of pelts includes scraping, tanning, and softening, and in some ways resembles the manufacture of leather. The fur dresser receives pelts that have been stretched and dried to preserve them. A pelt is first soaked in saltwater to soften the skin and stop bacterial action. Workers called fleshers scrape away bits of fat and flesh adhering to the skin. The pelts are then placed in a pickling bath of potash alum or ammonia alum and salt, to which hydrochloric or sulfuric acid is added to decompose the salts and make the skin opaque.

After the skin is rubbed with an oil compound, the pelt is placed in a kicker to be softened by beating. The pelts are then cleaned by tumbling them in revolving drums containing hardwood sawdust. Some pelts are washed in a weak soap solution.

Of many methods of tanning, one of the most common is oil tanning. The cleaned pelts are first moistened by being tumbled in damp sawdust. Next, the flesh side of the pelt is coated with cod-liver oil or other fish oil. After drying for a few days, the pelts are washed in a sodium carbonate solution, and rinsed.

After tanning, pelts are dried, then staked (stretched in all directions) over a stationary, dull metal blade to make the leather flexible. The furs are combed, brushed, and beaten with flexible rods or strips of leather to loosen the hair. The final cleaning is completed by tumbling the pelts in drums containing hardwood sawdust.

Furs are dyed for any of several reasons—to improve the colors, to eliminate the work of matching skins, or to make them look like more valuable furs. The furs most often dyed to resemble better furs are marmot, red fox, rabbit, muskrat, squirrel, opossum, raccoon, and lamb processed as mouton. Many of these furs can be made to resemble marten, seal, chinchilla, mink, or sable.

Before furs are dyed, they are put through preliminary processes to make the hair more receptive to dye and to improve color fastness. There are two methods of dyeing. In one, the fiber tips and guard hairs are brushed with dye; in the other, the entire pelt is saturated with dyestuff. The chief dyes used are wood dyes and tannin; mineral dyes, such as potassium permanganate; oxidation dyes, such as aniline; and coal-tar dyes, such as acid and chrome dyes.

consists of gluing badger hairs (sometimes one by one) into other pelts, such as fox. The process is often used on pelts that are sparsely haired, or when better quality furs are to be imitated.