soap and oil? i hear it works good
anyone ever tan with eggs? I tried and it didn’t work. I used six eggs and a half gallon of hot water mixed together and set the hide in it over night.
stretched it today and it didn’t get soft, but instead is stiff and papery.
any ideas?
I hear that Matt Richard’s book “deerskins to buckskins” tells how he egg tans and it works. Kiliii would probably be able to tell you what to do, I don’t know. You also might find tips on “the hide out forum” on braintan.com or on Paleoplanet
I tried eggs once on a raccoon and it didn’t work. Then I used brains and it did work but I think the eggs might have just needed the soak/wring/soak process repeated a few times, because even with brains it came out stiff and needed to be soaked again.
I’m workin on some buckskins right now and I got the last 5 cans of pig brains they had on a dusty bottom shelf at the grocery store ;D
When I brain tan something, I repeatedly wring the hide out and soak it for 20 minutes. I do this like 5 times with deer to try and make sure the brain penetrates it completely. I also think freezing the hide between braining and drying helps but I am not positive. It doesn’t hurt anyway, but its not primitive.
Whole eggs or just the yolks? Maybe the whites messed it up–the yolk holds all the fat & cholesterol & stuff like that, & probably compares well to brains. . .
Thanks Pete. I spoke with Thad last night and he told me about it. He says he uses 6 eggs (the whole thing) and a gallon of water. He lets it sit over night. He also suggested wringing it out with stick, twisting the hide and stretching it, which i didn’t do. I simply stretched by hand. I’m trying again tonight with a different hide that I scraped today. I let that soak for a bit in the egg mix thinking it didn’t need anymore scraping, but then I looked closer and saw that whoever de-haired it did not take the layer of skin off the hair side… so I had to fucking scrape that off. I got it from a friend raw and have had it for a while. Anyway, so I soaked it and then scraped it and half way through it was so dry that I dunked it in the egg water again. So I hope its gone in enough. We’ll see tomorrow. I want to have some short shorts to wear for Rabbitstick! Haha.
I want to have some short shorts to wear for Rabbitstick!
I am jealous you are going to rabbitstick, but I am kinda glad I will miss the Urban Scout in his short short buckskin shorts.
Nice dude, I fucking stink right now from getting brain water all over myself. Hope your shorts turn out good. Sadly, it doesnt look like I can go to rabbitstick because I was unable to find a ride and cant afford to fly there.
I stink right now too! I’ve stunk all fucking week. I’m sort of used to the smell now, though Penny Scout told me to at least change my clothes. I told her, what’s the point if I’m just going to stretch the hide out tomorrow, I’m going to smell like shit tomorrow too. But I changed anyway. 
Sucks you can’t make it to the stick dude. Hope to see you back around here soon?
I don’t know if I will be around soon or what. Now that I have the idea in my head that I want to buy a few acres of land somewhere, I am actually going to try to save money instead of spending it all on road trips and plane tickets. Still, if I am somehow able to get a car or something I will definitely try to head back to the west coast for a while.
I want to say I’ll go to wintercount and then visit portland during next year’s dry season but nothing is certain other than living in the suburbs and working outdoor retail fucking sucks! At least I will be able to build a stereotypical survivalist bug-out-kit with my employee discount… 
Tanning is just a matter of getting Tannins (preservative) and Fat (to soften and elasticize) into the skin. Brains are great becus every animal, on average, provides exactly enough brain matter to tan it’s own hide.
If you do it any other way, what are you doing with the brain… It’s disrespectful to the 4 legged friend to discard it when it is so readily available, coming included in the package with the hide…
nd is it right to damage more life just to avoid the brain matter of the friend that gave it’s life for you.