Seeing the work that goes into this makes you understand why we used to repair clothing before purchasing new clothing all of the time. So cool. Thank you for showing this process! Excited to apply this knowledge at some point in the future.
Woniya you are the freakin best. Thanks for your passion and sharing the knowledge you’ve acquired. I’m 35 and I’ve only just begun to explore my relationship to the natural world. You are one of the best resources available to people like me who started this journey (relatively) late in life. ✊🏻
So, I am not a veteran at skinning large animals and that twitch muscle was something I struggled with! It was still on my hide and I found it was hard to remove because there were what seemed like points of attachments every so often that were SO STRONG! I am hopeful to skin my next one without getting that twitch muscle! Also, I am only using flint napped tools and only what you can find in nature. I would love a good resource that doesn't use ANYTHING modern!!
thank you Simon! I am working o putting together online courses on this for a lot more detail so people can really dive in and do it themselves. these videos are just introductions.. Sign up for the mailing lists on my website for more information, www.buckskinrevolution.com
I'm on my way through your tanning videos because I really want to try this myself. Although I will be starting with the orange bottle method. But your knowledge and instruction are awesome! Thanks for the info.
@@BuckskinRevolution It is a pre-bottled tanning solution available at some sports outfitters that is marketed as an all-in-one tanning solution for hides. While it does work okay, I do not prefer using it ( it is a tad bit nasty smelling). www.cabelas.com/shop/en/deer-hunters-trappers-hide-tanning-formula
When skinning a deer and want to get a real good shape it is important to make the cut over the "knee"...on the frontlegs go from the knee straight to the middle of the body.
I usually skin deer while hanging from hind legs. They are spread on a gambrel and I find that the butt is where the knife is used the most and the neck. My knife of choice is a butter knife shaped blade. I used to try to remove the hide as clean as possible. That was exactly wrong. It's easier to flesh if you leave the slabs of side flesh on. And as the host said put that knife down.
When the deer body is still warm you can separate the hide from the body just my pushing your hand threw both layers it's the best way to get a undamaged hide
Do you know of any enzymes that would help in the breaking process of making a hide very soft? I want to run some tests on different strips of deer hide with bromelain, pineapple juice, fabric softener, and laundry detergent as a method of removing the glues within the hide itself. But in the spirit of not re-inventing the wheel I wanted to know if you already tested some of these methods out. I heard of Innuit people literally chewing their hides to work them and that got me wondering about whether it was all just the mechanical breaking of the hide with teeth that was doing the work, or if the lipase in human saliva was contributing to that too. Thanks in advance!
Loving your videos, so far. I just found your channel today and it's answered a lot of questions I'd had. Though, it's also raised one I didn't think of before. You mention this method removes the grain, allowing more permeability in the leather; as compared to the bark tanning method. In the portions of the respective videos, it shows you scraping the hair covered top grain side of both hides. Which leaves me a little confused about the subtle differences between the two. In bark tanning, are you just scraping enough to cause the hair to slip the follicle? Or, is there a bigger difference between that step in the two methods?
Most often brain tan has the grain removed and bark tan does not, but you can bark tan scraped hides and brain tan hides with the grain on. In these videos though yes, for bark tanning I am simply pushing the hair out of the follicle but leaving the grain intact. For buckskin I am scraping off the top layer of the skin, known both has the "grain" and the "epidermis" though some would say there is a slight difference between these two terms. regardless, they both come off for brain tan buckskin. Yes, there is a big difference between just slipping the hair and scraping the grain. The first is quick and easy, the latter is serious work
@@BuckskinRevolution I see. That clears that up. Thank you very much. As I've said before, your videos are very informative. I'm just getting into leather working as a hobby and I like to explore the processes of this kind of thing from beginning to end. Funnily enough, my first attention grabber towards this information was about authentic book making/ repair. I like to research all the details, down to resource acquisition. I've been looking for the how's and why's of tanning for a few months now. And your videos are the first examples of bark tanning I'd gotten. Partially, because I didn't know I had to specify that I wanted to see traditional EUROPEAN tanning. Lol. Nobody else has gone into quite as much detail as you have. They only do the basic "cookie cutter" "follow these steps" kind of content that doesn't explain what each step does or why we do it. You've definitely satisfied my curiosity, that has been driving me crazy. And with my ADHD, that's saying something. Thanks for your time.
great to hear! I teach how i like to learn. I can't stand it when someone just says, "do this, then do this". I want understand the processes and why i am old to "do this", so that's the way i teach. so glad it's helpful!
no actually, it is a muscle, just as I said. there are no tendons attached to the skin. An understanding of mammal physiology is one of the benefits of skinning a lot of animals, but I also have a masters degree and have taken mammalogy courses and done dissections in an academic setting, as well as a lot of hands on experience, so I feel pretty confident in my assessment here
It depends on the hide and the conditions. Until the hair is slipping from the follicle is the general rule, which can take anywhere from 1-5 days depending
Christopher Rowley Hi Chris. Yup, exactly. In an ideal world, one wouldn't have to flesh their hides. That said, membraning and fleshing are similar, and fleshing does remove some membrane. The difference though is that the hair; and even the grain to some extent, cushion the hide and make it hard to get a good grip on the membrane with the scraper. you therefore can't memebrane thoroughly until after they are removed. That's why we scrape the flesh side first to flesh it, then scrape the grain, then scrape the flesh side again to remove the remaining membrane.
@@BuckskinRevolution do you flesh prior to soaking? I’m about to go pick up a hide from a processor today and planned to go ahead and start soaking, but I should flesh it first? Also I’m anticipating the hide will be unusable because of score marks but we’ll see
@@wayfinderali Hi Ali, Cool! So exciting that you are getting ready to dive in! Yes, I always flesh before soaking unless there is some very good reason why I cant. You want some bacterial action to help et thee hide ready for scraping, l but not the kind of gnarly bacterial cesspool you will get from soaking a hide with meat and blood and such, that gets very funky very quickly and also really increases the risk of infection for you in handling the hides, etc.
there is no set time, it depends on so many factors like temperature, the thickness and state of the hide, etc. the sign you are looking for is the hair slipping from the follicle when you tug on it. it will also smell a bit at that point, but you don't want to let it go until it gets too gnarly and really smells like death
well, not really, honestly. if you know what you are doing you can scrape hides a lot faster and still do a thorough job. You just need to be sure to be thorough either way regardless of your scraping speed. But i would agree that it requires both patience and stamina- they are not going to scrape themselves!
I have always done the deer grain/membrane in two works but you do them together after the initial hydroxide soak? I just put a cow hide in the hydroxide preparing to scrape. First time ill be working with a trampoline lol and any extra pointers (even though ive done many deer) would be great!
i used..about 250 grams of lime.. for 2.5 days.. bt it made some holes in the skin.. and when i put it in a solution of alum and salt, most of the parts of the skin got very thin and some parts got dissolved in the water.. why it happened? i used lime more then needed?
hard to say, there are many factors. Lime shouldn't be able to damage a hide like that, but both Lye and Potassium hydroxide can, is it possible you were actually using those? Was there plenty of water for the hide to swim around in and was the hide fully submerged the whole time? Did the water or parts of it ever get too warm, like in a black bucket where the part facing the sun could heat up?
@@BuckskinRevolution yes the water was not much i guess.. now can u give me some suggestions, that i can do the process without damaging the hide.. 🙂🙂🙂🙂🙂
You can absolutely use a fresh hide, that is totally preferable. Storing them is for if you either don't have time get too many to tan all at once during hunting season!
When using hydrated lime, do you need to rinse out the lime before moving on to scraping, or do some people begin removing the grain without rinsing the lime out (and maybe balancing out the ph)?
Most scrape the hide first, while the grain is still swollen by the alkalinity, making it easier to see. With lime hides swell less than with wood ash or lye though, and it can also react with oxygen in the air and turn back into limestone, so I like to rinse it briefly ( a good dunk, 5 minutes or less) to be sure there isn't any lime on the very surface, and I never leave it out for more than and hour at a time or let it dry out until l Ive brought it back to neutral pH
Thanks! And when you say you don’t leave it out for more than an hour at a time, how would one inexperienced person go about taking the grain off when it will take multiple hours. Do you have to keep hydrating the hide to make sure t doesn’t dry out to much?
I’m interested in brain tanning a hide and have been for a few years. I have this stuff called pH up which is a plant fertilizer that is alkaline and meant to change the pH of soil. Would that work for soaking the hide?
You may cover this later but I soaked my hide in water and it froze. I could not get it out for too long and now it smells, is there any way to remove the unpleasant odor?
With deer and game animals it's not good to push your fist or fingers through when skinning because sometimes they have arrows left in them that will cut you. Pulling is a good practice though.
good point, this technique requires knowing how the animal was killed. if taken with an arrow, checking for an exit wound and using a different technique if there isn't one . That said, I have skinned countless deer with this technique and have hundreds of folks in my network who do the same and have never heard if an injury resulting from encountering an arrow or bullet fragment. As in all things in life, knowing the risks and ramifications; weighing the benefits vs risks and proceeding with wisdom and caution is what is called for. Always and never are rarely helpful terms in my opinion! Calculated choices made with understanding are the way to go!
Yes it's a good technique for sure. I just saw a butcher who does a lot of deer say sometimes these deer are wounded and live with arrows in them until the next hunter harvests them. It's probably a rare occurrence though. I enjoyed your video and I'm gonna try tanning a skin i have. My only question is can I use regular store bought eggs.
Hi Darren, Yes, it is rare but I am sure it happens so always wise to be cautious and prepared for anything! And yep, you can use store bought eggs. I recommend only using the yolks though, not the whole eggs
Any suggestions on what (natural substance) to use to dye a hide black after the ‘tanning’ process is complete? I would love some black or super dark brown buckskin
Adding iron to a dye bath with tannins makes a nice dark brown to black, but it is also hard on the hide and makes it more taut; more brittle, and quickens it deterioration. That's the trade off with black! In old museum pieces clothing often lol a perforated where there were black designs because the hide had dissolved there! That take a while though
Dan Rowland 8/29/2020 I have parts of an Elk hide that the hair is not coming off. Most of it just came of very easily. I have put it back in the lime solution three times now and am concerned the hide will be ruined. Any ideas? Thank you
It is hard to say with just this info. I offering mentoring in tanning and other skills via sage.fm, you can get to that service via my website and you are welcome to set up an appointment with me to have a more detailed conversation about it. www.buckskinrevolution.com
Унас где я живу,мясники шкуры очень чётко снимаеть без дефекта , но редко кто умееть ручной обрабатоваеть шкуру .Я сам обрабатовал мелких животних как кролик , ондатра, лиса и тогдали.
Right, scored raw hide is as weak as scored buckskin, so you still want to avoid the score marks on your raw hide. It s best to use as lacing so you can cut around the scores.
@@BuckskinRevolution yeah, there's lots of useful bits left on there between the scoring and what I can't salvage gets twisted up for the pups. These are the best videos I've ever seen on how to do this. I particularly like the cable idea for breaking and stretching. I've seen the post used before, an old plow bit, even a dulled axe stuck blade up in a stump but that's the first time I'd seen a cable used.
@@BuckskinRevolution I suck at tanning tho lol can't get the bucking part down aways get them too swollen and rip the hides while graining. I've used koa or whatever it's called and ash lye. Only one that's came out good was a fur on deer. It was scraped on plywood, sanded and brain tanned it.
