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A few years ago I was lucky enough to draw a Kansas Cow Elk tag. I was also fortunate enough to fill that tag.
It was late November and she had a beautiful winter coat with a nice full mane so I ended up having the whole hide tanned which turned out beautifully. My dilemma now is what to do with it. It looks just fine laying out as a rug but I would like to hang it on the wall to help with wear and tear and to keep the pets off of it.
If anyone has done this please give advice and possibly any pictures you have. My concerns are the pure weight of the thing and how to hang it properly. I'm also concerned about having the leather against the wall. Will any of the tanning materials bleed through and stain the wall?
Any help or ideas will be greatly appreciated!
Ask a taxidermist to block it for you and it will hang flat against your wall and I'd use 1" finishing nails around it securing it to the wall. It's not too heavy for the wall and nothing should bleed out of it onto the wall.
Thanks for the advice Bear Track. What does "blocking" it mean exactly?
You may be able to do this yourself, I should have offered that.
Hopefully you have no holes or maybe a hole from a bullet or arrow might be ok, but blocking is wetting it with luke warm water then fur side down on a sheet of plywood, you'll stretch it out lengthwise then width wise. Use smaller 1" or even 1 1/2" nails to do this. Nail it down so it's relatively even both sides and let dry overnight with a fan on it. Pull the nails and trim excesses where needed and flip over. Comb out carefully brushing front to back and let finish drying for s few hours, and you're done.
I plan on tanning my next elk hide as well; would have done this year's bull but a bear tore up the front shoulder irreparably. :(
My plan is to lay it over the back of the couch downstairs in the man cave.
Laying on a floor or hanging on a couch is not good for the hollow hair deer, elk, moose and caribou have. It's hollow and breaks and at best kinks.
Exactly Bear Track. Tanning and elk or a deer with the hair on is strictly an ornamental show thing. It will take little or no wear or use without loosing the hair.
If fact, in time, no matter what you do a certain amount of the hair will fall out anyway.
Like Bear Track pointed out, the hair is hollow. Its not fur such as a mink or an otter or even a fox. Fur requires a very dense thickness to insulate the animal from the cold. Hair is hollow and acts like insulation for elk and deer. This is why native Americans scraped it off when they made buckskin for clothing.
and hollow hair is why the can swim so well with hooves,they float! hahahah..I wonder if bear have hollow hair id tend to think they do?? MikeC
This is what my wife did with my Africa backskins. Not sure if the hollow hair would prevent this.
This is an old rifle kill that's been hanging for about 40 years. I just used small nails around the top perimeter.
I saw one somewhere where they had it stretched on a wooden frame with legs. The skin side had some type of native American hieroglyphics painted on it.It was used as a kind of a room divider. I thought it was pretty cool looking.
I hung this one over a pipe mounted to the wall with 2 small 2" elbows.
Thanks for all the ideas. Ziek, that is what I had pictured in my mind. I was also considering some type of quilt hanger then just tacking the legs out like that.