IDENTIFYING “PAUSE POINTS” IN HIDE TANNING

Feb 25

Written By Mara Cur

Before we start tanning, there's often hide prep work. This is not the same as preservation. Read other HTOTMs for more on that.

If you want to remove the hair and/or grain later of a hide, you're likely bucking the hide. This is when we add an alkali to the hide. This can be a quasi-pause point.
That is to say, there's a rather wide window of time in which we can buck hides:
- You can soak a hide in KOH (potassium lye) or a heavy Calx (lime) solution for days
- And, you can soak a hide in Calx (lime) for 9 days (my personal favourite)
- Or, you can long-lime a hide with Calx for 2 weeks
All of this to say: if you plan to soak your hides for 9 days, but it accidentally becomes 12 - that's okay; if you want to soak your hides for 9 dyas, but it cna only be 7 - that's okay.
If you want to actually long-lime your hide intentionally, read + explore more to treat the hide appropriately, and only use robust hides (not sheep or Antelope) for long-liming.
If you want to tan a hide hair-on or get bark-tanning off to a strong start, you might be acidifying the hide. This is when we add an acid to the hide. This can be a quasi-pause point as well
All the lit I've read on on acidifying (often called “pickling” which is the misnomer of the century imo) recommends soaking a skin for 24 hours in an acid such as citric acid, vinegar, etc. This is a good base; up to 7 days in cooler temperatures (ie leave outdoors, in the shade) is just fine.

The first day of bark-tanning is the most crucial. This is when we submerge a hide into a warm, tannin-rich bark-liquor. We move the hide consistently (like to the point where we are probably going to get so bored). Then, our hide picks up tannins evenly + begins tanning thoroughly.
After Day 1, things get more chill. We should still stir the hide each day, and strengthen the bark-liquor's concentrate. But if we do that, chances are by day 5 we have a mostly-tanned hide. And this where we get a pause point: a partially-tanned hide in a bark-liquor.
The tannins will now move into the hide more slowly. but they will keep it preserved. So if we have to go out of town, or life comes up, the hide will stay intact.
It's important at this pause-point to keep the hide submerged under the liquid's surface, otherwise it can mould.

Whether hair-on or hair-off, one of my favourite techniques in smoke-tanning is dry-scraping.
I wet-scrape a hide to remove the grain + membrane, but I dry-scrape a hide to clean it up more. This is made possible by weaving a hide into a frame, then ‘opening it up’ as it dries with a dowel (stick) or a slightly dulled dry-scraper, then taking sharp tools to the hide once it's mostly dry.
It's here that the pause point comes in: a dried hide is a paused hide.
We can take as long as need to dry-scrape. A few minutes one weekend, a few minutes the next month. Whatever. The hide is staying put.

A framed, dried hide is not yet softened. After we soften the hide - whether frame-softening or hand-softening - we've taken the dried hide, totally rehydrated it with a fat emulsion (such as animal brain), and then dried it again as we've softened it. So a softened unsmoked buckskin is also a dried hide - a pause point!

Whether hair-on or hair-off, a mineral-tanned hide needs to go through one specific thing to make it mineral-tanned: alum-tawing.
Alum-tawing is the technique by which we apply the mineral alum to a hide. (In old English, people distinguished “tanned” from “tawed” depending on the ingredient used, whereas today we generally call everything tanned.) Typically, we submerge a hide in water with alum and salt. The water helps the alum absorbs into the hide,
When we alum-taw, we have a fairly broad window of time in which the hide can stay put. Alum will absorb for the first 3-7 days, then it will lend a preservative effect to the hide. Again (same as bark-liquoring), as long as the hide stays below the surface of the liquid, it won't oxidize.
While I usually recommend aiming for one week, hides can stay in the alum soak for three weeks; potentially longer depending on the temperature and the type of hide. Cooler is always slower; warmer is always quicker. This makes the alum bath a pause point.

Once we're ready to work an alum-tawed hide + bring it out of the soak, we'll membrane it + typically frame it. And just like in smoke-tanning, a dried, framed, but also alum-tawed hide is on pause indefinitely. It can be rolled up + stored for future rehydrating + softening.

BRAINS & ALTERNATIVES TO BRAINS