How do you tan a deer hide?
11-21-2005, 06:36 PM
#2
Giant Nontypical
Join Date: Nov 2004
Location: Kansas
Posts: 6,598
RE: How do you tan a deer hide?
Set it out in the sun and turn it every 15 minutes. 
You can salt it down, when it gets gooey scrape it off than salt again and keep the process going until the hide is clean. I doubt you will get it soft though without chemicals. It will prolly be as hard as a rock.
You can salt it down, when it gets gooey scrape it off than salt again and keep the process going until the hide is clean. I doubt you will get it soft though without chemicals. It will prolly be as hard as a rock.
11-21-2005, 10:51 PM
#4
Nontypical Buck
Join Date: Feb 2003
Location: Rockford Michigan USA
Posts: 1,344
RE: How do you tan a deer hide?
Search google for home tanning techniques. It is a lot of work and unless your looking for something to kill time it would be better just to pay a taxidermist. Fleshing the hide requires you to buy a fleshing tool and if your just going to do it once its not worth it.
11-22-2005, 05:33 AM
#5
Dominant Buck
Join Date: May 2003
Location: Ramsey , Indiana
Posts: 22,545
RE: How do you tan a deer hide?
You'll find everything you need here:
Tandy
A dull knife can be used as a fleshing tool , the rest is chemicals and time . Be very thorough when removing the flesh and fat from the hide or it won't tan properly .
Tandy
A dull knife can be used as a fleshing tool , the rest is chemicals and time . Be very thorough when removing the flesh and fat from the hide or it won't tan properly .
11-22-2005, 06:40 AM
#6
Join Date: Feb 2003
Location: Louisville Kentucky USA
Posts: 1,207
RE: How do you tan a deer hide?
Check out the DVD "Turning Deerskins into Buckskins" and you will probably never want to try it.
It's an unbelievable amount of work. He shows how to do it with modern chemicals and how to do it the way the indians did it by "brain-tanning". You use the brains in a mixture in the preservation process and use some ashes from a campfire in another solution later. To make sure the surface tension(I think that is right) you have to float an egg in the solution until just enough is above the ash water. It wore me out just watching it.
It's an unbelievable amount of work. He shows how to do it with modern chemicals and how to do it the way the indians did it by "brain-tanning". You use the brains in a mixture in the preservation process and use some ashes from a campfire in another solution later. To make sure the surface tension(I think that is right) you have to float an egg in the solution until just enough is above the ash water. It wore me out just watching it.
11-22-2005, 06:50 AM
#7
Nontypical Buck
Join Date: Oct 2004
Location:
Posts: 1,927
RE: How do you tan a deer hide?
I tanned a hide once by soaking it in a STRONG tea solution. Tea has tannic acid in it (that's what gives it the brown color). I've also heard the indians usedto use a hollowed out oak stump filled with water, or boil acorns. All of which has tannic acid. You have to remove the fat and meat off the skin and then soak the hide (Isoaked mineabout 12 hours) then stretch and tack the skin. Tack the skin to something like the side of a barn with some zinc coated decking nails because it will pull real hard as it dries/shrinks. Leave some air space under the hide to help it to dry. It will dry brown and HARD. After that you have to buff it to get it soft. I left mine hard for mounting on a wall. The hair still hasn't released yet and that was years ago. It takes a LOT of work to make one soft and you can send it off to be tanned for about $75 bucks. Worth it in my opinion.
