With the dipping method, the water is again heated to a temperature of 30-35C, adding acetic acid and table salt. Ingredient proportions: 15g acid and 40g salt per 1 liter of water. It is important to note that the components are added only after the water has been heated to the required temperature so that they can properly dissolve in it. After preparation, the skin itself is placed in it for about 5-6 hours.
Namaz method
The spread method involves increasing the concentration of the mixture for treatment by approximately 2 times. But, in this case, the skin is not placed in water, but treated with the prepared mixture. The flesh can be treated with a soft brush or cotton swabs. The spreading operation is repeated approximately every 3 hours. After the flesh is processed a second time, it must be checked for readiness. This is done as follows: the skin is folded in half and then leveled; if the white stripe holds well and does not go away for a long time, the material is ready for further use. This verification method is relevant for both pickling methods.
The final cleaning of the skin from acetic acid residues is carried out by soaking the material in a soda solution. Proportions: 1.5 g of soda per 1 liter of water. The skin should be placed in the prepared mixture for about 30-40 minutes.
After drying, the skins are stacked on top of each other for the so-called “laying”, during which they ripen. The ripening period is 24-48 hours.
The second method of dressing the skin
If dressing rabbit skins When performed with dry raw materials that have been previously cleared of muscle, they must first be soaked in a specially prepared saline solution. Proportions: 30g per 1 liter of warm (+25C) water.
If the material does not get wet within a day, it must be kneaded periodically until its structure is similar to that of fresh, just peeled skin. If this is not done, it may simply rot. After the skin has softened, it is necessary to wash it in diluted powder. The powder should be used that does not contain bleach.
After washing, the raw materials are again placed in a saline solution. After half an hour, soda ash is added to it (1g per liter of water). When the soda is completely broken down in water, you will need to add formalin. The addition is carried out twice, each with an interval of half an hour, at the rate of 2 g per liter. Gradually stirring the contents of the vessel in which the soaking takes place, the skin is kept for about 6 hours. Then you need to add sulfuric acid to the water in the proportion: 5 ml per 1 liter. In the resulting mixture, the treated material is kept for another 8-9 hours. It is recommended to stir the contents at least once an hour.
After the specified time has passed, ammonia is added to the vessel - 4mp per 1 liter. At the same time, everything is stirred for another 1 hour. This completes the main manufacturing stage. To give the material a marketable appearance, it must be treated with another solution: add 50g of laundry soap and 500g of spindle oil to boiling water, mix all this and add another 20g of ammonia to the resulting mixture. The resulting component must be processed into previously processed raw materials and hung to dry with the hair up. If you are not satisfied with the level of softness and elasticity, the flesh can be further kneaded.
The third method of dressing the skin
If you have fresh raw materials that have just been removed from the animal, tanning the skins at home is done as follows.
First you need to remove all remnants of muscle and fat mass from the flesh. After this, fine salt is poured onto the core, rolled up with the fur facing out and left in this state for 48 hours. Then it is unwrapped and those layers of muscle and fat that remain after the initial treatment are removed. After carrying out these procedures, you need to prepare a solution: add 70 g of table salt per 1 liter of water and wait until it dissolves. After thoroughly stirring the remaining salt, add 10-15 ppm of sulfuric acid. We put the skins into this mixture and leave them there for 10 hours. Afterwards, the material is taken out and hung on a horizontal crossbar so that all the liquid can drain from it. A couple of hours at normal humidity levels is enough.
Then you can start fattening. It is carried out like this: add 50 g of fish oil, 10 ml of ammonia 25% and 25 mA oleic acid to 1 liter of water. The mixture is prepared in two different containers. The first is necessary for a mixture of fat and acid, ammonia is added to the second. Then, at a water temperature of 30C, the contents of both containers are mixed in one vessel.
This ingredient lubricates the inner surface of the skins. Then they are laid out on a horizontal surface and left in this position for 6 hours. After lying for 6 hours, the skins are stretched on specially prepared rules and dried.
The fourth method of dressing the skin
Before it is carried out dressing rabbit skins, you need to prepare a solution: 50-60g per liter of water. If possible, you can add a little ammonia. The skins are placed in it for a day until they are completely softened. If the raw material is very old and overdried, it must be constantly kneaded, or even better, treated with a concentrated saline solution.
Then comes the fleshing stage, after which the prepared and processed skins are tanned. It is necessary to prepare a solution with the following content: 100g of aluminum alum and 50g of table salt are added to 1 liter of water. Then the skin is stretched on a board and moistened from the inner side with this mixture. The process is repeated for 4 days, at least 2 times a day. After 4 days, the raw materials are dried and removed from the board.
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 treatment. 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.
Igor Nikolaev
Reading time: 5 minutes
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How to tan sheep skin at home and at the same time maintain its quality and presentation? Basically, sheep are kept for the sake of obtaining meat and wool from them, and many owners simply throw the skins into a landfill. And more often than not, it’s not at all a matter of mismanagement or lack of demand for this material.
It’s just that few people know how to make it correctly.
Many novice farmers immediately give up this activity after the first unsuccessful attempts. But this, although not the main, but not at all an extra source of additional income, and processing sheep skin yourself, although not easy, is quite possible. You just need to know the technology of this process and follow it exactly.
It should be made in several stages. This sequence must be strictly followed. These are the stages of the process:
- soaking (aging);
- fleshing;
- wash;
- pickling;
- tanning;
- fatliquoring;
- drying.
The main thing to remember is that processing must begin as soon as possible after removal, or all further efforts will be a waste of time and the material will lose all its presentation and will only be suitable for a landfill. Next, let's look at all stages of this technological process and analyze in detail the actions required at each of them.
After removing the skin from a killed animal, first of all it must be carefully examined.
If there are residues of fat, pieces of meat or tendons on the inner surface, they should be carefully scraped off with a knife. Then the wool needs to be cleaned of excess debris, since for the first stage of processing it is important that the sheepskin is clean. After completing the above steps, the workpiece is folded in half and placed in a cool place for two hours.
An important point is that freshly skinned skins should not be dried or frozen.
Stages of the manufacturing process
To perform work at this stage, a large container is needed. This is due to the rather large size of these animals, and the removed sheepskin must be completely immersed in a saline solution. To prepare this solution, you need to take:
- table salt;
- formalin or furatsilin;
- acetic acid.
Next, we follow the following proportions: dissolve 0.1 milliliter of formalin or two tablets of furatsilin for every one liter of water. Salt is added to this solution in an amount from 30 to 50 grams at the discretion of the owner. As an antiseptic, it is recommended to add acetic acid to the solution in the amount of five grams per liter of water.
More experienced furriers use additives such as a decoction of willow, birch or oak leaves, based on proportions of no more than 500 grams for every ten liters of water.
It is necessary to soak and keep the material in such a solution for at least twelve hours. If the skin does not soften during this time, the entire procedure will have to be repeated again. How do you understand that the first stage is completed and you can proceed to the second? To do this, scrape the mezra (inner part) with your fingernail. If it gives in easily, this indicates the readiness of the raw material for the next procedure.
Flesh
The essence of this process is to remove possible fat and sebaceous residues, as well as excess layers of skin.
This process is as follows: first, the skin should be stretched either on a special kind of machine, or (if there is none) simply on a flat surface. Next, scraping begins using a specially dull knife or a special iron scraper. The sharpness of these tools is unacceptable, as in this case they can damage the material. In most cases, fleshing begins from the back, in the process reaching the head.
Wash
At the end of the fleshing procedure, the sheepskin should be washed.
For this purpose, it is immersed for five minutes in a pre-prepared cleaning solution, which includes: 20 grams of table salt and 3 grams of washing powder per liter of water.
Then the material is taken out and squeezed out, after which it is ready for the next procedure.
Pickling
The purpose of this procedure is to improve the quality of the sheepskin. After pickling, the fibers of the material soften and the sheepskin acquires better elasticity.
The solution for this process consists of acid, table salt and water. The acid can be used either acetic acid or formic acid.
The proportional composition of the pickling solution is as follows: add 15 grams of acetic acid or 5 grams of formic acid and 50 grams of table salt per liter of water.
As in the first stage of processing, the material is kept for approximately 12 hours. You can check whether the procedure went well in this way: the material is folded in half and then squeezed. When the skin straightens, the folded area should be distinguished by a clearly visible stripe.
Tanning
Without this stage, it is simply impossible to obtain a quality product at home.
It is tanning that gives the necessary commercial strength.
Like many previous ones, this process also requires the preparation of a solution.
For it you need to take 6 grams of chrome tanning agent and 50 grams of table salt (also based on one liter of water). This solution must be hot. The material is completely immersed in it and kept for 24 hours. This procedure must be constantly monitored, since the solution should not cool. If this happens, then the solution should be heated.
Fatliquoring
The purpose of this procedure is to give the material shine. You also need to prepare a solution from the following ingredients:
The prepared composition must be applied to the inner part (inner part). Then you should fold the skins so that they are in close contact with the inner surfaces.
