What a beautiful wool. I can see why you wanted to tan that. I also do tanning and have worked on several cattle and one goat hide, not sheep yet. You should be able to rehydrate it and get it soft again as it is already tanned. As long as it's tanned all the way through where there's no rawhide, your good. A better emulsifyier then egg yolk is Lecithin. It's a food nutritional additive you should easily find at any grocers. When put in water it acts just like egg yolk, without the bad smells and you can make a decent amount to properly soak in the hide, which is where it will make it more supple.
@@huttonsvalleypermaculture No worries. Another process that would assist in suppleness and future pest proofing the leather is cold smoking it. I use the tannins I leach from local barks to tan my hides, so I need all the help I can get, to get it as workable as possible. Sorry I should have introduced myself again. I'm Nathan. Freinds of your neighbours. The one who does mead too 😆.
Sorry Nathan - didn’t remember!! I’ll certainly have to do some more investigating methods before I process the other two skins & the cow hide!! Did you get the cow hide supple??
@Huttons Valley Permaculture Not the last one unfortunately (big rug). I made the mistake of not obtaining enough bark (tannins) to completely tan the skin all the way through. Hair started slipping and It came out stiff, but for the thin parts that did, once I stretched it a bit, it relaxed well and kept good. The other smaller cattle projects like bike handles came out really well, and that was before I knew about Lecithin. Probably would have been better if it was alum tanning too. One thing I've learning working with cattle is it that it requires lots of practice, trial and error to get the product you aiming for. But every step is a learning experience.
Well done. That is hard work. I'm pretty bad at skinning and even worse at scraping. We still haven't bought the tool . Last time we had a friend use their rubber scraping tool , kind of looks like a window washers tool. They did great. I finished several rabbit kit skins when we were in NSW , to the point of the last dry before softening and we couldn't keep the rats from eating them. Our dogs were terrible at trying to get to the sheep ones. We want to try tanning using brains next. That sheep skin looks like a little bear skin.. lol. I love the frosted tips. Might be fantastic to put under foot in the kitchen while cooking. Thanks for taking us along 🤎
Wow sounds like you’ve done everything Naomi! The stretching of the skin was easy to start with but got tougher as it dried then I totally forgot about it lol. I’ve been using the skin in my ensuite and it feels luxurious under my feet 😊
@@huttonsvalleypermaculture you know that saying" Jen of all trades, master of none ". I love to give everything a good try ,even if I'm not much good at it . 😉
You are a woman of many talents Linda🙌🏼 Such a worthwhile project! I’ve tried an emu skin once and it was a lot of work, but a great learning process. xx Cathi xx 😘
Wow - what have you done with the emu skin?? It is a lot of work but rewarding when it’s done. Not looking forward to the cow hide but determined not to let it go to waste!! Xx
@@huttonsvalleypermaculture it was when I was living in WA, so it never made it back here with me. I was going to sew it into a carry bag as it was a lovely fine leather. It was from a roadkill, so not sure I’d find another one these days as not a lot of farms have them now the 90’s emu craze is over😬 xx Cathi xx 😘
I presume it is something to do with the protein. Will check out the link to satisfy my curiosity and potentially put me in another rabbit hole 😂 Hope the weather is reasonable for you. I'm over the chilly morning but we've barely had any rain. I hope August fixes that.
Yeah I think it’s all about the protein! We’ve had some rain here but not the usual and it’s been really mild and spring like which is a worry really. Don’t know if winter is still coming or an early summer - who knows. Good luck with your rain 🌧
TheDukes Adventures - you are so right, a good jet wash is a brilliant way to ‘flesh’ a sheepskin. You just need to keep the water jet moving to avoid making holes. I only picked up the idea in a comment on RU-vid but it works and saves so much effort I am really surprised it has not been adopted more widely. My 2 Shetland sheepskins turned out great using salt, alum and egg tanning.
I’ll definitely be trying the jet wash next time. When I bought my fleshing knife from a taxidermy place the guy there had said that’s what they do. Would have been a lot quicker if I’d followed that advice! Thanks for your comments and for watching!
Hi there and thank you! The recipe I used I got from another persons youtube video ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE--p2FgxUOIRI.html , so check that out if you are planning to do this. I have had someone comment that this isn't a true tanning process (read through my comments to see exactly what was said) - so maybe a bit of homework on the subject so you make the right decision for yourself. My sheepskin is still lovely - I'm using it as a floor mat! Thanks for watching!!
I tan with the alum & salt bath method aswell as with eggs sometimes . I find removing the fat and membrain with a presure washer on sheep is quicker and easier thinner skinned animals like fox i still scrape with a knife .
I love the respect you have for animals, and your a talented woman, very impressive, how's the spinning journey going? I thought of you the other day the local op shop had massive bags of raw mohair
It's called a fleshing knife and I just searched online and found one at a local taxidermist. When I rang he told me it was easier to use a high pressure hose for fleshing as long as it didn't oscillate - don't have one of those so bought the knife!
@@huttonsvalleypermaculture thanks for that info. We are about to process some skin and I was keen to do a skin or 2. I will look in Bunnings as cannot find alum in the shops where I live. My closest Bunnings is a couple of hours away 😆
if you cared about animals you wouldn't be doing this. I will never trust a person capable of looking an animal in the eyes and then slaughtering it for absolutely no good reason.
