Tanning a Deer Hide, Making a Buckskin

Hung my stand on a good trail and brought home some meat. Skinned out with a new skinning knife I made from 1095.


Simple fleshing board from a 1x8 attached to a saw horse.

I have a butcher knife that I dulled to make a fleshing knife.
This is a labor intensive step. Took me several days to finish this.

After the fleshing was completed I soaked the hide in a solution of lye to make the hair slip.
It looked like a small catastrophe of hair. Hair and grain are removed in same process as the flesh on the opposite side.

After the fleshing and hair removal the hide went into a mixture of water and borax. After a 24 hour soak the hide wa rinsed and was ready for tanning.
The tanning solution I used was four part: water, kitchen oil (I had canola), one bar of ivory soap cut into slivers, and three egg yolks. Hide was soaked for two days in this mixture.
Removed and hung to dry. At the last minute before completely dry the hide must be stretched. This is what makes it soft, and is a very labor intensive task.

All that is left is to smoke the hide to provide longevity to the softness.
Always wanted to do this, now I know why it never happened! Too few hours in a man's spare time for mind numbing, arthritis inducing, and labor intensive scraping.
Scrape the fleshy hide, scrape the salted fleshy hide, scrape the slimy salted somewhat less fleshy hide, scrape the hair, scrape the grain...scrape, scrape, and scrape.
Anyway, I started it so I have to finish it.

Will be glad to have a completed project.

 

Always wanted to try this. Cool knife btw.

 

I always wanted to try this. But on something smaller
I don't think i've seen/held a tanned deer hide that had the hair removed. let us know how it turns out.

 

I will probably purchase in the future, should I want buckskin. I will cherish the products made from this one though, after all of the work.

Most of my work has been done before 6 am. This is probably my 'once.'

Me too, thus this thread. I always say next year, next deer. Glad to be almost finished.
Thanks.

 

I've done several over the years. But just like every one else no time these days. Purchasing hides is a lot simpler. Or I'll have my taxidermist (aka cousin) skin it out for me now. Lot easier on his fleshing machine. Great work btw.

 

I think a tanned deer hide with the hair removed is called buckskin.

 

Thanks ATS. I corrected the title.

 

Congratulations on getting to the finish line.

I've tanned a few hides in my day. You made the job a lot harder than it needed to be, but you got to the end. That's a win.

Never heard of that tanning concoction. What's the borax supposed to do?

I usually wetscrape the skins over a length of 6" PVC pipe, then put them in with the lye so the dermis will expand. Very labor intensive stuff, but far faster than doing dry scrape.

If I can't get to the skins in a timely fashion, stick them in the freezer in some plastic grocery bags. Doing two or three hides at a time makes for a fun day! :O

 

That tanning concoction was given me by an ole timer. There are several on the internet, but I don't trust alot that I read on the internet. Everyone has their own idea/phylosophy.
Supposedly the borax counteracts the processes of the lye.

What is your process? Do you salt the hide before it goes in the freezer?

 

Purchasing would be much simpler, no doubt. I wanted at least one that I had done myself. I plan on making a possibles pouch from it. It will go with a blackpowder rifle my grandfather built. I guess I'm accumulating stuff to pass on to my son.

Joke taken The educational skill is important for me. My son and I tried to tan one last year, but had bad information on 'how to.' We have a hair on/hide that did not turn out well. This one was needed for the win, as we lost last year. Trying to keep the outdoors passion, old ways passion, and find-a-way-to-do-it-yourself passion alive in my children.

 

Never heard of using borax to kill the lye. Not sure if that works, but I do use a good water wash to get the lye out after I've finished scraping the hide. Is lye an acid or base? I'll have to look that up!

I've only ever used brains to tan the hides. I've heard a lot of success stories from using eggs and oils of various kinds, but brains have always been easy to get at the grocery store, so I stick with that since it's the "norm". The oil in the brains is what kills the glue holding the fibers of the dermis together. That's why you have to keep the skin moving if you don't want it to stiffen up as it dries. Once oiled, it will never return to a rawhide state, but it'll be a sure sight stiffer than leather if you don't keep the fibers in motion.

Of course, that "in motion" part is up for goodly bits of interpretation. I prefer my hides to be far stiffer than a lot of the big names in the industry. I liken buckskin to cotton cloth in that there are a lot of varieties and what you want depends on what you're going to make.

When I was first learning many years ago, I studied with some of the best names in the business and to a man, they all said that good buckskin was supposed to be buttery soft like flannel. That might seem like a great thing until you realize you don't go out and buy pouches made out of flannel for a reason.

Good brain-tan will soften as you wear it. And it will stretch considerably if you use that flannel stuff for a strap. Nothing funnier than seeing a "master" tanner walking around with a pouch down around his knees because the shoulder strap stretched under the load of what he's carrying!

For straps, pouches, shirts, leggings.... I like a stiffer product. Cotton cloth can be used as a t-shirt, but can also be woven to be more durable, like denim or canvas.

To get that stiffer product, I generally let the hides drip dry for ten minutes or so, then stretch them around a copper ground wire. for a few minutes. Then they hang to dry some more. Keep repeating this and you'll likely end up with a very nice hide that doesn't have all the stretch. Plenty comfortable for a coat or pants, and something that will soften more as it's worn and your own body oils get added to the mix.

Salting? I don't bother.

There's absolutely no value to salting a hide unless you're going to store it in a shed or the like. If you have access to a freezer, put the skin in plastic bag and let it freeze solid. Some folks think that the ice crystals forming will help break up the fibers so you get a softer skin. I can't say for sure if that happens, but I can see it happening since that's what happens to any cells that freeze. Does it add up to a quantifiable difference? I don't know.

Salting is the ages-old preservation method from a time when freezers weren't available. Today, it's easier and cheaper in the long run to go out and buy a chest freezer rather than salt a bunch of skins. When you thaw the hides after weeks or years in the freezer, they're nice and soft just like they came off the deer!

During deer season, I used to get hides from the local butchers and would flesh out a dozen or more in an evening. You don't have to flesh the hides before putting them in the freezer, but it sure makes for more room in there. And the local critters loved me!

Getting a good fleshing knife makes a huge difference. I've used lawnmower blades a lot. I made one from some 1.5"x.25" mild steel bar. A lot of folks like the planer blades. My overall favorite was a simple drawknife that I picked up at the flea market. With a slightly dull edge, that thing would sing right through the membrane. Light and easy to control, I pushed that knife down the beam for many a mile!!!

The real trick to comfortably tanning hides is in the fleshing beam.

I'm always amazed at how dogmatic tanners are in doing things like they were done back in the day rather than applying modern knowledge to make the job a bit easier. They'll happily experiment with eggs or oil, but suggest redesigning the fleshing beam and you're spouting heresy! I got a ton of pushback when I did an article on my beam technique because it wasn't "traditional". Never mind that my back felt great and I could work hides for years on end without developing back problems.

 

Great job, and thanks for the pics. Tanning a hide is very time consuming! I got into brain tanning years ago, but you have to have the stomach for it.

 

Do you have any pics of your fleshing beam?

 

I don't right now. If my butthead of a brother gets my old hard-drive fixed so I can get the pics off it......

The basic design is very simple.

Take a 6' length of big PVC pipe or a piece of smooth hardwood log and elevate your end so it hits you just an inch or so below your sternum. Elevate the far end so the whole thing is angled down just a few degrees. You want all the goop to drain away from you, but you don't need a beam that's dang near vertical like you see in all the books and magazine articles.

My beam design was based around the fact that human physiology is what it is, and there's nothing you can do about it. You either work with what nature gave you, or you put up with a lot of back pain because you beat yourself to death unnecessarily.

By putting the beam up high and minimizing the slope, you don't bend over. Bending over like you see in a lot of the videos on YT leads to a sore back before too long! If you do a lot of hides, the back gets worse and worse as the years mount up.

I found a very nice video of a fellow that's got his set up basically like mine. Maybe he read my article??!?!




By putting the beam so high, he's able to use the larger muscle groups in the traps, lats, bicep, tricep and pectorals. Any of those muscle groups are infinitely bigger and stronger than the spinal flexors in the lower back.

As you can see in the vid, he's not struggling or straining, fighting gravity, etc.

The only change I'd make to his set up is to use a belly board. It makes life so much more comfortable and helps hold the skin in place - maximizing what you can do with each stroke.

 

Thanks 3 Rivers! That helps.

 

VaughnT, thanks for the great info. I may have to try another one now. The idea of the pvc sounds much better than my fleshing setup. The roundness of the pipe would concentrate the knife work, versus being spread across a flat board such as I used.
If you were fleshing 10-12 per night, you had it going on! Were you selling the finished hides? Whew, that would be a lot of work (compared to what has gone into this one).
The fleshing knife I used was an old junk kitchen chopper that I dulled on the concrete. The handle side was great, but the blade side wore into my hand. Will be looking for a drawknife if we decide to do another one.

 

Semo, glad I could help. I didn't want to seem like I was taking over your thread or offering unsolicited advice.

Fleshing beams made from hardwood are good. They offer a grippiness that plastic doesn't. They do need to be rounded over to minimize the surface area you're working, as you noted. Plastic or wood -- be sure to make you a belly board for comfort and convenience.

When you're doing skins by the dozen, you quickly figure out what works and what doesn't. I'm a bit weird about that because I have a strong preference for logic and reason above "tradition". Just because the indians did it like XYZ doesn't mean I have to. It's weird when you consider that these folks are all tied up in the tradition of it.... until it's inconvenient. They'll used steel tools all day long, refusing to use stone and bone, or experiment with oil and egg, but suggest they not tan a skin to flannel softness or raise up the beam.... instant war!

I wrote a short article about in for the Society for Primitive Technology bulletin, but don't know if that's online. It's been years and years ago. Probably more years than I care to think about.

The way I looked at it, if I was going to use modern steel tools, I might as well consider other modern things and use modern knowledge. I can't tell you how many experienced tanners I camped with.... and who all complained about arthritic backs. They'd been tanning skins for a living for years, and using the short little near-vertical beams that required them to lift their entire bodies back up after every stroke. A good beam for when you're traveling, maybe, but not for a fixed camp or homestead where transport isn't necessary.

I sold a lot of hides back in the day. It was actually the very first thing I ever sold on my etsy page. Had one guy buy a skin... then come back and buy out almost all of my stock. I like when that happens!

If you want genuinely awesome buckskin that you can make awesome boxers from ---- get some goat. I don't know what species of goat I got, but that hide tanned out so thin and stretchy it was simply amazing. I call it bikini buckskin because it was so soft and stretchy. Never did find a woman to model the bikini, though.

Goat makes great rawhide, too.

Just goes to prove that different critters are better for different applications. Elk will tan different than buffalo, which is different than deer or goat. I wouldn't use goat for anything but clothing that's close to the skin. Super stuff, but so light, thin and soft that I can't imagine it being durable. Of course, I only did one hide that a local farmer gave me and that was from a run-of-the-mill farm goat. Maybe other goats will be slightly different? It'd be fun to find some more skins and try them out!