Tanning with Lutan F............

[Micanopy]

Dont know if any of you have tried Lutan F but I have tanned a lot of rugs and furs with it, and even some dehaired deer skins, kinda like commercial buckskins.
http://www.vandykestaxidermy.com/product/108099/lutan-f-kit-2-pound

Lutan F I am told is Hydrocloric Acid once it is mixed with water. Much safer than chromium salts and easier to get rid of as it is not a heavy metal.

First step in the process is of course killing some thing to tan. Maybe not a good idea to test it out on your neighbors dog, or cat, well, maybe the cat, but it should be a wild critter like a coon or deer......
Anyway, so now you have the critter skinned out and you used the knife as little as possible so you dont have a bunch of knife nicks on the inside of the hide. Salt it down really heavy so you can pull the water and fluids out of the hide. I salt them real heavy and then fold them in half length wise and hang them over a line all night.
In the morning I flesh them out and get as much of the membrane off of them that I can. Thicker hides need to be shaved down almost to the hair folicals so that you can break them down easier. Fleshing beams are easy to make and you can even make portable ones. Your fleshing knife does not need to be really sharp for fleshing but has to have an edge for shaving. No, not for your beard, for the critter....

Once you have the skin fleshed out and you have rinsed all the salt out of it, resalt it if you are doing the hide with the hair on. Leave it hanging to draw any more fluids out of it and set the hair. Now mix up your pickle. I use the safety acid that comes with the kit. Easy to use and as the name implies, Safe! Don't drink it and don't mix it in your coffee......
If your doing a deer skin for a rug mix:
10 gallons of clean water
10 pounds of non-iodized salt.
½ oz of safety acid per gallon of water, (5 oz).

It's a good idea to use the PH strips that come with the kit and keep the PH about 1-1.5 KEEP IT LOW, or the skin will tan out hard and you'll be real mad and then you'll say bad things about me.....
Place the skin in the container, always use a plastic container, never metal, and stir it around. Stir it several times a day so that every part of the skin stays wet and is exposed to the pickle.

Over the next 72 hours, 3 days, you can pull the skin out of the pickle, shave it down thinner, and put it back in the pickle. The thinner the hide, the softer it will break down.

If it is a coon or a badger, or bear, fox maybe, you might want to degrease it after the pickle. I've always used unleaded gas to do that. Wear gloves, don't light your pipe while your using gas......... bad things will happen.

After three days of the pickle pull the skin out and rinse it in cool water, then mix up 1 oz of baking soda to 1 gallon of water and place the skin in that solution for about 30 minutes or so. Take it out and rinse it again. Hang it over a line for about a half hour or so and let it drain.

Mix up your tanning solution, its best to weigh out everything so that you have the exact amounts needed, any deviation can cause you aggravation.
10 gallons of water
½ pound of salt per gallon of water
2 oz of LUTAN F per gallon of water, so it would be 20 oz of LUTAN F

Place the skin in the mix and stir it every couple of hours. Its very important to follow the times that come with the directions with the kit! If you leave it in to long it will loose its stretch and you'll be mad!
A deer size skin usually will take 20 hours to tan properly.
After the allotted time, pull the hide out of the mix and rinse well in clear cool water. Drain it until it is damp but not wet. Lay the skin out flat on a tarp or card board. Mix up the tanning oil 50/50 and use warm water, warm enough so you can place your hand in the mix but not so hot that it deep fries your fingers!
Pour the warm solution onto the skin side of the hide and work the oils in all over the hide. I leave them lay in the sun for about an hour so the oils penetrate deeply into the skin. I then take the hide and folt it skin to skin and hang it over the line over night. In the morning I unfold the hide and tie it to the line in the shade so that the air will wick the moisture off the hide. As it dries you can start pulling it to break it down, work it over a breaking beam, or tumble it in a clothes dryer with NO HEAT setting! And some pieces of wood to break it up. Once its nice and dry and soft take a brush and comb the hair out.
The kit is one of the best I have used in 40 years of tanning.

[ThunderHeart]

I love lutan f  it works great comes out white much like brain tan  and the hides seem to break fairly easy . But even at that  I'm workin on gettin my brain tanning down!