Road kill sporran in wating

[Kiltman]

Roadkill sporrans, wonderful! Hope to see some photos of the finished sporran.

[tyger]

How do you keep the hair from falling off the deerskin?? I've tried making pouches with the fur on and after awhile they get kind of ratty looking as the hair falls off.

A common problem, caused by bacteria. Proper salting and pickling will result in a hair hide that will not bald:

1. The skin must be fresh. At an ambient temperature of 60F, fresh means 1 hour or less. At 32F, fresh means 4 hours or less. The skin must be removed from the carcass immediately, and excess fat and meat must be removed from the skin.
2. The skin must be salted immediately after 1 above (see my earlier post).
3. After salting, the skin must be pickled. The pH of the pickle must be 1-2 before you add the skin. Keep the skin in the pickle for72 hours. I stir the skin every 24 hours.
4. Neutralize the hide in NaHCO2 (sodium bicarbonate) for 20 minutes.
5. Procede with tanning, etc.........

Some finished hair hides wear better than others. Deer hair is hollow. Hollow hairs are great at insulating, but they are easily broken. So, a deer hair hide doesn't wear as well as most other hairs. For a dressy sporran, this really isn't a big deal. If it were a sporran worn every day, eventual wear would become visible, and thus an issue.

An aside: If you are given a skin, consider: how long was it from the time that the animal was killed, to holding the skin in your hand? I suspect some folks get a skin 6 to 24 hours after the animal was killed. One can expect a lot of hair loss on a skin like this!

Another aside: Moths can infest a otherwise perfect hair-on hide. They will chew and break hair, and those hairs will be lost from the hide.