DIY Tanning hides

Tanning a Hide

Someone on this site posted this back in 2009 and I made a copy. So I thought I would post it for anyone interested in doing it their selves.


okay, the condensed version (since it's too long to post the entire thing)-this is for 1 deer hide. double if you have a bear, moose x3....you can also do 20 rabbit furs or 1 coyote (maybe 2 if they're smaller) with this.

1. go to Costco/Walmart/bulk food store and buy 1 kg of table salt (or sea salt-doesn't matter works with both)
2. go to a bulk food store and buy 1 pound of alum powder (it's in the spice section)
3. go to a country hardware/tack store and buy 1 litre of neet's foot oil
4. get a big plastic garbage can/barrel that will hold 16 litres of water and the hide with room to spare. NO METAL

scrape all the fat/muscle and stuff that isn't skin away from the skin side of the hide-hunting knife or fleshing knife (lee valley has these) works well. be picky-this will be how it will look when you are done!
wash the hide really well with dish soap (sunlight or similar) and COOL water (not warm) get all the dirt/burrs/leaves/twigs out
if you are proceeding right away to tan, skip this step: salt liberally and freeze hide until ready to process.
in a plastic ice cream tub (or similar) combine the alum powder and 4 liters of HOT/WARM water, dissolve fully. in the garbage can put 12 liters of COOL/COLD water and the 1kg salt, dissolve (this will take a while). add the alum solution to the garbage can and stir well. if you know what lemon neocitran smells like-it will smell exactly like this
put the hide in with the fur DOWN in the solution. make sure the entire thing is under the solution and no air bubbles under the hide.
stir this 2-3 times a day and make sure there's no air under the hide, the fur stays DOWN and all the hide is wet.
leave in the solution for 6-8 days. watch carefully for slippage-if hide smells BAD (and i mean BAD) and hair is coming out then the solution is not contacting the hide-bacteria is causing the hair to slip. if this happens take the hide out, wash well with dish soap and cool water and replace your solutions and start again (you will have a splotchy hide tho at the end). some hair coming off is normal, but not handfuls of hair. solution with hide should smell like salt water over the week, not BAD...
after the 6-8 days of stirring and soaking take out hide, wash well with cool water-get all the salt out
screw to a piece of plywood (use screws, not nails-they'll pull out) with the FUR AGAINST THE BOARD AND SKIN OUT and let dry-stand the wood vertically to let water drain- in a cool dry place (garage?) until dry-the surface will go a whitish colour with stretching marks. this is normal. this can take up to a week unless you put a fan on low blowing on it (fan=1-2 days). once dry dampen (don't soak it!) with warm water with a rag, rub with warmed up neet's foot oil (just put the container in warm water for 30 minutes or so), rub with oil until the hide no longer takes it up. let the hide dry completely again. do this for 2-3 days (once a day). then remove the hide from the plywood, dampen the skin side with warm water, rub with oil and break by running the hide over a 2x4 edge with the fur UP. only run the skin side on the wood or you'll rub out the hair. keep adding oil as the skin side dries. only add oil to the skin side (not the fur side). once the skin stays supple and doesn't dry you are done-to make it totally smooth you can run a fine sandpaper over the skin side AFTER it's all done to remove any small tags of tissue left. i usually take 3-4 days to fully break the hide...it will stiffen as it dries each time....touch up the hides once a year with new oil and rebreak if needed if they start to dry out.
breaking is labour intensive. if you arm's aren't ready to fall off you aren't finished!

key to spotting slippage: the hide will smell BAD and the solution will not smell like salt water any more, and hair will be falling out when touched, lots of hair....
once this starts the only thing that will stop it is washing with soap really well and new solutions. don't skimp on the salt or alum...this is the stuff that kills the bugs.
also, make sure all the hide is covered in solution, it will want to float (some furs have hollow hairs), sometimes weighting it down with a brick helps BUT if you do, make sure to stir lots to so the area under the brick gets solution too. watch out for air bubbles under the hide. try not to dunk your hands into the solution (it'll dry them out totally)-use a piece of wood like a paint stir stick.
also, don't dump the solution down a sewer or on your lawn (you'll kill the grass)-gravel driveway, sure, or down the drain to go to the water treatment DON'T put it in a septic!


When you break the hide essentially you are just stretching it. The skin side of the hide will have a thin membrane on it that will crack and turn white when you stretch it, so you pull it over a 2x4 to break this membrane up and soften it turning it into leather. Once you see it happening you will never forget what it looks like but basically you have to keep pulling until all of the cracks meet up with
each other and it should feel like leather.

Another handy tip if you would rather be hard on your equipment then your hands is to throw the hide into the washing machine. I use the same amount of laundry detergent as a large load and warm water and it cleans it up real nice. I usually run the first time like a normal load of laundry, then a second time with no soap just to make sure it is good and rinsed. Then just wipe the thing out with some paper towels to get rid of the hair and usually follow that with a load of rags or something you don't care about to make sure all of the hair is gone. I haven't noticed any problems with the washer yet and it's had 2 hides through it this year, but do this at your own digression because unfortunately I'm not buying you a new washing machine if this breaks it.

Thanks for posting, there's quite a few different methods people use at home and I intend to give it a try when I get the chance.

Thank you for this!! I've still got a deer hide fleshed and salted in the freezer. Most likely will make this a spring project

great explanation
did this last year. didnt spent near as much time in the solution though. started with a pressure washer, table salt for a couple days, then into the pickle bath for a day, then out and tanned with stuff from bass pro. then stretched and scolded the dog for chomping a bite out of the back end.
all in all came out nice and hangs in the garage.

if you want a pro to do it, i had daniel from herdsthrone in ottawa do a bison hide at a really decent price and his work is above par. i moved down the road from the blyth mill and they also do hides. just gotta salt them first

rabbits are also fun to do and incredibly easy. dog got that one too but was using for coyote decoy.