Thursday, September 23, 2010

Brain Tan Experiences of a New Tanner

9/21/10:
I decided I'm going to post my newly learned lessons from my experiences here. I've only been at it 2 weeks now, but jumped into it ready to learn from my experiences. Judging from what I know now about tanning in this short time. I know that my ancestors of the sioux people were very tough! Tanning is a very difficult job! I do it the easiest way I can, using pneumatic tools, etc. If you need to see visuals check out the "how to" videos at the bottom made by a gentleman. He did an excellent job. The best way to learn and understand about what he's talking about is by just getting out there and doing it on your own.

These are some of the things I started out with. 













Materials:






1 or 2 Sharp Buck Knives

Dry Scraper - You can buy one or make a traditional one. Our people used a elk antler. The handle was the antler and nowadays I would use a flat tempered steel scraper tied into a slit that you will have to cut into the elk antler handle. It had the same basic shape as this store bought version here in this link (copy and paste)  http://www.braintan.com/mm5/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=1&Product_Code=DRYSCRAPER&Category_Code=Tools

Softening Cable (or rope) - This needs to be sturdy. You do not want a rope that will unravel. This will be used to break and soften the flesh up if you are making buckskin. I believe our ancestors used raw hide rope, braided together. I just purchased some metal cable 1/2 " from the local farm store with clamps to hold it to a tree like you see here in this link (Copy and Paste)http://www.braintan.com/mm5/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=1&Product_Code=Cable&Category_Code=Tools

Wet scraper - There are various shapes and bends of this tool. this one here is straight, it would work just as well as the one I use, which is concave. http://www.braintan.com/mm5/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=1&Product_Code=Planer&Category_Code=Tools. This is not the tool I use, but this is the closest to it I can find at the moment. This is how you will use your wet scraper. Click on the link. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3C95HXZ8hAQ There is also a pneumatic flesher. This takes less effort, but takes off less flesh and fat in one swipe than if you were doing it manually with a blade like the scraper. However, it is still very effective with thinning your hide. I own one of these now. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u-s3EDjZP28. There is also a table top version of a wet scraper which uses a large 12" circular blade. You can see that here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tEwoJto14Sc The scraping beam works very well with the wet scraper. Use these to together often. The beam you see in the youtube video takes a almost surfboard shape for capes of small animals that are basically peeled off. 

Water Container Bins - You may not need 3, but if you are making buck skin then you may have more than one hide soaking at a time. You may have to soak them for days on end, so in that time you might receive another hide. If you are working on only one hide and you won't use your materials again for another year or so then 1 water container will be fine. If you are making a hair on tanned hide then a container to soak a hide won't be needed.

Hydrated Lime (Or Calcium Hydroxide) - If you want to speed up the process of de-hairing your animal hide you can use hydrated lime. I bought mine on amazon.com for 30$. I'm sure its cheaper, but I didn't look anywhere else. Again, you might be able to find some at your local farm store or co-op. It comes in a powder form. I bought a 25lb bag of it because I plan on tanning a lot of hides. I haven't learned exactly how much to use yet. I poured about 3 cups of it into a 5 gallon bucket with my hide. It will loosen the hair follicles in less than 24 hours. However, I believe that using chemicals will make your hide just a little more stiffer than if you didn't use it. It may be very little and almost unnoticeable, but if you want super soft buck skin then just soak your hide for a few days until the hair starts falling out. When you pull on it with your fingers it should come right out. 

After you soak your hide you want to soak it in a base Ph solution. straight water with a couple hand-fulls of baking powder or a couple cups of vinegar will neutralize the Ph in the hide quickly. Let it soak for a while, 5-24 hours. You need to bring the Ph levels back to 6 or 7 inside the hide. Ph paper may be good for measuring your water Ph and even the water coming out of your hide if you're going to use chemicals. You can use straight water, but the water will have to be changed periodically.

Note: Hydrated lime makes your water a alkali. The alkali levels is what loosens the hair quickly. Some people use acid substances to drop the Ph, which will do the same thing and loosen your hair. 

If you don't want to use a chemical wood ash works just as well and will have the same effect on your hide as any chemical. My choice of chemical use is simply because making wood ash takes a little more effort than just dumping in a cup of pre-made powder. Again, Ph paper will help you measure the alkali level of the water if you are unsure of how much to use. If you leave your hide in the solution for 3-4 days or more it won't hurt the hide at all. 

Stretcher:  You will need a large stretcher. You want your stretcher to be a foot or two bigger than your hide all the way around so you have room for stretch when you string it up. I have a 10'x10' square stretcher made out of 4"x4" boards that are 10 foot long. For deer hides 6'x6' of 2"x4" may be sufficient or 8'x8' of 2"x4". Keep in mind that when tanning large animal hides like buffalo or elk the hides are wet and will be very heavy. They will bend your frame if it is not sturdy. You want an extra foot or two all the way around your hide before the stretcher meets the hide. That allows for room to stretch when you're scraping or working brain in. 2 inch by 6 inch boards work well too. Bolt, screw or nail them together so that the 6 inch side lays flat on the ground. 

Rope: I'm unsure which rope is best right now, but I have learned one thing. Your rope has to be able to hold a knot well. If its stiff and don't tie well then it won't keep your hide tied down and will loosen continuously.

Scraping Beam - I made this out of 2x4s and a 6 foot long piece of 6" PVC pipe that I got at the local hardware store for 8$. You will throw your wet hide over the PVC pipe (beam) and with your "wet scraper" scrape away the meat, fat, and hair. I have found this to be the fastest way to get rid of all of the above. I tried it the old way too. I strung up my hide on the stretcher and scraped on it, but it was a very slow process. It will probably take you 4x longer to scrape a hide on the stretcher. That's just my best guess. When scraping hair off use the dull side of your wet scraper. When scraping fat and meat off use the sharp side. Don't forget to get as much of that loose stringy tissue off too that seems difficult to remove. Just do the best you can. I built this gadget myself. Whatever works best for you is how you want to build it. The idea behind it is to place the PVC pipe in such a way that your hide will dangle over it and you have room to scrape across the beam. At 1:20 into this video <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FDMxq0CPne0> you will see her scraping the meat off her hide. This is the basic purpose of your fleshing beam. However you prefer to place your beam is what is best for you. This is a very good video on how to use your scraping beam <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HDo3Deeo9no&NR=1>

Salt - I bought a 25lb bag of fine grain salt at the local farm store for 5$. Fine grain works best, although coarse grain will work too. Its just harder to be absorbed into the hide. The idea is that the salt sucks the moisture out of the hide. Allowing it to dry fast. You're going to do this if you need to dry and store a hide to be tanned later. lay your hide flat on the ground or on a plywood. Pour salt in the center and rub it in deep as possible. Salt is cheap so use the whole bag if you have to. Rub it in with your hand if you like. I use my feet (shoes on or off). Not because it works better but because I'm a big dude and getting down on my hands and knees is difficult and painful. After a day look at your hide with the salt. If it is still wet in some areas and missing salt, apply more and do the same step over again until it is dry. After it is dry you can store it for years. Make sure your storage area is dry. Bugs will eat at it so wrapped up or frozen may work too. 

Water Proof Apron - This item will keep your shirt and pants dry and free from fats of the hides. To be very effective its easier to use your body weight to hold the hide in place so some water proofing on the front of your person will be effective in saving some clothes from being fat or blood stained. 

Water proof shoes/boots - I just recently purchased these items and am looking forward to keeping my feet dry and untouched by fatty tissue, blood and water. [Update 10/22/10]They work great!

My first hide was a tiny deer, maybe a yearling. 

First things first, if you're going to tan a hide, any hide of any animal. You MUST take all the fat, meat and stringy tissue off the skin side of the hide. If you don't and you leave it outside for more than a day or so then the flies get to it. They lay their larvae in it and now you have a maggot problem. Once the bacteria starts setting in there is no stopping it. Your hide will continue to rot, even after dried. Your raw hide, if you make raw hide will get very very thin. You may even notice a stink rotting animal smell after its dried. 
De-hairing the animal hide - Next, if you're going to de-hair it then it is okay to soak it in a salt water solution. Why the salt? I don't know. I just tried it and it didn't hurt anything. Salt is cheap. I buy it by the 25lb bag at the local farmers store. Fine salt is best. coarse salt doesn't penetrate the hide like fine salt does. You'll learn more about that later on into this article. I'm sure if you used plain water that would be fine too. The reason why you are soaking it is to help the hair fall out. If you want to keep your hair don't soak it. You will dry it. That's what the salt is for. You will notice that if you leave your hide in the water solution for four days or so the hair will start floating to the top. Not all of it, of course, but alot of it. So much of it will float to the top that when you pull your hide out to look at it you won't want to keep the hair on. It will look like a mangey sick deer ( or buffalo, horse, elk, etc) that was losing its hair. 

After you soaked it, you want to pull it out. Throw it over your scraping beam and scrape the hair off with the dull side of your wet scraper. The hair comes right off if you soaked it long enough. If it doesn't come right off then you may need to soak it longer. After you removed all the hair if you want raw hide, which is stiff and used for drums or other works of art amongst our Native People then you want to string it back up on your stretch and dry it. When its dry you have raw hide. If you want buckskin after you removed the hair then you will have additional steps. 

Brain Tanning and Buckskin - As they say, "there is more than one way to skin a cat." This is just one way.
They make other solutions for tanning, but nothing compares to brain tanning. The hide is softer and more pliable than when using chemicals. Judging from everything I learned about tanning hides, a brain tanned hide is the softest and longest lasting hide there is. The brains contain just the right amount of enzymes and microscopic life that it does what you need the hide to do to make it soft and pliable. You can get brains from your local meat locker. However, they may just give you the entire head of an animal. You'll have to cut the brains out yourself. The local meat locker owner is doing this for me for free. He is giving me two cow heads. I will use a dremel with a small grinder on it to cut the skull open. Its quicker than a hack saw, which is what i used before. After I get the head open I will scoop the brains out with a spoon and use them immediately or store them in a ziplock in the freezer for later use. 

Typically, they say that an animal has enough brains to tan its own hide. However, I believe the more brains used the softer your hide will be if you're making buckskin. For a large deer I will use 2 or 3 brains. For a buffalo I will use four brains. For each brain use a cup or two of water. Blend them together til the brains are a paste and warm them up until the brains turn white. At this time you will take your paste and rub it into the hide with your hands. After you are done rubbing the paste in you will use the water inside the pot to work in and spread the paste around some more. The hide needs to absorb the brains for about 4 hours to a half a day. At this time you will need to "break the grain." By breaking the grain I mean working the hide. That is what the softening cable you will tie or bolt to a tree is for. You will roll your hide up or open it up and work the hide around the cable until the hide is almost dry. This stretches the hide and stretches the fibers inside to loosen the hide up. It also works the brains into the hide which allows the brain solution to do the work its meant to do. If you reached your desired consistency of your hide then now you can smoke it (if you wish). 

Keep in mind, the more you brain your hide the softer it becomes. One other way is making a brain and water solution in a bucket or container and soaking the hides in it for as long as you wish. This way, your brain solution will go further. When done, wring out the water in the hide and open up the fibers with your hands. Then do it all over again by soaking the hides in the brain-water solution and stretching the hide with your hands if its possible. If its a large hide then you may want to string it up on your stretcher and use your wahinkte or your dry scraper.

Before you brain your hide you want to make sure that it is scraped very well. This is a picture of what you are looking for in your scraping of all layers before tanning. It must be white like the picture. 


Build a small fire with wood that will smoke well and not just burn. Put a small hole in the ground about a foot in diameter. You can sew your hide together to close it up. I've seen people run elmers glue on the outside edge and glue it together, leaving one end open. It comes right apart when done. The open end you will put over your smoke and the hole. Using a device you can make with sticks you will dangle the hide on that device. I simple tri-pod with sticks will work well. Make sure its strong enough to hold your hide up. When your hide has reached the desired color you can remove it. The smoke does a couple things. It keeps away the bugs from your hides. The smoke residue is water resistant, therefore making your hide water resistant. I plan on making a buffalo hide tipi and will have to smoke my hides deeply to keep them water resistant or they will shrink when it rains. 

A smoke house: This will probably be the easiest method in the long run. Build a small size shed or "outhouse" sized building. Hang some rope inside like clothesline to hang your hides on when they're done so that you can smoke them. Build a small fire at the bottom before hanging your hides and get it smoking very well. When its smoking, put your hides inside, close the door until your hides reached the desired color.

Hair on robe - 

All of the scraping methods on the fat and meat side will have to be continued to obtain a hide with hair on. This involves one less step of removing the hair, which can be very messy and time consuming. Scrape the meat and fat off very well. You want to see all white flesh. If it dries and there's a brown transparent flesh layer then you probably need to scrape that off. If there is a slight tint of red layer of flesh then that too needs to be removed. Do not soak hide for days or you may run the risk of the hair falling out of your hide. I wouldn't soak a hide for more than 12 hours if you have to soak a dry hide.

This man made some great how to videos on youtube -

Part 2: "Bucking" a hide (Using chemicals to de-hair a hide): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ZHbvI46IK4&feature=related
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