needing help with egg tanning a sheepskin!

[mamapferd]

hi! I hope there may be someone out there who can help with this.

I have a sheepskin (my very first) that I am trying to egg tan/smoke tan wool on and so far I have done the following.

Scraped the flesh off and streched it on a frame and put egg on it. it is now dry and although not exactly rawhide, it is stiff. I am thinking about the softening process and cannot seem to find details on this (I have ordered deerskin into buckskin, but it has not arrived yet!) do I soak it and then soften it as it dries? I am afraid of wetting the wool as it takes so long to dry. can I just surface wet the hide and then soften it? should I try to soften it without wetting it? I started to have slipage before I put it on the frame and then it stopped the slippage when it dried. I am afraid of more slipage if it gets wet again before smoking it, but I need to soften it. I just am not sure what to do next and would love any input from anyone who has tried this.

Thanks a ton....I am clueless in wisconsin!

 

[stuart f]

hi! I hope there may be someone out there who can help with this.

I have a sheepskin (my very first) that I am trying to egg tan/smoke tan wool on and so far I have done the following.

Scraped the flesh off and streched it on a frame and put egg on it. it is now dry and although not exactly rawhide, it is stiff. I am thinking about the softening process and cannot seem to find details on this (I have ordered deerskin into buckskin, but it has not arrived yet!) do I soak it and then soften it as it dries? I am afraid of wetting the wool as it takes so long to dry. can I just surface wet the hide and then soften it? should I try to soften it without wetting it? I started to have slipage before I put it on the frame and then it stopped the slippage when it dried. I am afraid of more slipage if it gets wet again before smoking it, but I need to soften it. I just am not sure what to do next and would love any input from anyone who has tried this.

Thanks a ton....I am clueless in wisconsin!

Hi mamapferd, i did a deer hide with the hair on and had the same problem as you. The hair had started to slip,so i framed it and dried it out,which stopped the slippage.
As i did'nt want to get the whole hide soaking again,i just wetted the flesh side to tan it.Leaving the solution overnight then rinsing it off,then softening until dry and supple.

Anyway it worked for me,just wetting the flesh side,and not soaking the hair side.
Heres said hide,you can see where it hair had started to slip,just behind the neck,i did this about year ago,and its still fine and no hair slippage.

I hope this is of some help.

Cheers Stuart.

 

[mamapferd]

Thanks a ton Stuart!

I did as you suggested and it worked! I needed to massage the egg into the hide a bit more, but it soaked in and then after about an hour of resting, I was able to soften it on the frame with a wooden spoon and it went really well and really easily. I think I should have rinsed the egg of first like you did, but I will smoke it first and then wash the whole hide since it was never washed from the original butchering and there is some blood and dirt and poop still on the wool. We are now into the cold part of the year and our woodstove is running constantly and the workshop is warm and dry so the softening again should go rather quickly.

Anyway, thank you for replying and for your idea! It was a good one!