Hi All,

I finnaly broke down and built a tumbler for working on animal hides. My question is approx. how much wood chips are you supposed to use when tumbeling a hide? I put in about 1/3 of a barrel of oak and it seems way to heavy. Not that my motor can't handel it but I can't see loading it anymore than I have to and wasteing the chips. It's a 55 gal. drum I'm useing and it turns around 22 rpm. Also how long do you useually tumble the hides for?

Thanks for any help

Neal, I have to ask, why are you tumbling "hides"? Unless your tumbler has a "fall" of a minimum of SIX FEET, it's useless on hides. If you're tumbling birds, as most of us do with that sized tumbler, the best method involves the durm being at least half full to keep the feathers from being beaten up.

Hi george roof,

One of my books says it can be used to tumble the hide in puffed borax to dry the hide quickly if you want to wash it in a cold bath with bacteriacide before salting it. Elsewhere I have read you can tumble the hide in woodchips to remove any excess oil applied after the tanning process for breaking and to shine up the fur.

Thanks