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Fur Tanning Services
We provide full fur dressing / tanning services for hair and fur bearing animal skins from all over the world.
For local buisinesses we offer unbeatable pick-up & delivery services as well.
- - Note for US customers: though we often work on furs collected elsewhere in the world, customers outside Canada often struggle with
extremely unhelpful border officials, high shipping costs and complications, and experience bureaucratic problems regardless of proper paperwork. - - |
PROCESS:
"furs" describes the coats of animals such as cats, coyotes, bears, and many others.
"hair" describes the coats of other animals with hollow guard-hairs such as deer, moose, antilope, sheep, and more.
"skins, hides, & pelts": These terms are often used interchangeably to describe most any kind of animal-skin.
Here we briefly describe our tanning process:
Note: In any tanning process, the final outcome depends largely on the initial condition of the hide. All too often we receive hides frozen for years, or
which have been abused or otherwise improperly preserved. Despite some very nice results with hides that started in terrible shape, Jason cannot
guarantee the outcome for poorly fleshed or preserved skins. Nevertheless, we do the best we can with every hide! |
Jason displays a variety of beautifully
tanned furs and other pelts. |
Our fur tanning process starts with the skins being salt dried for at least 24 hours to set and tighten the hair folicles. These prepaired hides are then
rehidrated in a mild salt bath to clean them and re-soften the flesh remaining on the hide. The skins are then transferred to what is known as a "hard pickle" bath
for an indefinate period of time, but a minimum of 24 hours. When the skins have swelled, they are taken out and the swelled flesh is shaved thin using a hand-
fleshing machine. The skins are put back into the pickle for about another 12 hours to swell again and be carefully shaved thin for a second time, if need be.
The skins are then ready to go into the pressure tanner, with a solution made of several mild chemicals and minerals. This specially created pressure tank gently
but thouroghly tans the hides for up to 8 hours. During the process the hides are inspected and certain chemicals are added to maintain a specific PH level.
When this tanning process is complete, the hides undergo one of two finishing processes.
The wet-tan skins are put directly into the freezer to be shipped and then mounted while the hides to be soft-tanned are drained and partially dried. For the second
group, a tanning or swabbing oil is applied to the skin, which is now known as leather. They are then "staked" which is an action of harshly dragging the tough
leather back and forth across a blunt steel shaft to break the stiffened leather fibers and soften the hide. They are then placed in a large tumbler with a gaged
amount of specific product designed to degrease, de-scent, and further soften the leather and hair / fur. The hides are then re-hung to ensure the complete drying
of any trapped moisture - especially in some thicker furs.
The end result is supple, stretchy leather beautifully tanned right through to the soft, clean fur or hair. Throughout the process Jason carefully inspects the hides to
ensure the proper application of chemicals and best treatment periods for each individual hide. They often require reworking in areas to give the most homogenous
result over the entire surface.
It's a fairly labour intensive job requiring a great deal of hands-on work, but a job which is extremely gratifying for us. We want every customer to have a beautiful
specimen to enjoy long after the hunt is over, whether as a rug, a mount, or other display. Hides can be absolutely magnificent - it would be unfortunate for their potential
beauty to be comprimised - so don't you compromise on the tan! Come visit us at Chilcotin Fur Tannery.
We're at your service.
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