Short course on hide tanning...

by (Login tommyatkins)

First you salt the hide as described in my first answer to this post. Next decide if you want the hair on or the hair off the hide. If the plan is to make gloves,wallets, or other leather craftings you probably want the hair off. If that is the case the next step is to remove the hair. To do this you will need some hydrated lime(builder's lime) I got mine from a brick and concrete outlet. It's amazingly cheap. Mix a pint of lime to each gal. of water. In a couple of days the hair will start to fall out. If you add pot-ash (hardwood ash) in equal amounts to the lime it will speed the process. When the hair is removed rinse well with water. If you want the hair on the hide skip the previous step. Now your ready to 'pickle' the hide. You can pickle the hide a couple of ways. The first and easiest is to buy a commercial product made for this purpose. I use Van Dyke's 'saftee acid' mixed with water and non-iodized salt(canning salt). The other meathod is to mix water, canning salt and sulferic acid(battery acid) to make the pickling mix. A day or two in the pickling solution will be enough. You can tell when the hide is fully pickled when the skin side of the hide is snow white instead of a bluish color. Rinse the hide with water. If the hide is streached and dried at this point it's called rawhide and streached over a frame makes an excelent and interesting lampshade. Now at last comes the tanning. The tanning chemicals used depend on what results you want. Alum mixed with salt and water for a creamy white leather. Sodium bicarbinate and sulforic acid for chrome tanning(bluish-green color), or vegetable bark tanning for a deep brown color. True vegetable bark tanning requires several months of soaking so most buy a spruce extract compound made and sold for the same results in a mater of a couple of days. My own preferred meathod is to use a Van Dyke's product called Luten-F (an alum) which produces a snow white leather that is very soft. All the things you need can be bought Directly from Van Dyke's on line or through Caballa's(who buys from Van Dyke's). If you buy from Caballa's you get a kit that contains all you need from start to finish and detailed instructions, but only enough for a deer hide or several small hides. I bought cabella's kit for the first try then went on line to buy direct(and much cheaper) from Van Dykes. Tanning isn't for everyone but I like to do it.

Posted on Dec 9, 2008, 8:32 PM
from IP address 75.100.231.14

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Thanks for the great tut.... on Jan 1, 2009, 1:07 PM

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