We've used every size of grain of salt and we prefer the finest salt.  If you obtain salt from your local feed store, ask for a fine grade and if it is available, ask for a white, or bleached, salt.  Regular old, feed-store, throw-it-on-the-steps-to-melt-the-ice salt works fine, except that it is grey and dirty.  It really won't make a difference in the end product, it just makes sense to us to keep the fur or cape as clean as possible the whole way along.

We've used table salt.  We love the fine size of the grains.  (*Don't get salt with iodine.)  Some grocery stores carry table salt or salt for pickling in 5 lb bags.  Per pound, this is a more expensive way to purchase salt.  We go ahead and do it sometimes, because 5 pounds is great size, and it is convenient to carry from one end of the room to the other without making a sandy mess on the floor, and because salt, even at its most expensive, is not really very expensive.

 If you have a surface that you can incline to drain fluids, that is good.  A plastic screen, propped with one end higher than the other works great, as air can get under and around your cape or fur.  If you have a big box that a form came in, cut a slab out of the side of the box enough bigger than your cape or fur and prop one end up a few inches.  This will give you the incline to let the juices run off and will give you a little bit of absorbency so that your fur or cape is not sitting in its own juices.  If you have a plastic tub that is big enough that you can spread everything out nice and flat, use it.  Again, prop one end, if you can, and make sure there is a good cushion of salt under your cape or fur, so that you don't have the sitting-it-its-own-juice-thing going.

As far as actual salting, it's not hard at all.  It's just so important.

Make sure hide is inside-out if it is a tube-cut.  Make sure hair-side goes down (raw side up) if it is a cape or open-cut fur.

COVER EVERY RAW PLACE WITH SALT!  RUB IT IN! 

Cover every raw place with salt again!  Rub it into every raw place.  Again!  Do not leave even the tiniest place unsalted, and then salt it again, again. 

After you are sure that you have laid back every wrinkle, every fold, and rubbed salt in several times, then place a layer of salt on your surface (unless you're using a screen), place your cape or fur (hair-side down) on top of the salt, and then pour salt to cover over cape or fur.  Line every overlap with a layer of salt.  Place a cushion of salt EVERY place that raw cape meets raw cape (lips, ears, etc.).  There are some places that will have to lay on top of each other.  Just be sure you have that cushion of salt in there (and everywhere) and you'll be fine.

Let this sit 24 hours. 

After 24 hours, shake salt out of cape or fur and repeat entire salting process. 

Let this sit another 24 hours.

After this 48-hour salting time, cape or fur should be salty and starting to "crisp up".  This is the time to fold it loosely into a box-sized shape so that it will fit into a box later to ship to a tannery.  If you don't fold it at this point, it will dry all salty and stretched out and you could use the cape for a shovel before you could ever think about folding it.  (Yes, we've done it the wrong way, and that's how we know...)

We don't like to box them right away.  Let them sit around folded and let them dry up before you put them into a box for shipping.  They'll be moist for awhile, and we don't want moist capes piled into a box in the dark corner.

When it is good and dry, it is ready to ship to a tannery.  Never ship a moist, salted cape.  Tanneries have unbelievable back-logs of work, and there is every chance that your box will arrive at the tannery, and be put, unopened, in a receiving room until they have time to check it in and process it.  This is why you never ship a moist cape.  It will have lots of time to get ruined before you see it again, and it is no one's fault.  Tanneries have to run this way, and you have to ship them dry capes if you're going to play the game.