In your tanning instructions you say 1 pound of aluminum sulfate to 1 gallon of water.and you say 1 cup of salt and 4oz of washing soda to half a gallon of water.i have several skins in an 8 gallon pickle.i don't think 1.5 gallons of tanning solution is enough to submerge them.can i just quadruple your tanning solution recipe and get it up to 6 gallons of water?

I've used Boco's tanning method several times now for Beaver. The smaller hides turned out great. Had some issues with the larger hides. I posed some questions about alum tanning on a taxidermy site, and they gave me some recommendations (basically tweaks to Boco's method) that have worked out for me.

Tweaks:
. Instead of 1lb of Alum to 1Gal water. I'm using 8oz Alum + 8oz Salt / Gallon.
. Add skins at the lower PH, which allows the Alum to penetrate deeply into the hide.
. After a few hours add washing soda to raise the PH and set the Alum. Not mixed with water.


Here is where I'm at with this method: (Based on 5 L/XL Beaver pelts at a time)

Out of the pickle let them hang for 20min and wring them out. You don't want the hides to be filled with pickle. Like a squeezed out sponge.
8 Gallons water. 4lbs Aluminum Sulphate 4lbs Salt (based on the salt you use this is about 8 cups for me). Mix well
Add skins. Don't over crowd. Should be somewhat floating.
After 2 or 3 hours. I pull/drain/ring the hides over the solution and set aside.
Add the washing soda (not mixed with water), little at a time until the PH reaches 4. For me and my water I'm at around 16oz. This part takes awhile. If you add too much at one time the foam on top is thick. I'll leave it sit till the foam settles so I can get a proper ph reading.
Add skins back in one at a time.
Leave them sit for 4 days, checking PH at least once a day. My issue, is that after the first day the PH has dropped a bit. So I need to add more washing soda.
Pull them and give them a good RINSE. Don't need soap. Cool water. Need to wash all of the Alum out of the hair. If you don't, after they are fully dry they will emit dust clouds of alum.

If they still emit dust clouds, I'll hang them, reverse the hose on my shop vac and blow them completely out.

I've been having really good results. They come out pretty soft after oiling and stretching. The bigger ones I do put a sander to after they are fleshed, stretched and dried. Before I tan them.

Shout out to Boco. Thank You for sharing your knowledge.

Don’t you still need to thin the leather somehow to make it soft?

Awsome thanks dadn3boyz

You can get the leather soft without thinning. Thinning just makes it more pliable.

I hit mine with some heavy grit sandpaper and that made them really nice. Eager to try it again this spring! Got two raccoon in the freezer saving for home tanning.

I've tried thinning using all sorts of things and all sorts of times, except frost scraping. I've tried thinning during pickle and after tanning. But no matter what, I just didn't get the results I wanted. These days on the larger beaver I use an Angle Grinder with a flap disk on the dried hides before I start the tanning process. Need to be very careful because it is easy to apply too much pressure and sand a hole. But, doing this on a dried hide is pretty fast since the amount of hide to sand off is minimal since it is bone dry. By doing it at this point, the tan has less hide to penetrate and I'm not trying to sand off thick tanned hide.

I tanned 30 beaver this summer. I had great results and made several mistakes. I'm still new to tanning, with these 30 beaver, I've probably tanned 50+ beaver, couple dozen coon, a bunch of rats, and 10 otter. So still working out the kinks. Large Beaver and rats have been a challenge. I've used various tanning methods, so far Boco's method had yielded the best results. Otters and Coon come out great without any fuss. Large Beaver need to be thinned. My rats never as soft as I'd like. Always slightly crinkly. Once I've got the beaver down, I'll put more effort into the rats.

. If you have slippage during hydration, the actual start of the slippage most likely happened between the time of trapped and boarding. I'll skin the beaver, then rollup and freeze. Then when the weather warms I'll put up as time permits, then tan. My slippage most likely happened due to not putting up the thawed hide as soon as i should have. I had a few thawing in the fridge for too many days.

. Only do as many hides at a time that your tubs can handle and you can effectively handle in each step. For me it is 5 large/xl beavers at a time. With 30, yes it took awhile. I had hides in all various stages at one point, and then I realized I was not giving each batch the proper attention. So don't rush. Now I'll sand them all. Then put 5 in hydration. Once those 5 are in the tan, I'll start hydrating another 5. I turned several good hides into damaged by trying to do too much at one time.

. You can re-use the pickle as long as it is clean, the right PH and the right salination. Not the Tan. When you put the hides in at the low PH they are absorbing all of the tan. Once they come out the Tan is too weak to re-use. Once Hydrated, I wash and degrease them good. Then into the pickle. So I can usually run 3 batches through my pickle before creating a new one.

. Over those 30 beaver I had some hides that were fantastically smooth and others a bit rough. I started to realize the rough ones were the ones I either didn't do a pre-sanding or I only sanded the shoulders and down the middle. Even though the sides don't need sanding/thinning, by giving them a quick sand really made a difference in the end result.

. Every step from getting them out of the trap, thru the put up, and each step of the tanning is just as important as the rest. One mistake in any step will have an effect on the outcome.

Great information! Thanks.i have a medium beaver,coyote and red fox in bocos tan right now.will se how they come out.i was also thinking sanding them when they are dry would be a good way to thin them.i would like to invest in a fleshing machine one day for thinning but man are they expensive!