I want to start tanning my own hides to save money and I’ve read about the rittels Ez 100 tanning kit. What’s your guys thought on it.

Rittle's products are all I've ever used and I've done dozens of skins of most of the species available here in PA.

It's easy to use and produces a nice tan.

Is it cost effective adding time vs sending off 20+ of each species and getting volume rates from the tanary?

Even if not I sure would like to be able to produce my own top quality taned hides
Do they come with simple species specific instructions?

The reason we (my daughter and I) started tanning our own was the poor quality we were getting back from the tanneries. We were getting torn skins, skins with holes shaved in them and sometimes had missing skins or skins that weren't ours.

To be fair, we started out using USA Foxx and Furs because, back then, we didn't know any better. We tried a couple of other tanneries that were better but not great and all had a very long turn-around time.

As far as time/cost, the time-consuming part is shaving and breaking which we do by hand. If I added up the hours involved in that it would probably be cheaper to send them out.

I downloaded full instructions years ago and have copies in the shed. They are not-specie specific but skin type specific.

Thanks .

In my opinion, if you want garment quality skins, you might be better off sending them to a professional tannery. The learning curve to get garment quality skins from home tanning can be steep and take a long time.

If you want to try home tanning, start with a few simple skins - muskrats, mink, etc. And see how it goes. Save pelts like beaver andvraccoon until you get a bit of practice under your belt. Those species have thicker hides and are tougher to deal with.

I agree wissmiss. All our tanned furs are for wall-hangers with the exception of a few coons and skunks that were for hats.

Agreed Lugnut. I have tanned roughly 10 each of beaver, coyote, otter, coon and a couple of gray fox. The tanning part is easy. I believe I used McKenzies. But I haven't come close to anything being supple. Pretty much strictly wall hangers.

I've used it for a lot of furs and have had no problems but I dont get a soft, professional hide. It cold very well be operator error

It takes a large commercial tumbler or lots of hand breaking to get soft hides. Most of us tanning at home end up with stiff hides, but thats fine for wall hangers.

I tan a few. There's a learning curve for sure. I'm into the primitive side of things, woodsmoke or barktan, but I do like Rittel's safety acid.
I've been tanning hides for a long time and still learning. To me, the easiest to do are fox if you can be gentle and mink, followed by coon and coyotes. Muskrats rip too easy and beaver are like trying to soften an oak board.

It gets good ratings on the Fur Handling forum