LlanfairI raise sheep and send all my pelts to be tanned. My tanners instructions are just a bit different than Susan's. When the sheep is skinned try to have them fist the skin off rather than using a knife. Also if you are worried about scraping, do less rather than more. The tanner is going to do a final scrape anyway, and s/he will know how to not take too much. After salting, let dry about 3 days, preferably at a bit of an angle so the moisture runs off. After that remove the (quite damp) salt and resalt. After about a week it will be dry and you can shake the salt off. One thing Susan didn't mention is the tail, which my butcher always leaves on. Tanners prefer they be removed. As far as long wool goes, many tanners now paint the solutions onto the skins so the wool doesn't end up being soaked, but either way they usually don't have too much trouble with long wool. My tanner charges me an extra $5 for long wool and I've sent him pelts with 14" wool on them. He grumbles but does a beautiful job. I reccommend the washable tan as you can then clean these babies yourself. (If the wool is too long to consider putting them in the washing machine, you can stomp on them in the tub, but you rarely need to wash them anyway.) If you can't find anyone over there to do this let me know as I use a guy in Maine and DON'T reccommend the guy in Bucks County PA. Don't let them hang arpound too lond as they will attract beetles which will eat holes in the pelt. Think two or three times about doing it yourself as the biggest problem (besides the mess) is wool slippage, and they don't look qquite so nice when the wool falls off...
Have fun and enjoy them. They will last about forever.
PS Jessica has a few of mine in St. Andrews that I sent over for her to sell at a Beltane Fest. I think she uses them for furniture instead.