Deer skins

[Smoky]

Well I had hoped to see more discussion in this area, but I guess I'll start.
This is the time of year for deer hunting in many places. Quite a few hunters care not at all for the hide, just leaving it on to keep the flies off the meat, then throwing it out with the entrails when they get home to cut up the meat.
If you can be there at the right time, sometimes these hides can be had for free. You can do a vegetable tan with plant-derived tannin (oak bark is one kind) so everything is free! You need a plastic bucket, not metal. Clean the hide well, grind the bark and soak it in water. Stretch the hide and work it with your hands or over a stake while it's drying, or it will get pretty stiff.

[NJAC]

Smoky, I was wondering if you can stretch and dry with salt and then at a later point tan with hair on?

NJAC

[Smoky]

You could. I don't use salt, it doesn't help anything if you live in humid tennessee, it draws water to it so make sit harder to dry a hide out. So if you live in the arid west, salt if you must. It just has to be removed later, and where does it go? In your yard, septic tank, sewer?
Some folks freeze hides and work on them later, I just scrape and dry. They need to be kept where mice can't get to them. They will cut the hair off to line their nests.

[NJAC]

That's part of my problem haha..Had to take 2 hides out of the freezer so I could put another nicer one in there. I don't have time/money right now to tan the two older ones that I had to take out. Thought I would just stretch and salt for a few weeks. Never thought about the humidity as I lived in Oregon when I was messing with hides years ago. So you think I could just stretch (not salt)and leave in garage? It's fairly free of mice. Never have seen any leavings of the rotten little critters. Thanks for your help.
NJAC

[Smoky]

That ought to work. Salt does something else we didn't talk about, kills bugs and maggots. Borax will work for that in waaayy smaller concentrations if it becomes a problem

[NJAC]

Thanks alot for your help. :)

NJAC

[lewis56us]

There's a good discussion board dealing with this and other primitive skills at http://p081.ezboard.com/PaleoPlanet/bpaleoplanet69529 and a LOT of information and resources at http://www.braintan.com/
I ordered "Deerskins Into Buckskins" by Matt Richards through Braintan.com. Highly recommended.

[pure_country]

I was wondering if anyone has done the smoking method on deer hides. Here in the Oklahoma Panhandle we can get one buck, one doe and they have a special drawing on Antelope. Was wondering if the smoking method was faster or slower.

[Smoky]

To me, smoking a hide is a finishing step, rather than a tanning step. So it doesn't replace anything. You smoke after you brain-tan, usually. (well, OK I would)
The thing is, you can do it however you want to and you'll get a hide that you can then use for whatever you can. If you're happy with a smoked rawhide, go for it and see what you can use it for.
Somebody please start a new topic. It looks like I'm "hogging the board" lol. ;D

[Penny_Plinker]

Salt is normally used on a skin to draw the water out so the skin molecles can absorb the tanning agent. There is a product called Krowtann that you can use without salt and it is supposed to produce a soft tan. Whatever you decide on to preserve your hide, be sure to flesh it well. Otherwise it will turn out like cardboard.

Penny

[Mac_Muz]

NJAC, You will regrett leaving that hair on deer hides... Untill the last hair falls off that thing will shed gobs of hairs over years of time, it sucks! Deer make better leather for other things, than rugs...

Smoking is a way to make a deer hide water resistant, but that doesn't mean water repellent. What it means is a brained hide will soften and not stiffen as much after getting wet and then drying.

I have only brained deer hides so know nothing of modern chemical tannings for them. An apx hide takes me apx 13 hours of hard work.

One way or another it works like this.. I hopefully get to a deer someone wants skinned, and in 5 minutes it is with just a very few knife cuts at the legs, one from stem to to stern and around the neck.

No more knife after that, and you 'fist' the hide off.

Then it goes into a barrel of water for 2 weeks.

Mean while I get the sinew, the hooves, any bones I want, like that ulna, and make meat... I like the stomach ponch too and so collect it and wash it and turn it inside out to dry.

Getting back to the hide after 2 weeks in water, I toss it over a beam and scrap off all the hairs... I save the long white hairs to be dyed orange..

Once that is done I flip the hide and scrap off anything that isn't hide. Next I add what ever I like to the brains like cream, butter, and simmer it a little bit to create wet paste, and cover the inside of the hide. I fold it right to left along the center of the back, then roll it up, and tie it off gently. That get stacked leaning so it can drain out on to news papers below a pallet.

Only learning to look hard to see if the hide is ready or not tells you when the hide has brained... If it has in 12 hours or so then you can take another look.. If it is really cold it might be 3 days.

Then the hide is laced to a stretcher, and scraped again on both sides as it dries, and that is where the time goes in hard work.

I use stone scrapers and I use steel scrapers from disks of steel I make. A good one comes from saving the 6 inch hole from maing a barrel stove where the pipe fits.

The stone scrapers are flint and chert lashed with sinew to a stick that has the right shape, and is coated with hide glue you make with the scrapings.

After that you may smoke or not depending on whether or not you want a white hide or a tan colored hide...

Done right, you get the softest material known to man.

[BackwoodsDeputy]

Hey guys I have a question. I have 2 hides that I have not even had time to flesh out. Will they be okay If I soak them and then work them? They hides have been in my garage frozen for about 2 weeks. Temps not much above 30.

[backlash]

I used to trade mine to the glove company.
1 deer hide for 1 pair of deer skin gloves.
1 elk hide for 2 pair of deer skin gloves.
That was better than leaving it in the woods.