I know some of you have put long smelly hours into tanning and smoking your own buckskins and furs. Lets see what you’ve done.
I made these pants, vest, and a backpack for hiking or whatever. Not the prettiest stuff by any means, but I like them. I don’t have any good pictures of me wearing them and don’t feel like taking a myspace bathroom mirror shot right now… so maybe later. 
I’ve got a possum-pelt fanny-pack in the works. I’ll post a picture whenever I finish it.
awesome, how do they feel, comfort, temp wise, etc.?
I didn’t do the best job making them, but they feel very comfortable and soft against my skin. I’ve hiked 8+ miles in the pants without feeling irritated. Sometimes I forget that I have them on until somebody says something about it.
As far as warmth, not the easiest to compare to wool or cotton because while they don’t feel extremely warm by themselves, they block wind better than a woven material but also the leather still “breathes.” For some idea of warmth, the pants alone keep my lower half warm when actively moving like on a hike on a cold (30s) day. When not staying real active I wear some merino wool long johns under them for extra insulation in the cold.
Oh and I sewed the backpack and vest with strips of buckskin. I had originally sewn the pants with buckskin too, but I went back and tailored them so they fit better and re-sewed them with (stolen) dental floss.
How do you get your photos to come out big and viewable in your posts? Mine always come out like thumbnails with a link to a bigger version.
How many skins did the pants and vest take.Did you follow a pattern or make your own.Looks like some comfy clothes.
I don’t know, all I did was paste the url to the pictures and that worked alright.
The pants took two big skins, one for each leg. The vest used two medium skins, one for each side. Most people use more than 2 for pants I think, to keep the thickness more consistent throughout the item, but this way works fine I think, as long as the deer gave you big enough skins. The backpack took two smaller skins, and a bunch of scrap pieces for the straps and top.
I cut apart some jeans and a t-shirt for basic patterns but buckskin does not always translate easily to a pattern since a skin doesnt lay totally flat the way woven fabric does. So I made them big and then tailored them to fit once I roughly assembled them.
The backpack pattern I based off a paper grocery bag, haha. Made the bag taller and with a drawstring top. I kind of made up the patten as I went along but I like the way it turned out. I put a hip-belt onto the backpack to make carrying heavy stuff more comfortable.
How did you make the bowl? Is it entirely made of hide? Or did you wrap it around something else to get that shape? How did you make it waterproof?
That elk hide looks wonderful!
Thank you scavenger. I like your stuff too. Nice to see other peoples buckskin. I have a passion for hides and tanning.
My pants are also made with two hides. One for each leg. All the pants I’ve made are like that.
Silver Arrow that bowl is moose rawhide. Not tanned. When the skin is wet you can wrap it around an object like a mold then when it dries it shrinks and gets hard. Then you remove it and it is the shape of whatever it was molded around. In the old days bowls like this were made by staking the hide to the ground over a mound of sand or a large rock. When the hide was dry then the stakes were removed and the skin would be hard and in the shape of the bowl. Another way is to loosely lace the skin into a hoop suspended horizontally off the ground then place a large heavy round stone on the skin and let it dry so it dries in a bowl shape from the weight of the stone.
I love rawhide, it is the coolest stuff. Soft buckskin with lots of fringe has the romance but rawhide is like the duct tape, baling twine, superglue, cardboard, construction paper, staples, etc. etc. etc.
I travel around and give talks to school kids in BC and Alberta about the historic uses of animal skins. I have a fairly big display of all different kinds of things made with and out of skin. I get into uses for other parts of the animals too like sinew and guts and brains. I try to show things that are not what immediately comes to mind for the average person.
I also teach brain tanning.
scavenger,
i was looking at the photo and thinking “where have i seen this picture recently?” i was sure i’d seen it before… now i realize that we are contacts on flickr:) anyways, the skins look great and those pants look so comfortable!
-nemoralis, (landofthetallpines on flickr)
Haha what a coincidence. You’ve taken some wonderful pictures!
My Buckskin short shorts:
My coon skin trucker hat:
The shorts have a few stiff spots in them, and the raccoon hide never really softened. I totally fucked up on it. I stretched it by hand and most of the hair came out. I had just enough to make half a hat, which is why I put it on the trucker hat. It’s really stiff though and it still smells like the brains. I tanned it with it’s own brains but I guess they just didn’t penetrate well enough. I smoked it, but it’s so stiff that I don’t think it matters. Any tips for next time? Should I flesh/stretch on a rack?
I just finished a coon hide, and i hand worked it. I just stretched it all ways, often. as it dried, i worked it like you would on a cable (back and forth) but on the back of a chair, then stretched. pumiced it near the end, and it turned out nice. just a bit tough to get the shoulders soft. sometimes the summer coons lose hair easily. racks are nice for furs, easier not to rough up the hair side, but i find with small stuff i just end up doing it by hand. how did you do the braining and working?
Hey Lonnie, do you ever de-grease furs like racoon before getting into tanning them?
US. I like your skins. I’ve been meaning to make some shorts for a long time. Your hat reminds me of these rawhide sunvisors. Especially the first one, here. The last one is me at a school talk with a moose hide visor on. Kids usually dig the sun visors.
No, i dont degrease hides usually. i find that i can just work the grease into the skin, and it can aid in softening. dont have to use as much brains or eggs that way.
Are you working with fresh hides most of the time then, rather than hides that have been dried and stored for later?
Those raw-hide visors are awesome!
To see my failures with the coon hide check these out:
Most hides i work have been dried and/or salted. I will often drive up island and get multiple road kills at a time, so be too busy processing and such to tan right away. on thanksgiving we got 6 raccoons and one cat in one weekend.
