Salt drying pelts vs. air drying pelts ?

If a hide is to be tanned, either with a home kit or sent to a tannery, is there any difference in the end result between drying with salt or air drying on a board ? Most tanning kits say to salt the hides to " lock the hairs", but doesn't air drying do the same thing ? -Thanks

That is incorrect. Moyles accepts pelts that salted and then dried. They d not accept hides that are still wet/damp from salting. I know a company that has sent hundreds of dry salted pelts to Moyles without any complaints from them.

I also question your second statement. I’m quite sure there isn’t any salting in the tanning process used at Moyles.

In my 25 plus years of having pelts tanned, there is NO difference in outcome between air dried and salt dried. End of story.

A local tannery told me to salt them rather than board dry. That was beaver.

Not quite correct.
https://moyle.net/resources#skin-prep
They won’t accept “damp salted hides”. Salting is the way I learned to prepare taxi specimens. It is beneficial to the drying in turned out areas of the pelt, eyes, ears, nose, lips, and feet.
Now mind you I have extremely high humidity and moderate temperatures that do not encourage drying of heavier leathered animals, bears especially. With salt they are potato chip dry in a few days and have had excellent results from Moyles and New Method.

I have sent salted beaver and Otter skins to Miles and had great results, and no complaints. The Skins were dried to the point that you could still fold them up, but not nearly flint dry.
If you are going to home tan your skins it's much easier to wet them back in the pickling solution if they are salted than if they are air-dried. The salt helps suck up the water easier.

I have tanned a lot of furs using Rittel's products. Their instructions include a different procedure for salt-dried skins. It's something about rehydrating, an extra step not needed with air-dried skins. I don't remember the specifics because I don't salt any skins, air-dry only.

Salting is an unnecessary step.

You still have to rehydrate salted skins, there's just less risk with a salted hide and the air dried needs a bit extra protection

I salt dry everything I intend to have tanned. Much safer, easier, and never had a problem using Moyles

So, don't mean to be a dummy here but.... so you flesh like normal, then instead of boarding, you salt the hide?

Correct. In addition you would turn the lips, eyes, nose, ears, and feet prior to salting.

Really don't need to turn anything unless you're doing some form of a mount.

Many animals, bear, wolves, wolverine, have simply too much meat in between their lips, nose, eyes, feet, and ears to properly dry for taxidermy quality mounts without bacteria getting a foothold and causing slip. Drying with salt after turning these parts is pretty cheap insurance that the specimen will be of the quality a taxidermist seeks, especially considering most are bought online without the luxury of inspection prior to purchase.
Even the old NAFA and current FHA fur prep manuals specify that hides be prepped in this manner, minus the salt.

I'm certainly not up to speed on how fur buyers want certain skins put up these days, but aren't there certain species where you leave the saddle on and such? If that's correct, then no, you don't flesh like normal. You want to take all of the meat off. You also want to turn the ears inside out. I split eyes, nose, and lips out of taxidermy habit I guess, never tried tanning anything without.

Saddle depends on species and how much fat under the saddle. Around here there's nothing that requires the saddle off but occasionally you might get a butter ball that needs the saddle be removed

Those animals are the exception to the rule and almost always sold as complete animals so they need to me prepared as if for the taxidermy market.

To me, salting is kinda a safety thing on iffy hides... If a fox's head is bloody for example, I'm gonna pack salt in the ears to ensure they dry well. I don't salt most of the furs I tan, but I will if there's any question of possible bacteria growth.

That's the other thing.... taxidermists generally can't trust the hides they get in because they don't know how long it garvrhing that resembles an animal has been in the back of the truck.

Would borax accomplish the same goal and would i have any effect on tanning?

I sometimes use borax under the arms and in the ears of red fox not drying quickly enough for my liking. They are for selling to the fur market, not for tanning.

I am a tanner(not a commercial tanner).
Salt skins will tan just the same as air dried.Salted skins rehydrate quicker than air dried.
Salted skins need to be fleshed and fat removed same as air drying,if not they have a shorter shelf life than air dried(grease burn and the resulting degradation of the skin fibres happens much quicker in salted skins than air dried skins),
Salted skins are prone to attack from the halophilic bacteria in storage.This is due to salt dried skins picking up moisture from humidity in the air.
You will see it as a pink or red colour on the hide.
Salted skins that dry hard will be damaged if folded-the skin will crack-a properly air dried skin can be folded without damage.Grease burnt or skins dried with heat will also crack when folded.
A bulk of salted semi dry skins are much heavier than air dried-(a consideration for shipping).
Salting is an added expense,normally used as a shortcut to avoid a little extra work.

IDK. Borax has a high ph...Somebody gave me a heavily boraxed Beaver hide to tan for a wall hanging. I pickled it but it was really weird. No stretch at all

I kinda figured it would mess with the ph balance if there were enough of it on the hide.

Borax is not good for tanning. You've really gotta keep an eye on the pH as borax raises it and you'll have to do some fiddling to keep the pH in the proper range.

Hundreds of pelts I've sent to Moyles salt dried as well as large hides buffalo and elk, salted then folded while drying for smaller shipping package.

Never a problem with any of them and consider it a safety net for spoilage if shipped with in a year, done this for almost 25 years now, not one has slipped.

Always give the head more salt even though I work them all down to taxidermy grade, it's just safer due to the small pockets on them, I also turn the ears for better tanning.

Never use Borax for the answers given PH is a large concern for proper tanning in the garment field not so much for just showing a pelt.

Moyles does not accept wet or green pelts, only flint dried, or salt cure out, will accept moist salt cure if there is no dripping, if your are doubtful about how to do for keeping or shipping just call the tannery, lots of taxidermist's save their cost on tanning and shipping by doing tan's them selves, they are not garment tanning shops though, there is a difference in the end result and process.