The usual and time-honoured method of dressing skins, say a rabbit's skin, is — directly it is removed from the animal — to nail it on a board, and rub it in with alum four parts, and common salt one part, or plunge it in a warm solution of the same for a day or so, taking it out, nailing it on a board, letting it dry, rubbing it down with pumice stone, and plunging it again and again, and repeating the drying and pumice-stoning process until the skin becomes pliable. This is rather an uncertain process, for if well steeped the hair or fur is constantly damp, or dripping even, in humid weather, and if alum alone is used, though killing much of the dampness, it renders a fine thin skin of a parchment-like texture.
However, as anything is better than a damp skin, I have used a mixture of four parts of burnt alum to one part of saltpetre (see Formula No. 9) for small skins, finally rubbing down and dressing the skin with lard, into which a little essence of musk has been stirred, and kneading the skin with the hands in bran to remove the superflous grease.
This, and all other such processes where alum is used, must, however, give way to the following, which I have used for certain skins for years, and for which I was originally indebted to a correspondent in the English Mechanic; his formula was: "Mix bran and soft water sufficient to cover the skins, let this stand four hours covered, before being used, then immerse the skins, keeping them well covered for twenty-four hours (less in India), then take out, wash clean, and carefully scrape off all the flesh. To one gallon of water (hot) add one pound of alum and a quarter of a pound of salt. When dissolved and the mixture is cool enough to bear the hand, immerse the skins for twenty-four hours, take out and dry in the shade, and well rub with the hand.
Stir the liquor, and again immerse for twenty-four hours; dry, and hand-rub as before, and then put the skins for twenty-four hours into warm oatmeal and water, stirring occasionally. Dry in the shade, and when the skin is nearly dry, hand-rub till quite dry."
The only thing I have found necessary to guard against in this is, that the skins must be perfectly fresh before being put in the bran and water, otherwise it will be necessary to rub them in with the salt and alum first. Another improvement is, to tear up the fibre with a little instrument I have invented, or rather adapted (see Fig. 35), which is simply a "hog scraper," ground up sharp all round, and then filed up into short rounded teeth where shown; this will be found of incalculable service in tearing off the hard upper skin or dried flesh and blood, which locks up as it were the true skin, and which must be got at before the pelt will become at all flexible.
Fig. 35 — Scraper with which to dress skins.
Often a thorough wetting of the skin will considerably facilitate this operation. Constant scraping and hard hand-rubbing, similar to a washerwoman's "rubbing" of clothes, is necessary. In the cases of some skins which are obstinate, thick, or have been simply sun-dried, as are many tigers' and leopards' skins sent from India, it will be found necessary to fix them over a sloping board or on the edge of a table, and to use a spokeshave, or currier's thinning knife, to thin them down — perhaps an eighth of an inch all over — then tear the fibre up with the scraper, grease them with lard, to which has been added essence of musk, and punch them for several hours or several days with a "dolly" in a tub half full of bran or hard-wood sawdust; finally covering them with plaster of Paris, or powdered whiting, to absorb the grease; scraping off the old plaster or whiting, and adding fresh from time to time, until the skin is freed of fat and perfectly pliant. [Footnote: Professional workmen often knead the lard into skins by the medium of their feet and hands — not too clean an operation!]
To afterwards clean the fur, dress it down with a "scratch-card" (to be procured of any ironmonger) — steel wire woven on cloth in such a manner that short ends protrude like a wire brush.