Tanning Stage 2

Moving on to the next step with the sheepskins

 I needed a fleshing beam, there was instructions for putting together a fleshing beam on the site were I bought the supplies, I set out yesterday to get a soil pipe and used the saw horse to support the end I needed to stand at, the bottom of the pipe is butted up against a pile of logs

 Salted hide in place it was time to get stuck in with the fleshing

Holding the curved knife in both hands and standing at the top end, you work the hide pushing the flesh down

 You just have to keep working at stripping off the flesh moving the knife downwards then moving the hide over, it really works your shoulders and arms,

 It took me about 3 hours to flesh the hide, I was chuffed with how it looked after, I trimmed off the scruffy edges. I think this is how its suppose to look.

 Next the sheepskin had to be washed to remove the muck  and blood etc, a dunking in cold water then a dunking in warm water with soap, then rinsed out and left to drain

The solution was made up with hot water and left to cool before the hide was put in, it is now soaking in the solution and will be there for 3 days, On Friday I will get the fleece out and flesh the second skin and get that one in the solution.

 A couple of points

It wasnt at all smelly, just the smell of raw meat.

There was no problems with flies

It wasnt slimy  the salt draws out the moisture 

Fleshing really is not as disgusting as I first thought.

Having a curved fleshing beam makes the job easier 

Having the fleshing knife makes the job easier

The fleshing knife needs to be sharp and sharpen as you work.

I was asked in an earlier post what I was going to do with the skins, well a lot is going to depend on how well they turn out, I do like the idea of using them for sitting on when we are eating outside, we have planned an outside cooking entertaining area and having the sheep and goat skins to sit on will be great.