:argh: Relaxing an air dried hide is truly a pain vs salt dried. Seems like they never get all the way relaxed. Any tricks?
Use a relaxing agent.
Rittels Super Soft, or Knobloch's Relax-R both work real well.
Rittels is pretty much an extremely, ultra, super duper, highly concentrated soap, with wetting agents. It seems like you could rinse it all day and still get suds, but it never effects the pickle or the tan.
Knoblochs, I have no idea what they put in that stuff but it smells like Pinesyol , and actually cuts grease too.
Both products are capable of hydrating a flint dried Beaver or Otter in 6 hours or less.
The reason they are so hard to rehydrate is because they are pretty much grease dried. The grease protects them until they are dry and when the grease dries, she's pretty much sealed. :madd:
If your in a rush, you can add some liquid soap to your solution, but be sure to rinse it well because anything left in the skin or fur will kick the PH of your pickle.
The good part....unless your dealing with a hooved animal, (which I doubt) or a fox of some kind, your pretty safe leaving it soak the extra time it's taking to rehydrate it, because the whole time it's NOT hydrated, the grease is still protecting it.
Some people....actually I'll retract that and say A LOT of people... think it's wiser and safer to finish rehydrating in the pickle. Give it a whirl if you get nervous. You'll only do it once :innocentwhistle: :laf: