who does fox pelts?

Paul at Fechan

Well-Known Member
as it says, I'd like to get a fox pelt done locally sw scotland after seeing some recently, who's there to go to or is it fairly straight forward?
 
Paul i do sell a few from time to time....

There are no fur traders here in the U.K anymore, i have looked in to it as i wanted to sell my pelts...

But if you are keen doing one for your self it is a pretty easy process...

You can brain tan or chemical tan, i have done both and the results and work involved is pretty much the same just a little more stretching the hide when you brain tan.. I now use a chemical bath solution made by The snowdonia catalogue taxidermy & tanning supplies... http://www.snowdoniasupplies.co.uk/cgi-bin/view_larger.pl?ref=CP0502

Its all in the preperation of your pelt, first of all you will need to "case skin" your fox within at least 10 hours of being killed as any longer theres a chance of the belly of the pelt going green... Take your time skinning the less nicks and cuts you make the better and less likley to tear when you come to "flesh" the pelt in the next stage...

Theres a few tools you will need to do the fleshing stage, a fleshing knife which is a dull bladed instrament, a fleshing beam to enable you to scrape the flesh/fats from the hide and a scalple, this will make the job of getting the bits of flesh from the ears, nose, eyes and lips...

Then you will need to wash the hide in a detergant to rid the hide of grease this helps the tanning solution get through the pelt better. Then rinse the pelt in cold water to wash out detergant, then you are ready to drop it in the bath of tanning solution... Depending on the brand you use you remove the pelt after a few days and ring it out of ecsses water then you apply a sofening oil and leave for 24 hours, this makes stretching the hide alot easer...

The stretching part is to make the pelt suppel and soft but if you are just wanting a wall hanger then you can just get it as soft as you need for that purpose...

All this info is a very very basic break down of what to do, but the only way to learn the process's involved is to have a go, learn on some Rabbit pelts first...

There is a wealth of info on the subject on Youtube, look under "Skinning a coyote" and "tanning a coyote pelt/hide"...

Hope this helps....
 
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