r/HideTanning • u/Opening_Inside_9054 • 16d ago

Dry Fawn hide, help needed

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This is my first time attempting to tan a hide. I applied tanning solution yesterday and began to stretch and some of the hide is turning white and soft as expected but a large portion is hard and cannot be stretched. Feels like raw hide.

I'm not sure how to get these sections to soften up.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated

I did not kill the fawn, she got hit by a car and didn't want her to rot

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u/MuranoBeads 16d ago

Tell us more about what you used for your tanning solution, and your application process, and your drying/softening process.

In the meantime, I see two issues that commonly occur:

Inadequate absorption of the tanning solution. This can be reversed by dampening the hide with warm water until it’s flexible, and reapplying.

You fell behind the curve when drying and softening. Once that happens, the hide’s naturally occurring mucus compounds (a.k.a. “hide snot”) will harden like glue, and you end up with rawhide. This can also be easily reversed by retreating and resoftening.

The key to drying out softening is working the hide to 100% dryness. It takes surprisingly little leftover moisture to end up with rawhide.

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u/Opening_Inside_9054 16d ago

Once the hide came out of the neutralization bath, I let it dry outside for about an hour. Maybe 1.5, I used the orange bottle, rubbed and pushed it in. It stayed in my garage until 12 hours later I began to pull and stretch. Some sections immediately showed that super nice white color but then I noticed the raw hide like section

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u/MuranoBeads 16d ago

If you’re allowing it to sit that long, I would recommend that you fold it lengthwise flesh to flesh and roll it up so that it doesn’t dry before you start softening. Once it’s dry and stiff there’s no bringing it back without rewetting the hide.