Tip for Pickling Hides

 

Pickling is the process of taking raw skin and stabilizing or stopping deterioration. Pickling plumps the skin making shaving easier and also stops the bacterial breakdown. Skin is made up of two types of protein, fibrous and globular. Globular protein is the unwanted protein of the skin.


A good analogy is a tree, the limbs being the fibrous proteins, the leaves being the globular proteins.


An acid salt-water pickle washes away the water-soluble globular proteins leaving open sites for the tannins to attach to. Without pickling, tanning would be incomplete.


McKenzie offers a comprehensive line of Pickling Agents in various quantities.


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