Solutions for Tanning a Hide
- A traditional American Indian tanning system is to use the brain of the animal to tan the hide. This method has the advantage of being cheaper than buying or finding other natural or chemical ingredients. Each animal has just enough brains to tan the hide. Mix up the brain in a blender. Add this to 1 gallon of warm water. The water should not be so hot that you cannot hold your hand in it. Use a thick, clean paintbrush to brush on the brain solution. Let the hide sit for an hour and repeat the process again. Fold the hide in half and roll it up. Keep it refrigerated overnight if the weather is warm. Apply a new coat of solution in the morning and then you can begin the softening process.
- Bark tanning is another natural way of preserving hide. Get bark from trees in the spring if you can. Am alternative source is shredded bark from garden mulch. Suitable tree bark includes fir, oak, birch, chestnut, alder or hemlock. You will need about double the weight of the hide in bark. Mix an equal amount of bark to soft water such as rainwater (hard water can create spots on the leather). The darkness of the final leather depends on the heat of the water the bark is mixed with. Bark tanning solution needs to be diluted before first use, and strengthened thereafter, until the hide's final soak is at full strength. There are several techniques for this, but the simplest is to add a higher strength liquor when you notice the solution is becoming weaker. When a small slice of the hide shows that the color has penetrated through to the center of the hide, the hide is fully tanned.
- Alum is a chemical method of tanning. Add 10 pounds of salt to 10 gallons of warm water. Mix until the salt is dissolved. Then mix 2 pounds of alum in enough hot water to dissolve it. Combine both solutions. Soak the hide in the solution and stir twice a day. A deer hide takes 10 to 12 days to tan in this solution; smaller hides will take less time. For example, a rabbit hide takes two days.
- You can buy commercially prepared tanning solutions to soak hides in. The advantage of using a commercial solution is that the bottle comes with instructions to follow. The disadvantages of commercial solutions are that they are more expensive than using brains or bark, and you may need more than one bottle to tan large hides such as bear hides or moose hides.