Making buckskin leather.

[biggamefish]

I was wondering what the best way to take the hair off of a deer hide? I was going to soak it in hardwood ash then scrape it off. 

@Dinorocks what is your best method?

[grampy]

I too would be interested in this! Always wanted to try it. 

[The_Real_TCIII]

@Dinorockswill be along shortly

[Bolt Action]

Following..

[crappyice]

Great resource ...until Dinorocks gets here!

 

[Dinorocks]

That’s a great book!!  In general, I flesh the hide, trim it so it’s easier to work with, and soak it in ash/water.  Sometimes I’ll cheat and use sodium hydroxide/water.  The purpose of soaking it in the high pH solution is to cause the hide to thicken so the hair, AND the grain can be removed. ..it gets a rubbery texture.  Neutralize the hide by soaking in water…keep checking the pH until it drops from 14 (caustic) to 7 (neutral).  Next you apply the dressing; brains, egg yoke, or commercial dressing (or inner bark from an oak tree or similar).  After it is in the dressing for a day or so, I squeegee it, and re-apply the dressing.   After the enzymes have penetrated the hide (note the neck is much thicker than the legs or belly) the real work starts…breaking the hide.  If you break it successfully, the next and final step is to smoke it…I use punky wood from a cherry tree…don’t use pine.  The smoke costs the fibers and makes it waterproof and bug resistant.  Important…If you do not remove the grain, you will have leather (with a pebblely surface) (that is after you apply dressing and  break it.)  If you don’t break it and let it get stiff,  it is called rawhide.  If you remove the grain and break the hide, it is called buckskin (very soft…if you properly break the hide).  If you do a poor job of removing the grain, it will show on the finished product.  I remove the grain as I remove the hair so you don’t loose track of where the grain is (very hard to see when the hair is removed first).  Lots of tricks and techniques along the way…  Again, that book is great! I recommend reading several different sources and coming up with your own amalgamation.  
 

good luck and feel free to email me with questions (dinorocks@gmail.com)

[Dinorocks]

If there is any interest, I could post a “step by step” when I make buckskin from one of my deer hides.

[grampy]

1 hour ago, Dinorocks said:

If there is any interest, I could post a “step by step” when I make buckskin from one of my deer hides.

That would be awesome Dino!!!!

                     Thanks!!

[biggamefish]

You use the term removing the grain. What do you mean by this? How is that done? Do you use litmus paper to determine the ph?

[Dinorocks]

2 hours ago, biggamefish said:

You use the term removing the grain. What do you mean by this? How is that done? Do you use litmus paper to determine the ph?

The grain is basically what the hair is rooted in.  I use a fleshing knife to remove the fat and the grain…the hair comes off when you remove the grain.  
 

I use pH/litmus paper to test the pH so I’m not guessing.   

[OldBrian]

Here is a video I made a few years back about a friend of ours Rob and his brain tanning of deer. Towards the end of the video are some pictures of various items that were made from brain tan deer hides.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LENVweuZcT4&list=PLk-y4vVi7WGOJHhWIWnOfIPqxWewXWFRf&index=2

[Dinorocks]

My brother butchered his deer yesterday so I’ll use the hide to show you how I make buckskin.  

Before I go any further I want to state a disclaimer; there are many ways to make buckskin…over the course of tanning many hides, I learned by trial and error, reading lots, and picking the brains of those who have much more experience than I do.

After skinning the deer for processing, I trim off the scraggly ends off, unless I have a plan for them in whatever I’m making with the buckskin.  This time I trimmed it.

Next I want to remove the flesh (fat, meat, membrane).  I use my fleshing beam and a fleshing knife.  Sometimes I go ooga booga …using stones or other natural items to remove the flesh.  

Once the hide is fleshed, I prepare my high pH bath…hardwood ashes or lye or something else that is alkaline.  I have a fire going in my stove and cannot get to my ashes so I’m going to use sodium hydroxide (strong drain unclogger).  I added about 1/3 cup to about 20 gallons of water in a plastic garbage can, stir, and make sure the pH is 13-14.  I put the hide in the solution, stir, and then weigh the hide down with some rocks so it is submerged.  I use some large pieces of quartz as the quartz will not react with the high pH solution…if you use something made out of iron, the iron will permanently stain the hide.

I’ll leave the hide soaking for a couple days, stirring it sporadically and checking that the pH didn’t drop.

Below are a bunch of photos illustrating what I described above.

I’ll be back after the hide is ready for the next step.

 

 

[Dinorocks]

…photos are a little mixed up (??) and I accidentally included a tooth puzzle I’m working on this evening ;-)

[Bolt Action]

Having a better understanding of all the effort that goes into these projects makes me appreciate the end result that much more. 

[Dinorocks]

Last evening I checked the hide I had soaking in the alkaline solution, it got rubbery as expected, and was ready for me to start the next step, removing the hair and the grain.

As I mentioned previously, by soaking the hide in the alkaline solution, the hide thickens, making it possible to see/remove the grain after slipping some hair.  I slip a very small section of hair, scrape the grain layer off, and then repeat the process.

Following removal of the hair and grain (a very messy process), I neutralized the hide by rinsing and soaking it in water…changing the water as needed.

Once I confirm the hide was neutralized, I removed as much water from the hide as possible (squeegeeing and wringing).  Next I stretch and pull the hide, in an effort to open all the fibers so the hide would accept the dressing (brains are the dressing for this tan).  Regarding removing all the water from the hide, I like to use the analogy of squeezing all the water out of a wet sponge…the sponge is now ready to soak up water…like a sponge;-) If I didn’t remove the water from the hide, the dressing would not be able to properly penetrate the hide because the water was in the pore space.

As I mentioned, I’m brain tanning this hide so I took the brains out of the bucks I harvested and my brothers doe (his doe is the hide I’m tanning).  Every animal has enough brains to tan it’s hide.  I wanted to use extra brains because I’m going to do a double soak to make sure the dressing fully penetrates the thick (neck and upper back) parts of the hide.  

I defrosted the brains I recently froze, placed in a bowl, added about a cup of water and squeezed and squished the brains into a liquidy paste…a blender or mixer works great but, although my wife wasn’t home, I didn’t want to deal with cleaning it.  I then added about 1.5 gallons of water to the liquified brains and brought the mixture to a simmer for about 20 minutes until it was grayish white in color.  I let the mixture cool just enough so I could put my hand in it and then I added the hide.  After I sloshed the hide around, making sure all of the hide was in contact with the mixture, I covered it and left it to soak until tomorrow.

Below are photos of what I described (hopefully they upload in chronological order so it is easier to follow along).

I’m happy to try and answer any questions you may have.

Dino