How We Tan Sheepskins into Beautiful Rugs

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[5] NEUTRALIZE AND WASH. Rinse the hide in water, and then give it two washings in several gallons of water which you've added a cup of washing soda. Follow this important step — which removes the acid from the skin — with several launderings in soap, detergent, or Woolite. Rinse until the water remains clear.

[6] DRY AND SOFTEN. Wring out as much water possible, since the wool acts like a sponge and would take forever to drip dry. If the weather is warm, you can hang hide outside. Otherwise, you can proceed — as we did — to a very cautious use of the clothes dryer on its lowest setting. (Lacking both a dryer and a sunny spell, you'll have to resort to a hair dryer, or lots of wringing and separating the wool to encourage the moisture to leave.) In any case, the fleece will dry first . . . and while it still feels a bit damp is a good time to apply saddle soap and neat's-foot oil or leather conditioner to the skin side of the pelt.

As the hide dries, keep pulling and stretching it in all directions. This separates the leather fibers and keeps the rug from hardening like a plank. The skin may look yellowish in areas where the surface is drying, but its hue will lighten as you work. The finished product should be white (or slightly tan from the oil dressing), soft and supple.

Don't think that you can just apply a bit of softening agent to the damp hide and have the skin turn out like glove leather. Pulling, rubbing, and stretching periodically while the drying goes on Is the only way to produce a nice inner surface rather than a brown board.

[7] COMB-OUT. As long as the skin and fleece are damp it's very easy to pull the wool out, so resist the temptation to get on with the brushing until the whole thing is dry. Then draw the fingers of fleece apart and groom the curly mass into a finished product (after which you. may want to add a backing to your rug). Shorter-wooled hides make great slippers, vests, and so on.

That's an outline of the normal operation . . . but what if you can't work on the hides immediately after the salting is completed? Well, just brush the salt off after six days and get on with the job when you're able. The pelts are cured by that time, and in our experience they won't rot as long as you have a cool place in which to store them.

Of course, delay does alter your tanning procedure a bit. Once, a salted hide I started to scrape had so much glop adhering to it that I chucked the whole thing out on the manure pile. Then, four weeks and several rainstorms later, I had a change of heart and went out to get it. The pelt was lying skin side up and looked like a brown plank in spite of its many wettings. Nevertheless, I washed the reject, scraped it some, put it in the tanning solution, and scraped it again periodically while it was soaking. Much to my surprise, the finished product was lovely (and is now on its way to its new owner in Alaska).

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