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So, I have a big stack of dried rabbit skins that have been building up over the last few years

I'd like to make stuff from them, but as they are unpreserved I worry they will go bad

Does anyone have a good recipe for preserving theses furs?

Ooh, I'm interested in this too :)

Me too, not that I keep rabbits for meat, but I would like to see what you make from the pelts, I need photographs of your outfits, bet the Grizzly Adams look would catch on in down town Cork

Well its slippers for every ones cristmas presents if I can get a decent recipe

class

Your all gonna love this then. I wanted to do this ever since I was a kid and it took me AGES to find a simple process that somebody else has documented here...
http://www.backcountrysurvival.co.uk/20 ... bit-skins/
Get aluminium potassium sulphate...
http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/?ie=UTF8&keyw ... nao83eij_e
Enjoy peeps!

Nice one daz

You might want to investigate "brain tanning"...

I've done a rabbit skin in the past using oak chippings to cure it but it turned out as hard as a board but after that failure I then tried another fur using alum to cure it , scrapeing it and then rubbing sour cream into it to keep it soft and it worked a treat.


Pete

we tan them using battery acid. I know it doesn't sound good, but it is actually very easy to do. Just soak them in the acid for a week, and then peal off the inner membrane, then soak again. it's just about the easiest way to preserve a hide.

velacreations wrote:we tan them using battery acid. I know it doesn't sound good, but it is actually very easy to do. Just soak them in the acid for a week, and then peal off the inner membrane, then soak again. it's just about the easiest way to preserve a hide.

Does the acid remove the fur?

no, it leaves the fur intact. Here's how we do it:
http://velacreations.com/food/animals/r ... hides.html

here's a photo of a finished hide:

cool

I might give your method a try

Will dried pelts need any extra processing?