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Melton Wold Animal Art and Tannery specializes in hair-on-tanning of game skins and sheep hides.
We are a small tannery and want to give every client the best attention.
It is absolutely imperative to cure your skins properly before delivered to us. This will render the skins storable for a prolonged period of time, but more importantly, it will protect the freshly flayed skins from attack by bacteria. It only takes 6 hours for the bacteria to destroy the hair roots, causing hair slip. In warm conditions this process can speed up to less than hours.
- Skin the animal as soon as possible after shooting.
- Remove all excess fat, blood and meat.
- Wash off all blood and dirt.
- If possible, soak the skin for a minimum of 3 hours or overnight in a saturated salt solution ( about 20kg salt per 100 litres of water), together with a bactericide (Dettol) of 100ml per 100 litres water.
- As you remove the skin from the solution open flatten skin on a clean surface with the flesh side facing up, and cover the skin with salt. Be liberal with the salt. It is important as a guideline to use an equal quantity of salt to the weight of skin.
- The skins must lie in salt for at least 3 days, after which the skin should be dried out as soon as possible. There is nothing wrong in drying the skin in the sun. The sooner the skin is dehydrated, the better. If one does not have time to do this, the skin must be rolled in the salt and dried at destination.
Do not:
- Drag the animal, or leave it in the sun after it has been shot.
- Salt a skin that has already started to dehydrate. Rather soak in a strong salt solution.
- Do not leave blood, fat or flesh on the skin. (Salt not penetrate fat or flesh)
- Do not store the skin in a plastic bag except for transportation only.
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