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Olly, feel free to move this wherever you want. I thought about Big Game, but didn't know if it would fit there, either. More of a "DIY" sort of deal.


I thought I'd post a thread about tanning hides here as well. I kill a lot of deer every year, and it always bugged me to throw away those hides. So I decided to give tanning big hides a whirl last year, and it went pretty well. These are just the pics of how I did it, by no means an expert, but they worked well. I still have 5 more in the freezer, one ready to be worked, and 4 with the hair still on them. The wife wants a blanket, so I'm going to do those with the hair on. Same principle, much shorter process.


I chose to brain tan, because I didn't want to have to buy something to tan a hide, and the traditional method has more appeal to me. Most say brain tanned hides are softer, but I don't really know, since that's the only way I've ever done it. Every animal has enough brains to tan their own hide, except a buffalo.

WARNING: this is amazingly time consuming, but worthwhile. There's a reason primitive people did this- because they didn't have jobs to go to, or kids to take all over creation at all times. When you start the last step, you cannot stop. You need to have at least 6 hours to set aside, with literally nothing else to do. At most other points, you can stop and put it back in the freezer, pretty much indefinitely, but when you start working it the final time, you CANNOT STOP, or you'll have to start all over again.

STEP 1:

When skinning the deer, try not to cut into the hide at all. It's fine to have some chunks left on the underside, and better than having score marks in the hide. When done, you can fold them up, fur side out, put them in a trash bag, and drop in the freezer. They do take up a lot of space, though. I prefer to do a few at a time- it just seems more "economical" to me, but there's no reason why you can't do one or 7 at a time, either. You'll see what I mean later.


When you've decided it's time to get started, take them out, and hang them to thaw out.



My youngest loves to help.

Step 2:
When they've thawed, you need to scrape the flesh side (as opposed to the hair side). I'm cheap, but you will need to buy a scraper (about $15 at Gander Mountain). I have an old 6x6 that I rounded the corners off of one end. This will be propped up on 2x4s, so that it hits you low on the belly. You don't want it too low, or your back will hurt. Too high, and you won't be able to put your weight behind it. Don't be shy about scraping. It is very, VERY hard to tear a hide while scraping, and it does take a lot of elbow grease to get it done. The key is to pick a spot to get clean, then work outwards from there, "peeling" the leftover flesh and membrane away. There are several layers, and unfortunately, I can't really explain how you know you're at the right "level". You want the meat gone, and the thin membrane under the meat gone. trust me when I say that you'll know when you've found it, because it "peels" better.

You'll want an apron of some sort, because you lean on the hide, "pinching" it between your belly and the scraping post to hold it in place as you draw away from you. I made mine from an old piece of tarp and some baling twine.

This is definitely something I want to do. My uncle in MT does this for money, have seen some amazing work from him, with and without the fur. My last trip he had beaver, coyote, badger and whitetail and mule deer in the works. Unfortunately the fur will not stay attached on an antelope, I wanted a hide.

Step 3: (this step is for buckskin- if you're doing hair-on, skip it)
When the hides are fleshed, make a lye solution. I save the ashes from my woodstove, and make my own. I don't know if they still sell lye, but if so, I guess you could use that no problems. If you make your own, make sure to use only hardwood ashes. Mix the ashes with rainwater (well water works, too- I suppose city water would work, also, but have never tried it) and stir up. DON'T use a metal tub. Let it sit for 5 minutes, and then put an egg in it. When the egg floats with a quarter-sized portion out of the lye, it's just right. If it doesn't float, add more ashes. If it floats with more than that out of the lye, add water.

When you get it the strength you want, drop in the fleshed hides and stir it up. You can let the hides sit for up to 5 days, but I've found this to be a little unnecessary. They're usually ready after 2 1/2-3 days. Stir them around daily. When you can reach in (with gloves) and slide the hair off, they're ready. It looks like it would stink, but the lye solution is such a strong base that it creates a sterile environment. It doesn't smell at all.

Step 4: (skip if doing hair on)
Pull out the hides, and rinse them off with a hose. Be careful where you do this, because the hair will literally fall off in chunks when you start pulling them out and rinsing them off. After hosing them off, you can dunk them in a tub of water for a final rinse before scraping. Cleaning up a pile of deer hair from the yard is not easy or fun, so, like I said, choose your spot wisely. They will feel very slimy when you take them out, but this sin't spoilage, it's just the lye. It gives a slick feel to everything. I wear gloves when dealing with it, because it will dry out and burn your skin very quickly.

Even if all the hair rinses off, you're not done. You need to get basically down past the hair follicles in the hide. Again, it will feel like you're going to tear the hide, but you're not. In these pics, hopefully you can see how deep you have to scrape. In the center of each "scrape" you can see how much thinner it is, and there's a lot of moving the hide around in this stage. Use the same setup as the first time, when you were fleshing the hide. Again, you'll "know" when you get down to where you need to be. It seems much thinner than it actually is. and you'll be surprised at how tough a hide is. You won't tear it, I promise.

This part is easiest when you start at the neck and work down towards the tail.

Step 5: (skip if doing hair on)
When they're scraped, drop them in a plastic container with 1 cup of white vinegar per gallon of water. This "stops" any remaining lye from working, which would eventually eat the hide up. This is an important step. Let them soak for about 3 hours.



Then remove them, and wring out thoroughly. I use an ax handle to wring them out. Loop them over a board, with the neck and tail overlapping a little at the top. Then roll in the sides to the middle. You should end up with what looks like a wound up t-shirt. Put the ax handle through the bottom of the loop, and begin twisting until all the moisture is out, then hang up to air dry partially.

Step 6:
The hides will get a little stiff. When they're about 85% dry, mix a solution of 1/4 cup white vinegar per gallon of water, and soak them again for about an hour. The take out and wring them as dry as you can get. While they're drying, you can start on the brain mixture.

I keep all the brains from the deer I shoot frozen individually (usually in an old McDonald's cup or something). My wife loves the part where I have cups of frozen deer brains taking up space in the freezer. Take one brain per hide (you can actually get away with one brain per two hides, the way I do it, but I prefer to keep it at a 1:1 ration), and add a little warm water, and beat it with a mixer or blender. Just use enough water to make it easy to mix up the brain. When you have a very thick soupy concoction, run 1/4 bar of Ivory soap (ONLY use Ivory soap) through a cheese grater. Use 1/4 bar per brain. Add the grated soap, brain mixture, and 1 gallon very warm water in a 5 gallon bucket. I usually mix this a little strong, but you can use up to one gallon of water per brain.

When the hides are a little stiff (but not completely dry- should still feel a little damp), crunch them down into the brain mixture. Do all of them at once. DON'T let the hides completely dry out before putting them in the brains. It may seem like it would make the brains soak into the fibers better, but it doesn't. If they're allowed to dry up completely, the fibers inside close up and it actually makes it harder for the brains to completely penetrate.

Let them soak for 24 hours. Again, this doesn't stink at all. I had the bucket sitting in the living room, and you can't even notice it.

(sorry, no pics)

Step 6(b):
If you're doing hair-on, you can skip to this step. Make the brain mixture a little thicker, using only a half gallon of water or so. As soon as you are done fleshing the hide, brush on the brain mixture, and fold the hide skin to skin, and let sit for 24 hours. (you will more than likely have to work the hide twice to get it soft) When you open it back up, gently rinse it off, and start working it until completely dry, then repeat this step.

Step 7: (this applies to hair-on as well)

Remove the hides, and wring out (if buckskin), or lightly rinse (if hair-on). At this point, you can put them in a bag and refreeze them to work later. All you have to do is thaw them out and start working them. Some even say this helps make them softer, as the freeze helps draw the brains into the fibers and break them down, but I don't know if this is true or not. If there's any doubt about finishing the job, do yourself a favor and refreeze them for now. This step takes a lot of time (at least 6 hours), and once started, you can't stop, or you'll have to start over anyway. So figure out if you have the time and inclination before proceeding.

Then begin working the hide. The whole family takes a corner and starts stretching. I also use a wooden baseball bat, fat side up, on the floor and work the hide back and forth over this. It's not really important to work it nonstop while it's still "wet". The critical step is when it goes from "damp" to "dry", but working it throughout the day makes this step that much easier.

From time to time, run the hide around a cable to "rough up" the surface. This gives it a suede-like texture, makes it softer, and helps break up the fibers. If the fibers aren't broken up, that's what results in the stiffness. I usually run it over the cable (both sides for buckskin, skin side only for hair-on) about once an hour, until it gets close to dry, then once every half hour. Just work it back and forth over the cable for a couple minutes.

Interesting AT. I'd like to give this a try some time

Step 8:
That's it. If there's any doubt that it's completely dry, keep working it, or you'll have to go back and re-brain it and start the process over. These are ready for smoking.






The smoke turns them darker, and makes them waterproof. Smoked buckskins are naturally waterproof and breathable, and can be thrown in the washer, and won't stiffen up if they were done properly the first time. When I get some more ready for smoking, I'll have to take some pics of the process, because it's very difficult to explain, but very easy to see with pictures.

I'd like to try this, but the time involved is asking a lot from my already overpacked schedule. Currently, our hides go in a drop box for Hides for Habitat and the company sells them to help pay for building homes for the "needy". It would be neat to have my own blanket that I did though.

That's what the wife wants this year. It'll take 6 hides, and I'm not looking forward to it.

With the size of deer my family shoots, it'd take 10.

You're like a mountain man. You can do all that shit.

For leaving the fur on, do you clean them any way? Deer aren't exactly the cleanest animals out there.

vincentpa wrote:You're like a mountain man. You can do all that shit.

Right?
Assa- youre pretty damn cool, and an asset to this forum.
nice write up here and on the boat build.

Good skill to have in the bag. Thanks for the write up Assa

Goldfish wrote:For leaving the fur on, do you clean them any way? Deer aren't exactly the cleanest animals out there.

Put them in one of those contractor garbage bags with about 3 gallons of sawdust (fine and coarse mixed works best) and fill it up halfway with air from the compressor. Then roll it/toss it/mash it around for a while. Take it out, shake the piss out of it, and hang it on the clothesline, and it'll be good. The critters come off quick when the things fresh killed and dying/cooling off.

I'm assuming cedar sawdust?

No, just pine works fine. I go scoop up a couple shovels full at the sawmill in town. Don't forget you've rinsed this thing a couple times, and handled it all over the place. They're pretty clean once the ticks fall off.

I used to do some small tanning in the boy scouts one of the scout masters taught us all. Nice thread Assa tanning is a skill every outdoorsman should have even if you just do it a few times like I did.

I'm gonna move this to the new Home Improvement & Crafts forum to get some topics in there.

I wish I had the knowledge to do just half of the stuff you do. Very interesting, may have to give it a try this fall.

huntntech wrote:I wish I had the knowledge to do just half of the stuff you do. Very interesting, may have to give it a try this fall.

Honestly, none of the stuff I do is very hard. Just need a willingness to try something, no matter how many people tell you that it's stupid and pointless. (Lord knows I've heard that more than once) Sometimes, just knowing HOW to do something is reason enough to try it, regardless of the outcome.

assateague wrote:

huntntech wrote:I wish I had the knowledge to do just half of the stuff you do. Very interesting, may have to give it a try this fall.

Honestly, none of the stuff I do is very hard. Just need a willingness to try something, no matter how many people tell you that it's stupid and pointless. (Lord knows I've heard that more than once) Sometimes, just knowing HOW to do something is reason enough to try it, regardless of the outcome.

If everything I've done in the last 4 years isn't enough I need to take a few pages from you book after the wedding to prepare her for the long haul. Nothing is more satisfying than when you earn that look

I get it quite often. I usually pull out a line similar to what I use on the kids- "careful, honey, if you roll your eyes that hard they might get stuck in your head."

assateague wrote:

huntntech wrote:I wish I had the knowledge to do just half of the stuff you do. Very interesting, may have to give it a try this fall.

Honestly, none of the stuff I do is very hard. Just need a willingness to try something, no matter how many people tell you that it's stupid and pointless. (Lord knows I've heard that more than once) Sometimes, just knowing HOW to do something is reason enough to try it, regardless of the outcome.

I like Learning how to do different things and then just doing it. Whether it is actually something I can really use/ need or not doesn't matter just the fact that I can do it and know how to do it. I just wish I had more of that type of "knowledge" to be more self-sufficient instead of relying on a store to sell it to me like most people.

Assa is like me or I'm like him I should say since he's an old timer... anyway you just gotta try something no matter the outcome and you'll learn how to do it.

I rebuilt an automatic transmission out of an old Cherokee once. Replaced everything that wasn't metal and it's still running today in some guys jeep. I had never done anything like that before but a little reading and the time to tear it apart and it was actually pretty easy.

Just gotta go for it.
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