Curing Lismore's hide

We didn’t have much luck doing Bif’s hide. The hair slipped because it started to go off while we were still curing it. Probably not helped by it being the heat of summer.
We tried really hard to find someone who would do it for us professionally but we just couldn’t find someone who would take on a single hide.
So we decided to try the alum’tawing’ method we have used on rabbit skins.

I had to scale up the recipe somewhat for the bigger skin and decided on the following:
50 l water
3.15 kg alum
3kg salt

The skin sat damp and salted for a month while we tried to find someone to cure the skin professionally as it is a LOT of work, and also professional tanning can get a softer and often washable result as they have machines to help and can use harsh chemicals that we don't want to work with by hand. Eventually we had to give up trying to find someone as we followed several leads but could not find somewhere that would take a single skin.

Before starting I removed the worst lumps of flesh and fat, there were a lot still on there though and it wasn't a neat starting place like many I see on the internet where somehow they have managed to beautifully 'flesh' the skin. I then put the skins through the washing machine at Intermarché twice to get rid of as much grease as possible and all the salt. This is a 30C wash with washing powder added automatically. Bit of a weird thing to turn up with, but it is outside and self service so got away with it!

The skin then soaked for about 6 months in the above solution in a bin that must be something like 70l. 2 or 3 weeks would have been enough, but life got in the way!
It only got taken out in the end because we killed some lambs and needed the bucket to start processing their hides.

I hosed it off on both sides and chopped off a bit more fat and ook from the skin side. It looked pretty unprepossessing... but I continued on in the hope it would turn in to something worth while. Then life got in the way some more and it hung under a tarpaulin for another few months until Spring. I then washed it quite thoroughly to get the alum and salt out of the hair and remove any excess from the surface. This was with warm water sprayed on with a hose and dog shampoo.

This made it quite wet again so I let it dry to just damp and started working it by putting it skin side down and rolling a section back and forwards over itself. I did this all over for several days until it was dry again. We then had a go at sanding it with the power sander, this worked ok but it was too uneven a surface really which meant that some bits got sanded a lot more than others. So I oiled it with this and continued to work it some more.
https://www.snowdoniasupplies.co.uk/cgi-bin/view_larger.pl?ref=CP84

The skin still had bits of flesh on that we failed to scrape of earlier. Was hard work to sand off, be we did it eventually.

By now it was getting a lot softer so I was able to finish sanding off all the remaining flesh and whatnot from the surface. It took many many hours of sanding, but the result is a nice soft suede-y surface. The skin is still pretty stiff as it is so thick, but much more flexible than before all that work. Good for a rug.

As a final step I trimmed round the edge with a knife to give it a more even and symmetrical shape that looked kind of cow shaped so it was obvious that this was once a real animal.

Now for those sheep skins!