Tan your next deer hide for less than 30 bucks in your own bathroom. Jun 09, 2016 harmony cronin calls her vagabond beginnings on the fringe of yellowstone national park trucksteading. There are many different methods to braintan a deer hide or at least many variations on the same basic process. Tan your pelts with natures tools traditional tanners.
Some version of braintan was produced in nearly every part of the world, at some point in history. Brain tanning, professional grade, and store bought are the three methods covered in this 2 hour dvd. We cover everything from fleshing the hide to breaking the leather. Hunters frequently discard deerskins because they do not know how to tan them or wish to avoid paying exorbitant fees for professional processing. Braintan deer hides, classes, articles, and raw skins. How to tan a deer h ide follow these steps for tanning a deer hide, complete with time requirements and tool recommendations, to make your own beautiful, quality leather. Brain tanning is still the simplest method of athome tanning, and you dont need many special tools. Hide tanning part 1 fleshing a deer hide twisted stave media. In alan probsts tanning your own animal fur or deer hide dvd you will find the best kept secrets and money saving tips. The tanning agent that is used in this method is brains, often the brain of the very animal whose hide you are tanning.
I use both an opening beam and a steel cable to do this and i talk about the. This taxidermy training dvd covers each step of the hide tanning process using a whitetail deer hide, but the same techniques could be applied to any animal skin. For more information, tips and the full step by step dvd visit roberts website. No matter what youre looking for or where you are in the world, our global marketplace of sellers can help you find unique and affordable options. Support me by using this link whenever you shop on amazon. We provide furs for sale, hides, deer skin gloves, custom tanning and native american made hand drums, powwow drums and native american indian drum kits. Harvesting every portion of a carcass is part of the hunters ethos. Tanning deer hides and small fur skins guide l103 jon boren, terrell t. Tanned hides and furs click on these categories to explore our current inventory of tanned furs, hides and pelts.
Here ill show you how i brain tan deer hides starting at the very beginning with fleshing. How to braintan a deer hide in 8 steps outdoor life. Sep 01, 2004 anning a deer hide is a rite of passage, cementing blood ties to our hunting forebears who depended upon skins for warmth and who respected slain animals by never letting any part go to waste. There are many different methods to braintan a deer hide or at. For saving skins with the hair on, i would prefer to work them fresh or freeze them. This video has all the information you need to do it yourself. How to tan a hide using several methods backcountry chronicles. Raised by a nonhunting family in denver, cronin spent her early 20s bouncing around the west, sleeping in the beds of friends pickup trucks and seeking the sorts of people and knowledge that she wasnt exposed to earlier in her life. This is a how to tan a deer hide stepbystep picture tutorial that will send you on your way to tanning deer hides successfully.
The history of brain tan adapted for the web from a chapter in deerskins into buckskinsby matt richards when most people think of buckskin they envision long fringed indians on horseback or adventurous frontiersmen on a remote mountain hunt. Ever want to try tanning hides but got overwhelmed by all the convoluted steps. Hey guys, i am not an expert or anything, but here is how i did my hair on brain tanned wall hanging decoration. This video provides clean instruction on how to tan a deer h ide from start to finish. Hair on hides are very difficult to do with brain tanning. How to hunt morel mushrooms like your life depends on it. Etsy is the home to thousands of handmade, vintage, and oneofakind products and gifts related to your search. Mar 29, 2019 learning how to tan a deer hide is not a difficult task, but it does take some manual labor and a lot of time. Brain tan is ideal for clothing, bags, beadwork and all kinds of things such as shoelaces, pot holders, hair ties, holding parts of your truck together. For softer, tanned deer hides, theres the historic method of brain tanning.
Hides can also be tanned by soaking them in tannic acids derived from tree barks and certain plants. Outdoor lifes brad fitzpatrick has good information to braintan a hide in eight easy steps. Game animals, such as deer, have enough of the right kinds of acids in their brains to tan their entire hide. Brain tanning deer hides waldhandwerk bushcraft survival. John milandred this is a basic brain tanning video used by the pioneers.
Dec 18, 2017 follow these stepbystep instructions on how to tan a hide. Brain tanning deer hides is an exciting and really, really rewarding process. Tanning hides with brains is a lost art, but many traditionalists still use this technique. Every animal has enough brains to tan their own hide. We do not use neats foot oil in this type of tanning, but some folks do. Do you really think the kind of person willing to stick a deer brain in a blender and then stick his hands into the brain emulsion as part of a long physically exhausting manual process is going to complain about the lack of studio lighting. Step by step hide tanning using the brain tanning technique for deer and other hides. How to tan deer skin while leaving the hair on gone. Download preserving hides for tanning, salt, dry or freeze. But few natural substances have had such a long and successful track record as animal brains. But if you are not able to get the brains from your animal, you can purchase a pound of pig brain from your local butcher for a decent price. Sep 28, 20 in part 4 of 6 of this brain tanning series i show you how to work a brained hide until it is completely soft and dry. I started experimenting with tanning deer and other wild animal skins so i could. Tanning spirit notes and updatesbraining as the story goes, each animal supposedly has enough brains to tan its hide.
Hurd, and glenn mason1 because preserving hides and furs is an ancient art, many successful preservation methods have been developed through the years. Instead, more than 90 percent of the tanning performed in the united states is called chrome tanning source. Four pelletfueled smokers to enhance your outdoor cooking. Tanning a deer hide is a great way to use a little more of the animals we harvest. And dont expect to have much left in your hands for banjo until its done. Native americans used wood ashes to remove the hair and used brain matter as a tanning agent. Learn how to prepare game hides, from a most unlikely instructor. Fleshing deer hides for tanning or drying, natural leather tanning by skillcult. Deer hide tanning manataka american indian council. Add the brains to about a gallon of water and stir well. Treating a hide with a tanning process ensures youll end up with a supple piece of leather that can be used to make shoes and clothing. The end result of your manual labor is a pliable deer hide you can use for any number of projects, including a wall hanging, rug, drape, caps, or vests. Tan your pelts with natures tools adapted for the web from a chapter in brain tan buffalo robes, skins and pelts by jim miller our ancestors lived very close to. A better measure would be one pound of brains to a deer hide.
How to tan a hide taxidermy videos how to tan a hide on. The problem was that i did my normal online search for instructions and youtube videos and came up short. Brain tanning deer hides fur on discussion forums banjo. Urine, wood ashes, tree bark acid, and even toxic substances like mercury have been employed over the centuries to tan skins into useful leather. Learn how to process wildanimal hides to round out your selfsufficiency skills. In part 1 of 6 of this brain tanning series i cover the basic tools needed to scrape a hide with the wetscrape method, how to obtain hides, and. Native americans used animal brains as a natural emulsifier to soften and preserve hides. Braintan deer hides, classes articles, and raw skins. If you hunt deer and other animals for their meat, why not use their hides as well. The hides from deer, moose and elk are all strong and pliable but none of them make good rugs because the hair falls out too readily. Check out our deer hide selection for the very best in unique or custom. How to tan a deer hide start to finish by jaehart outdoors. Making brain tanned buckskin is an important outdoor skill. Check out our brain tan leather selection for the very best in unique or custom, handmade pieces from our leather shops.
An overview of tanning hides both ancient and modern methods. Chrome tanning employs chromium sulfate, a kind of salt, as the tanning agent. The easiest way is to acquire brains is to buy them. I remember how frustrated i got when i searched online for simple instructions on tanning hides and could find nothing that made it actually possible for me to feel like i understand what needs to be done from beginning to end. Vdyoutube preserving hides for tanning, salt, dry or freeze. I still have that semi soft piece of buckskin which i use as my sewing bag as a needle will never pierce it.
Deer hide scrap by the pound soft garment weight pelt fur tanned leather taxidermy. The best they had were brains from the animal the hide came from. The finished product, buckskin, is not named for a male deer a buck but is named for the process of putting the hide in a lye solution called buck or bucking, so the hide can be anything, not just a deer. Everything you need to know about tanning animal pelts. Jun, 2016 brain tanning deer hides waldhandwerk bushcraft survival. If i have several deer hides tanned and rolled up in my pack, i can stack them and have a warm and comfortable sleeping pad. Braintan is an ancient method of tanning hides that involves dressing a raw hide with brains, or other natural emulsified oils softening it with manual labor to produce soft buckskin and smoking it to preserve the softness. Learn hide tanning at home with this complete, step by step taxidermy training dvd. This method of tanning leather is low cost and low labor compared to other methods.
Every year tens of thousands of deer hides are discarded so if you dont have access to one of your own, its not to difficult to find a hunter willing to give you one. Nov 30, 2011 before the advent of chemical tanning of hides to make leather, animal skins were subjected to all kinds of strange concoctions to degrease and soften them. I have not tried these methods of tanning a hide i got tanning solution off of ebay. We have the best quality at the best prices in deer, elk, buffalo, cow, goat, bear and horse. Salting keeps skins in a semi wet state so salted hides are easier to resoak for tanning than dried skins.
In this segment ishow how to get rid of all that alkalinity from the hide, with out this step, your hides will never come soft. Brain tan made easy brain tan buckskin by braintanbuckskin. The deer were purchased from a woman who has a relationship with hunters in her area. Its deer season, so you can preserve your deer hides or hides you collect for tanning later by freezing, salting or drying. Deer hides arent great hair on anyhow unless theyre just for looks and not use. Tanning hides was so much work that a use was found for every little bit of the final product. If i can do it inside a fifthfloor manhattan matchbox apartment, it can be done anywhere. My first attempt was dry scraping, learning from jim riggs book blue mountain buckskin. Jul 19, 2016 native americans did not have these luxuries, and had to use what was available to them. Tanning the hides would also teach me a valuable skill that i would not otherwise learn. Use bone marrow grease for buffalo only which is what oil is substituted for, but deer, antelope, elk, and moose, get just brains. Brain tanning a deer hide wilderness awareness school.