Last year I decided to try brain-tanning a deer hide. I got a salted and frozen hide from Don Sarrazin in Innisville, Ontario. It came with the fur on it and lots of yucky meaty bits too. The first thing to do was to thaw it and soak all the salt out of the hide so I left it in the laundry tub in the basement for a day or too and changed the water frequently to get rid of the salt. The next step was to remove all the meat and gristle from the inside of the hide (the non-furry side).
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Here I am removing meat from the hide using a draw knife, a kind of
2-handled knife. I have the hide draped over a log and braced against my
stomach. I am pushing the knife away from me to scrape off any meat and
gristle.
Scraping the meat off is very hard work. It took hours and hours and my back got very sore. I think I would sharpen the knife more next time but I was afraid to cut the skin. One thing I learned though was that hide is very tough. |
| Here's another shot where you can see the knife better. It's got
bent handles at each side. It takes a lot of strength and pressure to
push on the knife and scrape the meat off.
SSince it was winter time I started doing this in the basement but I discovered that it is very messy so after this I worked outside and got cold instead. I also replaced the log with a 5 ft piece of PVC tubing from the hardware store. It comes in different diameters, mine is 4 inches I think. It makes a nice smooth surface to scrape against. |
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Here I have almost finished scraping the inside of the hide and it
looks white and clean. I am using an Inuit ulu knife to scrape the edges
of the hide.
I'm working outside in my back yard in Ottawa in January. I had to wait for a warm spell to work on the hide because it was frozen solid. At least it didn't smell and there were no flies to worry about. |
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After all the meat is removed the next job is to remove the hair
from the other side of the hide. Soaking the hide in water for a day or
two loosens the hair and makes it come out easier. You don't want to cut
it off, you want to pull it out by the roots. I am doing this here with
the back of the draw knife. One deer hide generates an amazing amount of hair. People used to use it to stuff things but I just threw most of it away and saved a bit in case I think of something to do with it. As well as removing the hair I am also removing the outer layer of skin on the hide that gives commercially tanned hide than shiny look on the outside. |
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After the hide was free of meat, hair and gristle, or as good as it
was going to get, I had to soak it in brains. I bought a pound or so of
veal brains at a local meat market for this purpose. The butcher wanted
to give me instructions on cooking them but I explained I was going to
tan a deer hide with them instead and he looked a little baffled.
I cooked the brains a little bit, mashed them up and put them in a pail of water. I also added a capful of fabric softener. Then I put in the hide and left it overnight, swishing it around as often as I could. Here is am taking the hide out of the pail the next morning, ready to wring it out. |
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Using an old paddle and a pole, I'm wringing the hide out to get as
much of the water and brains out as I can. Are the neighbors watching? |
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Here's the hide after it was wrung out, looking very small and shriveled up. The next step is to let the hide dry but keep stretching it while it does so. If you leave it without stretching it will get hard. |
| There are various ways to dry the hide. You can lace it into a frame and work it with a stick but I invited over my friend Val and we pulled and stretched at the hide for most of a day on and off. I also worked it over a pointed 2 by 4 (you can see the base of this in the bottom tight corner of the photo). |
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| I also tried pulling the hide around a rope tied to a tree. This is
supposed to soften it and make it nice and fluffy. I am holding one end
of the hide in each hand and pulling back and forth around the rope. I'm
not sure that it really worked for me. Notice that I am gradually wearing lighter and lighter clothing in the photos. I did this stage of the hide tanning on the Easter weekend and it was finally above freezing. |
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| Here's the hide after it was finally dry. It's a nice white color and parts of it are incredibly soft. Those are the good bits. Other parts are stiff and hard because I did not scrape enough off or because I let it dry without enough stretching. |
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| The final stage of hide-tanning is to smoke the hide. This makes the
hide water-repellent and allows it to remain soft after it gets wet. It
also gives the hide a nice color and smell. I didn't get around to smoking the hide until June. I sewed the hide into a bag and sewed on extra fabric on the bottom to keep it away from the fire. I hung the hide and fabric bag from a tripod made of 3 poles in the back yard. I built a small fire in an old pot. |
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When the fire was down to coals I almost smothered it with sawdust.
This creates lots of smoke but no flames. Then I put the fire pot under
the hide so all the smoke would go up into the hide. I smoked the hide
for about 10 minutes and then took the fire out and looked at the hide.
It was hardly smoked at all so I put it over the fire again. I ended up
smoking it for a couple of hours. At one point I turned it inside out to
smoke the other side. |
| Here's the finished hide with the edges trimmed off. It is a nice warm orangey brown color. It's not as good as I would like but I learned a lot from my first attempt at hide tanning and maybe I'll try again this year... |
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Judy,
I've just breezed your site and when you start talking computer stuff, my
head clogs; but when you're talking brain tan, I'm right there. I've been tanning
for several years and have produced almost 40 skins, though I can never seem to
keep them around for long.
Your first attempt was well done, but I saw a few things that might make your
next try more successful.
First, lengthen your beam and elevate the bottom so
that the whole thing is more horizontal. This alleviates the back pain.
Second, softening the hide is easy but you do have to remove all of the
epidermis and the membrane. These layers of skin prohibit the brain oil
penetration. Pull the hide for ten minutes in a warm place (hard to find in
Canada) and then let it sit for five minutes so some of the moisture can
evaporate. Keep pulling so long as the hide feels cool to the back of your
hand-this says that moisture still remains in the dermis. Softening does take a
while esp. on thick northern deer skins, but stick with it.
Third, your use of the rope works, but switch to a length of 1/4" copper
grounding wire available at the home stores. This doesn't wear out and still
provides resistance to the skin. Also, pull the hide vigorously back and forth,
constantly moving your hands to keep the fibers moving in all directions.
Fourth, smoking the hide does indeed take several hours, but you can speed
the process up by using regular Elmer's Glue instead of thread to hold the edges
shut. This forms an airtight seam forcing the smoke to penetrate the fibers
instead of flowing between the stitches - the glue washes out with water. Also,
use punk wood (wood that has rotted to the extent that you can kick it apart)
instead of sawdust as it produces a greater volume of smoke and doesn't contain
chemicals.
Fifth, if you note any grain or membrane on the hide during the softening,
rub it with some 80 grit sandpaper to break it up and then reapply some brain
slurry to it.
Sixth, your hide can easily be reworked to soften it more completely. Go over
both surfaces with sandpaper to shed the unwanted layers, re-brain it, and soften
it again. It will come out even softer and more luxuriant than you could expect.
I hope this helps and if you have any questions, just holler. There are
several good books on the subject if you're interested. Loved the mocs and muks.
Vaughn Terpack
Judy,
Absolutely you can rebrain the hide you have. The smoke will actually help
the brains penetrate better.
Whatever you do, do not put lard on it!!! That's an old wives' tale and will
ruin your skin. Just because some Indian said it, doesn't make it true. I've
found that a lot of today's natives haven't a clue. The only reason yours came
out stiff is because you didn't remove the grain completely and didn't soften it
well enough.
The grain, or epidermis, prohibits brain oil penetration and stretching of
the fibers. With it on, the skin will be stiff regardless of how you soften it.
Just sand the stiff spots, rebrain it and work it constantly until there is no
cool feeling anywhere on the hide. If you do have to stop, put the skin in a
plastic bag and stick it in the refrigerator until the next day. If it's going
to be a while, double bag it and put it in the freezer. That'll keep it forever.
I've just finished a goat skin and it came out fantastic. If you have goats
in your area, and I know you do, pick up a skin and tan it during the warm
season. The skin is so thin it makes great clothes. Wonderful stuff.
On the fleshing beam, its top should hit you somewhere between the navel and
the base of the sternum. All of the books show it hitting you 3" below the navel
but this allows the back to bend and creates back pain. With it elevated above
the navel, the muscles of the upper chest and back do the work and the spine
stays straight. No back pain, no muscle spasms. Even though every tanner I know
uses the waist beam, they won't change its height because it is "tradition".
They all suffer from back problems! I guess I'm just not man enough to stand the
pain, so I go with the higher, more horizontal beam. Your use of the PVC pipe is
right on, congratulations!
Whatever you do, keep tanning. It is entirely too fun and rewarding. If you
need any support, answers, networks, just drop me a line. I'll look forward to
reading your web page now that I'm on it. Thanks.
Vaughn Terpack, tanner.
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