[i]"I could use advice on whether this sounds like it will work.
- Scrape flesh side of hide over a smooth pole
- Soak in woodash/lime water overnight
- Scrape hair off
- Soak in an egg solution overnight
- Stretch skin and let it dry completely
- Smoke it
I’m using eggs because I did not retrieve the brain. How many eggs would y’all recommend I use as a substitute (this is a small doe skin)?"[/i]
In short, no that won’t work. Here is my short directions.
Soak hide overnight in plain water to remove salt and rehydrate the skin.
Scrape all meat and fat off of the flesh side.
Soak in wood ash or lime for at least four days, stirring as often as you possibly can. Use a large container like a trash can, not a five gallon bucket, so you have plenty of room to stir the hide.
The ash or lime needs to be strong enough (12 on the ph scale) or it won’t be worth using.
Don’t just take the hair off. You need to scrape the grain layer off as well as the hair. The grain is that smooth shiney layer that is on one side of most commercial leather.
When the grain and hair are removed the hide must be rinsed to neutralize the ph (get it back to just below 7 on the ph scale). This can easily be done by placing the hide in running water for a couple of days. Not just a bucket of water, running water. A creek or river works great. The hide must be neutralized if it has been soaked in lime or wood ash or it will never come out soft.
Wring the hide thoroughly by twisting it around a pole.
Put the well wrung out hide into a brain/egg solution. For eggs, use a dozen yolks mixed in a gallon of warm water. Careful that it’s not too hot. If it’s too hot for your hand then it’s too hot for the hide. Work the hide in the brains by stretching it in every direction all over the hide.
When the hide is completely saturated with the brains leave it for another hour or so. Over night is the maximum. Longer will do nothing except make the hide and brains stink really bad.
Wring the hide again then work the hide by stretching it as hard as you can in every direction until the hide is completely dry. This stretching is what will make the hide soft. If you don’t work it, it will dry stiff like rawhide. If you work your ass off for five hours and you stop before the hide is completely dry it will stiffen up on you before it dries and all your work will have been wasted. You must keep working until it’s totally dry.
If it isn’t as soft as you want, re-brain and soften again or, smoke and rebrain and soften again. The smoking and re-braining works really well and makes the softening much easier.
Smoke the final time for color and to preserve the softness.
Now this is still a bare bones description. There are other methods but they all involve work, work, work. If one method seems a lot easier and doesn’t require so much work it’s probably because they left that part out when they wrote it up.
I would highly recommend getting some very clear directions and follow them to the letter. Don’t mix and match different methods until you have had some success and understand the process more.
One online source is nativetech.org. The Dinsmores have posted their method there and it is a good one although a bit different than what I described to you.
Matt Richards book Deerskins Into Buckskins describes the method that I gave you here in more better detail. A lot of people have learned from that book. His site is www.braintan.com.
There’s a ton of bogus bull shit written about brain tanning so beware of that.
Here’s a tutorial I posted on paleoplanet on brain tanning elk hide. I go from fleshing right through to the finished hide. http://paleoplanet69529.yuku.com/topic/15662
Here’s another tutorial that a friend of mine posted. Unfortunately his camera died and he never finished posting it. What he has there is some excellent stuff though. He skips the ash lime step I think.
