There are a lot of ways to do it. Some are very simple and some are a bit more complicated. Most start with getting the blood out and draining the moisture. I have used Curatan from Van Dyke's Taxidermy for about 10 years. I scrape the hide as clean as possible, salt it (use non-iodized salt only, very cheap at the grocery store), roll it up fur-side-out, and tilt it to drain overnight. Wash off all the salt. If there are a lot of blood stains or the hide is very greasy you can give it a quick rinse in dish detergent but you have to get ALL the soap off within about 10 minutes or the hair starts to come out. Then it goes in an acid bath (called pickling-kills germs) until it plumps up. You will need a few pounds of salt for it too. For a small hide like raccoon it takes a couple of weeks, deer takes about a month. After that I rinse it off to remove all the acid chemicals in a mix of water and a little baking soda to neutralize the acid. Follow the instructions for whatever pickling chemicals you used so you don't over neutralize it. Over neutralizing makes the tanning agent not penetrate well. Hang it up to drip till it is moist but not dripping wet. Spread it out skin-side-up and apply Curatan or whatever tanning agent you will be using. As it dries over the next weeks pull and tug a bit at the edges to keep it soft. You will see that as you work the hide the parts that are drying first will turn suddenly lighter as you stretch them. Keep doing that until the whole thing is the lighter color and it is no longer damp. Depending on if you want a wall hanging or something very soft for a hat or mittens you can keep stretching the hide or leave it as it is. The more you work with it the softer it will get. For a nice finish you can lightly sandpaper the flesh side. I have used this method on quite a few deer, raccoon, and squirrel hides and it works very well. I have also just recently started using the Alum tan for rabbit hides (so simple I was shocked) but have not yet tried it on raccoon. Here is a link to that way of tanning-
http://www.motherearthnews.com/Homestea ... bbit_Hides I tried Quebracho bark tanning on a deer hide. You soak it in the stuff for several weeks after the acid bath and before the drying and stretching. It came out with a nice chestnut brown leather and the hair holds well but is very stretchy so I haven't figured out what to use the hide for. Most taxidermy supply companies have online sites and all the chemicals you would need. Buy a kit instead of separate chemicals at first so you know you have everything you'll need. They all have different names for their favorite tanning kits but the basic steps are similar. 1. salt & drain 2. pickle 3. rinse 4. apply or soak in tanning agent 5. stretch and work the hide into leather