Lets see some skin!

Regenerative & Transitional Technology Shelter
#14

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?

#15

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?

#16

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.

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#17

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.

#18

Are you working with fresh hides most of the time then, rather than hides that have been dried and stored for later?

#19

Those raw-hide visors are awesome!

To see my failures with the coon hide check these out:

#20

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.

#21

US, your story about the coonskin hat at the airport cracked me up!!!
That wierd broken chair thing looks like it was made for working hides over. You should appropriate that thing.

Wow Lonnie sounds like you live in roadkill central there. By “cat” do you mean house cat or bobcat?
If you feel like posting how you tan your furs I’d be very interested in reading that.

#22

By cat I mean an exceptionally large feral house cat.
I’ll run through my usual process with furs. After I remove the skin and flesh it (usually), i either salt it and dry it, or if it is very hot out, just dry it in the sun in a meadow. When i want to work it i let it soak in the bathtub until it is well saturated. Usually there is still at least a bit of fleshing work to do left, so i do that now. I then, eaither begin hand stretching periodically, or rack my hide (i only rack larger hides). once my hide is starting to dry a little bit, i rub in brains or eggs and let sit a while, then continue working when it has soaked in (sometimes, instead of this, i just add bear fat periodically as i work my hide). if my hide is on a rack, i work it with a 1x4, if not, i work it over a wooden chair back. when hide starts to get dry, i fluff it up with a pumice stone. then smoke it.
right now i am doing a goat hide with the hair on, should be done by bed time tonight.

#23

Cool, thanks for posting that. What’s a cat skin like? are they real thin? I’ve tanned bobcats. I was actually surprised at how sturdy their skins are.

#24

Buckskin shirts-

Here is a picture showing the way to cut and fold a deerskin to make a two-hide buckskin shirt. First cut along the horizontal line, The bottom piece becomes either the front of back of the shirt. The top piece, folded along the verticle line and attached to one side, becomes one sleeve. Do the same thing with another matching hide and it becomes the other side and other sleeve.

The hide in the picture is maybe just a tiny bit larger than average for the area where I live. One thing about these shirts is that, they are fairly short. They don’t come down very much past your waste if you are my size.
I prefer to make shirts for myself using three hides like the one pictured below. This shirt comes down over my hips so there is not as much draft coming up under it on cool days. This one uses a hide for the front, a hide for the back, and one more for the sleeves. Of course there is leftovers that can be used for smaller projects.

#25

Cat skins are thin but sturdy. really actually my favorite to tan. Last one i got, we trapped it in the morning, and by nightfall the skin was wonderfully soft and i smoked it the next day. i just wandered through the woods, working it on branches while doing other things. quickened the drying by rubbing hot stones on the hide. soft as rabbit fur, but actuallt structurally sound.
those are really nice looking shirts. ive been wanting to make one lately, luckily for me, i’m small just like the island blacktails.

#26

I tanned the hides for this wedding dress. The brides mother made the dress and the mocassins. Three deer hides for the dress.

#27

does anyone have expreience tanning salmon skins - or know where i could get some info on how to?

#28

Hello Miles-
I haven’t done it myself but what I’ve heard of has been bark tanned.
I’m guessing you would need to degrease them before tanning with the bark. A couple of washes in a good grease cutting dish detergent could do that for you.
You have a lot of hemlock over there so I would think that would be a good bark or oak bark or sumac leaves if you can get them. Doug. fir is supposed to work good too.
Make your bark solution as strong as you can. Salmon skins are thin enough they should tan through pretty quick.
After they are tanned through, oil them good before you try to soften them.
This is all speculation, but based on my other bark tanning experience.

Let me know what happens and how far off base I am ha ha:)

#29

During my sojourn in the Russian Far East (Khabarovskiy Krai), I visited a museum in Vladivostok in which I saw some indigenous Nanai salmonskin clothing. Amazing! I wish you the best of luck - the clothes looked really beautiful and sturdy.

#30

Hey Billy,

I’ve had that Deerskin to Buckskins book for a while but never really gone through it (even as I was tanning my hides). Penny was looking through it just now and caught the photo of you in it! Nice stash dude. Haha. That book is insanely good.

#31

Hah! yeah that picture is from about 12-13 years ago now I think. That mustache would be pretty much all white if I grew it back now.

I saw some fish skin stuff in the Alaska State museum in Juneau a couple of months ago. Really beautiful. That stuff didn’t really look tanned. It was transparent like it was just stretched and dried.

#32

hmm… sounds like alotof room for experimenting, thanks for the ideas billy!

#33

hey billy,
is there a reason you suggested to start w/ a really strong tannin bath?
i put some degreased salmon skins (i used dish soap, then a final rinse of urine that seemed to really cut the grease right off) into a strong hemlock tea at least 5 days ago and they still dont look fully tanned thru (i have added more strong tea a couple times). i think that maybe they got shocked by the first bath being too strong - either that or i am just impatient and need to wait longer for them to tan thru. what d’ya think?