Make Leather Naturally
Have you ever seen a raw animal hide, covered in fur and flesh and stiff as a board, and wondered how it could possibly be transformed into that soft and supple material known as leather? The ancient craft of turning skin into leather by natural means, perfected over hundreds of years of use from Europe to Australia, has lost popularity as it is replaced by cheaper, more modern methods. However, natural vegetable tanning, as this process is called, remains one of the best known methods of producing leather. Read on to learn how you can produce high-quality leather on your own back porch with minimal tools and experience.
Steps
- Start by setting up a work area for yourself, preferably outdoors or in a well-ventilated, easily cleaned indoor area. Tanning can be a very messy project. Set up a long narrow workbench to lay the hide on. An 8x8 timber on cinder blocks, or any kind of narrow, sturdy table should work fine.
- Soak the hide in a bucket of water overnight to make it more pliable. Remember that a soaked skin will be extremely heavy, so try to have a strong helper on hand.
- Carefully scrape the flesh off the skin using a very sharp convex blade or drawknife. This may take several hours; don't rush or you may end up cutting the skin by accident.
- Once clean, the hide must be de-haired. Lime is usually used to break down the keratin in the hair, making it easier to remove.
- Mix up a solution of 2 cups lime to {{safesubst:#invoke:convert|convert}} water. Be sure to make enough to completely cover the skin.
- Soak the hide in the lime solution for one to two weeks. Hair, especially deer fur, is notoriously difficult to remove, so don't try to hurry this process. On the other hand, leaving it in the solution too long might damage the skin itself.
- When it's finished soaking, lay it over your work-bench and scrape the loosened hair off the skin using a canoe paddle, drawknife, seashell or similar implement.
- By now the hide looks clean, but is still covered in protective layers, a membrane on the flesh side and the epidermis on the fur side. These layers, especially the tough epidermis, must be removed to allow the tanning solution to penetrate and fully preserve the hide.
- First allow the surface of both sides to dry out.
- Carefully scrape the hide using sharp blades held perpendicular to the skin.
- Sand the surface with medium-grade sandpaper for a more polished job and to help remove any tough spots.
- Finally, the hide is ready to be tanned.
- Collect a large amount of oak or hemlock bark. Try not to strip bark from living trees as this can kill or severely injure the tree. With a little exploration, you can usually find plenty of fallen trees to collect from. Also, make sure you have the right tree! Most bookstores stock tree identification manuals if you don't already have one.
- Add the bark to a large container of water. An empty trash can or plastic box is ideal.
- Soak the skin in this bark "tea" for up to nine months. During this time the tannic acid in the bark will seep through every pore in the skin, coating the microscopic fibers with preservative. For best results, change the water and add fresh bark once in a while, say once every three months.
- Once it's done tanning, pat yourself on the back for being so patient! Remove the skin from the solution and clean it well, scrubbing and even scraping it with a blade.
- The final part of the process, currying, is turning the preserved but rough and poorly-colored skin into a polished final product.
- To prepare for currying, poke a series of holes along the border of the hide using a leather awl or similar instrument.
- Tie ropes to the holes and stretch the skin taut on a wooden frame by fastening the ropes to the frame. In this position, the skin will be easier to manipulate.
- Leave it on the frame until semi-dry. A few hours in the sun should suffice.
- Scrape both sides vigorously with a very blunt blade or alternatively, rub a rounded stick or canoe paddle across the surface. This process, called sleaking, rapidly and repeatedly stretches the leather making it permanently soft, smooth, and supple. As the skin MUST be continuously and vigorously sleaked until dry, this is a very exhausting process best done by two or more people taking turns. The longer and more energetically the leather is sleaked now, the better the final product will be.
- At this stage, the leather can be smoked suspended over a fire of greenwood. This isn't necessary, but it helps waterproof the leather and darken its color. A tripod would work, but be careful not to let the leather fall into the fire!
- Either way, the leather is finished by rubbing oil into the surface and giving it a final round of sleaking.
- Congratulations! If you completed the above steps carefully and methodically, your finished leather should be soft, smooth and lightweight, ready to be dyed or used as-is in your favorite leather crafts. Some examples include leather-bound books, bags and pouches, clothes, moccasins, belts, and wall decorations. Have fun and be creative!
Tips
- As with any large project, research it as thoroughly as you can before you start. A couple extra trips to the library can save you a lot of disappointment later on down the road.
- Be sure to clean and curry both sides of the skin in equal measure.
- Hunters will often give you their skins for free; they usually throw them away otherwise.
- If you decide to save the tail, be sure to cut it lengthwise and clean the inside.
Warnings
- Be forewarned: this is not a project for the squeamish!
Things You'll Need
- Animal skin(obviously)
- A large, preferably plastic {{safesubst:#invoke:convert|convert}}. container
- Plenty of oak, hemlock, sumac, or tanoak bark
- A water source
- An assortment of knives, including at least one convex blade
- Lime
- A rounded stick or paddle(optional)
- Enthusiasm and patience
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