How To Make Your Own Un-Bleached Sheep or Goat Skin Rug

This is how we make really lovely sheepskin floor rugs - using only soap, salt, oxalic acid, washing soda and oil. They're so cheap and easy to make and you mostly just need household products to do it.

There are different ways of curing, drying and tanning skins and fleeces, depending on what you want them for. But most use seriously nasty chemicals. Our method is simpler and much less toxic, and they end up perfect for floor rugs or for taking outside by the bonfire, but they are not soft enough for, say, making a coat (you'd need to tan them for that and that's a different process).

So this is a really easy and inexpensive method and you end up with something lovely and warm and friendly -- but it's a little bit stiff too. Ok?

The abattoir should just give you back the skins from your own sheep/lambs/goats/calves. And even if you don't have any sheep of your own, you should have no problem getting some -- the abattoir get next to nothing for them. Pick the best and cleanest you can though, and save yourself a lot of work.

YOU'LL NEED:
Salt -- the cheap and cheerful sort
Washing Soda -- again cheap and cheerful
Neatsfoot oil -- from your hardware shop or saddle shop
Saddle soap -- from the same places.
Oxalic acid -- through your chemist/drugstore or order online. This is the same acid that's found in rhubarb leaves so theoretically you could make your own, but it's very cheap to buy.

You will also need:
a large bath or barrel
Wire brush/comb -- hardware shop or petshop
Somewhere to hang the skins while they dry - which could be a week or more.

The precise amount you use isn't absolutely critical. For each 2 gallon bucket of water, we use approximately:

1 kilo salt (about 2lbs)
1 cup of powdered oxalic acid

Then later, for the first wash,
1 cup of washing soda crystals for each bucketful water.
WARNING -- these go through a smelly stage while they're drying out, so be warned!

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