix well. The bran infusion is filtered out on a sieve and added to a container with saline solution.

After cooling, carefully add acid for refilling batteries (3.5 cups) into the container, observing safety precautions. After combining all the components of the solution, load the skins into the container and leave them for 40 minutes, stirring constantly. The skins are removed and washed with running water. To completely neutralize the acid, you can add baking soda to the water during the first rinse.

The skins are hung to drain and dry easily. After this, the inner layer is treated with hoof oil until a light coating of fat appears. For final drying, the skins are stretched on frames or racks with the edges secured.

Tanning hides at home: instructions for beginners

The method is based on the use of sour cow's milk. Steamed or pre-soaked skins in water are rubbed with coarse salt. They are placed with the skin inside in piles and left to age for three days. After this, the remaining salt is removed, the skins are squeezed out, kneaded and peeled.

At the next stage, they are placed with the fur inside in a container of suitable size with peroxidized (5 - 7 days) milk and left for 3 days to mature with periodic stirring of the solution. For one skin you need at least 1 liter of sour milk. The readiness of raw materials is determined by “drying”.

Subsequent processing: washing, tanning and fattening are carried out using one of the already known methods.

Finishing operations

Fur raw materials prepared for sewing must have a beautiful, lush appearance, the hair must be crumbly, and the skin must be soft and pliable. To achieve this result, the tanned skins are sanded with fine sandpaper or abrasive stones. To add shine to the hair and degrease it, the fur is treated with sawdust from deciduous wood. For splendor, the pile is combed.

Tanning animal skins at home is a labor-intensive operation. It is difficult to achieve a good result the first time, but after acquiring the necessary skills, you can independently prepare high-quality material for sewing fur products, avoiding purchasing it from third-party manufacturers.

Properly tanned skins are the guarantee that a fur product will be sewn qualitatively and will have a long service life. The reagents used in the work are dangerous to human health, so failure to comply with safety regulations can lead to unpleasant consequences. There are many simple and affordable dressing methods. The main task is to maintain good quality fur.

The skins after processing should be convenient for cutting and sewing products. How to make skins suitable, for example, for a hat or collar? Conventionally, the work should be divided into stages:

preparation of raw materials;
direct dressing of skins;
final finishing.

After cutting the animal carcass, the skin is first cleanses of excess meat and fat. As the raw material cools, it is necessary to sprinkle it with table salt to draw out moisture. After a few days or sometimes weeks, the skin becomes dry and brittle.

If there are a large number of specimens for processing, they must be sorted by size and thickness of the flesh layer into different groups. This is necessary in order to it was more convenient to process products. All material is weighed to determine the amount of chemicals needed for processing. Tanning is necessary in order to obtain thin and soft raw materials for subsequent work with them. If the fur does not shed, this is a sign of good quality.

Soaking

The dressing of hides must begin with soaking, which must be done twice. The first step is to soak the skins in clean cold water for about four hours. They are then immersed in salt water for 12 hours. The solution is prepared in the following proportion: per 1 liter of water – 20 grams of salt. 1 kg of skins requires 8 liters of solution. For paired skins that have just been removed, it is enough to fulfill only the first condition.

If the process went correctly, then the material after soaking should be elastic and the subcutaneous layer should be well separated from it. If this is not observed, then you need to re-soak the skins in a solution of table salt. To avoid rotting, do not prolong this process for long.

There is also a method of soaking: an antiseptic is added to the solution to prevent the proliferation of bacteria that cause rotting. In this case, for 10 liters of water you need to take 0.5 kilograms of salt and 6 furatsilin tablets. Sometimes it is recommended to use detergents without biologically active and aggressive substances to easily remove flesh and excess dirt.

Removing the flesh

Fleshing – This is the removal of the subcutaneous layer. Having pulled the skin onto a straightener, the flesh is carefully removed or cut off with a sharp knife. It is good to use a rotating disc blade. It is suitable for products with thick core. This operation at home should be carried out with care to avoid damage to the hair follicles and fur, which are located deep in the skin.

With thick-hide skins, processing allows for cutting off thickenings on the ridge. Without a certain skill, you can damage the integrity of the skin, so you should carefully and carefully carry out this action. The process of cutting the flesh is carried out from the tail to the head and, if necessary, a thick layer is removed from the center to the edges, while trying to achieve a uniform thickness of the entire panel.

- a rather important moment in fur dressing and requires accuracy and clarity.

The next step in dressing skins at home is to wash the material well in warm soapy water. You can use regular shampoo or dishwashing detergent. This stage will be the final one in the fleshing process.

Picking

Another point of processing at home - pickling. It serves to change the structure of the skin. At this time, the process of loosening the collagen fibers of the skin occurs. It becomes loose and soft, but loses strength.

The skins are placed in a solution prepared according to the following recipe: per liter of warm water (about 35 degrees) take 15 grams of acetic acid and 4 grams of NaCl. Dive time ranges from 6 to 12 hours. The workpieces must be stirred periodically for uniform processing. If a white stripe appears when squeezed, it means the skins are ready for further action. After pickling, they are stacked and kept for 24 hours. You can also, instead of such a procedure, carry out fermentation in a solution of barley or oatmeal.

Some recipes for pickling:

Oatmeal (amount 200 grams) is stirred in 1 liter of hot water until smooth and 30 grams of table salt are added. Add 7 grams of yeast and a teaspoon of soda to the cooled mixture. The skins are placed in the cooled solution.

Another recipe using oat flour: 750 grams of powdered oats are stirred in one liter of water with the addition of kefir. The mixture is infused in a warm state (about 40 degrees) for 12 hours. Add water and salt (about 50 grams per 1 liter). The resulting mixture is poured onto the skins and kept at a temperature of 40 degrees.

Neutralization

To do this, you need to prepare a soda solution in a proportion of 10 grams per liter. The skins must be kept in it for half an hour in order to create a neutral environment. An alkaline solution of baking soda, when interacting with an acid, will create favorable conditions. The smell of acid will disappear. The material must be put to ripening with the skins turned fur-side out and placed in a stack under a load for 12 hours. The weight of the press should be in the range of 5-7 kilograms. Instead of neutralizing, you can simply rinse the skins thoroughly with water.

Tanning

So that the fur becomes resistant to moisture, skins are tanned. For this purpose, chromium sulfate is used. To prepare an aqueous solution, take 1.5 grams of chromium oxide per liter of water. The water temperature should be 40 degrees. After keeping the skins in this liquid for 6 hours, stirring occasionally, remove and dry. Options for replacing chromium oxide: chrome or aluminum alum. Natural substances containing tannins are very popular for tanning. Plant raw materials can be:

willow or alder branches;
oak bark;
nettle leaves;
wild rosemary

To prepare such a composition, take 250 g of crushed natural ingredients. This could be, for example, oak or alder bark. 60 g of salt are added to them and diluted in 1 liter of water. After boiling for 30 minutes, the solution is cooled and filtered. The skins are immersed and kept stirring for 6 hours until they are saturated with the solution.

Fatliquoring

Zhirovka performed to ensure softness, in order to facilitate cutting and sewing. In addition, it adds additional shine to the fur. To carry out this procedure correctly, you need to take 50 grams of fish oil and the same amount of laundry soap and pour them with about one and a half glasses of warm water

To grease, the skin is pulled onto a straightener with the fur inward and the solution is applied with a brush. Drying is done at room temperature.

You can also use a mixture of glycerin, table salt and ammonia diluted in 1 liter of water for fatliquoring.

Final finishing

Fur for sewing must be marketable, beautiful and certainly lush view. The friability of the hair is the main factor that the dressing was done correctly, in compliance with all technological processes. The softness and plasticity of the leather is achieved by sanding with fine sandpaper or abrasive. To make the hair shiny, it is treated with deciduous sawdust. Pile is necessary comb so that he is lush and attractive.

Mink skin dressing

Mink products are incredibly beautiful, but finished items are expensive. It is profitable to raise these animals for the purpose of selling fur. The processing of mink skins is no different from the technology for processing the skins of other animals. The process has stages:

If the skins cannot be tanned immediately, then they need to be preserved immediately. For this purpose, the raw material is pulled onto a straightener, which must be stretched with a horizontal crossbar. The edge of the skin is slightly stretched in order to avoid the formation of unnecessary folds and creases that spoil the fur.

The resulting structure should be stored in a room where the humidity is average. The ambient temperature should not fall below zero. With high humidity, the skins are susceptible to mold, which will negatively affect the quality of the fur. In dry rooms there is a possibility of acquiring excessive fragility and brittleness. To prevent the appearance of moths, it is necessary to place insect repellent chemicals or natural odorous substances, such as orange peels or lavender bunches, near the workpieces.

Conclusion

Achieving good results in skin dressing is not so difficult, although the process is long and labor-intensive. As in any business, you need patience, accuracy and strict adherence to technological processes and their alternation. If you try, all this will lead to a positive result.

Attention, TODAY only!

But if you raise sheep, then throwing away their skins is simply wasteful. Therefore, it makes sense to learn how to dress hides, at least for yourself. Let's look at the theory, and practice is up to you.

Preservation of hides

If the skins are not going to be processed immediately after removal, they must be preserved. This can be done in two ways:

wet salted;
dry salt method.

Wet salted method

The sheepskin is laid out in a dry, cool, shaded place without direct sunlight. For preservation you need:

place the skin with the flesh side up;
straighten so that there are no folds;
spread a thick layer of salt evenly over it;
leave for three days,
if everything is absorbed, then pour salt again, fold and roll the skin;
after three days, unwrap the skin and let the phlegm drain;
then fold and roll again.

By repeating these operations, in eight to ten days the skin will be salted. The purpose of this operation is to prevent the spread of germs and fur loss.

Before rolling the skin, it must be folded with the flesh inward in this way:

the upper part is bent by a quarter;
the side parts - towards the middle and also a quarter;
the skin is folded along the ridge;
they begin to roll from the neck;
the resulting bundle is tied with a rope.

Skins preserved by wet-salting are considered the best preparations.

Dry salted method

The initial operations are the same as with the wet-salted method. Naphthalene can be added to salt to repel various pests.

After sprinkling the skins with salt, they are stacked. After a couple of days they begin to dry unrolled. They are hung on poles along the ridge line.

Dry on both sides. First, the inside side up, and then the fur side out. The initial temperature should not exceed twenty degrees. Before drying is completed, the heating temperature is adjusted to thirty degrees. Skins should not be dried in direct sunlight.

Instructions for preserving hides

To avoid loss of strength of the skins, they should not be stretched.
When scattering salt for preservation, distribute it evenly over the entire area of the skin.
Dry and store them in a shaded place. Otherwise it will become a stake and crack.
When storing, they need to be constantly checked, ventilated, and the fur tugged. If he starts to climb, the skin will soon deteriorate. In this case, the salting procedure must be repeated.

It is not advisable to store canned skins for more than six months.

Stages of dressing

The skins of any animal go through the same stages during dressing.

When dressing the skin, the following stages go through:

Soak

The composition of the brine for soaking is as follows:

The readiness of the skin is determined by the absence of hard areas on the skin. It should become soft over the entire area of the skin.

After soaking, the skin is laid out on a flat surface and scraped along the inside. To do this, use the blunt side of a knife, a scraper, or a staple.

Remove remaining fat, films and fiber.

Degreasing

To degrease thin skins, a soap solution or a solution of washing powder at the rate of three and a half grams per liter of water at room temperature is sufficient.

For the skin of a fattened animal, you will have to prepare a special solution.

After waiting for half an hour, rinse them well in cool water. They squeeze it out. They hit the fur with a stick. The flesh is dried with rags and rags.

Pickling

Pickling means “pickle” in English. Indeed, for this procedure, a solution is prepared similar to a marinade for homemade pickles.

If the skin is not intended to be used for clothing or direct contact with humans in the future, then you can leave it as is. If they want to sew something from sheepskin, then the pickel solution is neutralized.

Recipe for neutralizing solution.

This operation reduces the strength of the tanned skin, but it will not cause allergies.

The pickling process is considered complete when it is well washed in running water.

Tanning

At home, plants containing tannin are used for tanning. These include willow and oak bark. Oak bark gives light skins a red tint. If you want to keep the hide white, use willow bark.

The tanning solution is prepared in two stages.

Preparation of the decoction.

Preparation of tanning solution.

Impregnation with tanning solution continues for two days. The end of the tanning process can be determined by the cut. Examine a small section of skin through a magnifying glass. Uniformity of color indicates the end of the process.

To enhance the tanning effect, you can add horse sorrel root in the form of a decoction to the solution.

Chromium alum can be used for tanning.

The readiness of the skin is checked, as in the previous case.

The skin is dried for two days. Then neutralization is carried out as described above. If not the entire skin was dipped into the solution, but only the inner skin was coated, then neutralization does not need to be carried out.

After this, the skin is washed well in running water. To improve the quality of the fur, it can be washed with shampoo. Only wash one fur, without touching the inside. Otherwise she will be tough.

Zhirovka

After this operation, the skin becomes elastic. It involves coating the insides with a fat emulsion. Before carrying out this procedure, the skin must be stretched.

Emulsion recipe

The grated soap is poured with water. Cook over low heat until the soap dissolves. Pork fat is added in small portions. After cooling the mixture a little, add ammonia.

Coat the flesh with the emulsion. Be careful not to get it on the fur. After coating, fold the skins skin side to side. If you accidentally stain the fur, you can clean it with gasoline.

Drying

To dry the skin you need a temperature of 30 degrees. During the drying process, it must be kneaded and stretched frequently. This makes it softer. When the skin begins to dry out and dry marks begin to appear, then the skin should be stretched a little and the inside should be cleaned with pumice. The drying process usually lasts for three days.

It is convenient to tan skins in batches. That’s why their proper preservation is so important.

This completes the process of tanning sheep skins.