Tanning
Your Hide
A traditional brain tanning method by the Stray Dogs
Many and
varied are the traditional skills of the viking, but none more thrilling
than aquiring a dead animal and skinning it for fun. For a larger sequence
of photos, click here.
Step
1 Finding an animal
To start with one must first acquire, kill or trade a beast worthy enough
for the re-use of its hide. The Stray Dogs were lucky enough to hear about
Trigger's plight as an old nag well past its used by date and offered
a trade in exchange for its hide. A deal was struck and Trigger was presented
to us as a bloodied mass of tangled hair in a sack. Just in time for an
up and coming event, History Alive 2004. Pictured at right is one of Santa's
followers who ran a little too slowly.
Step
2. Salting
Working quickly, the hide was laid out on the ground (after chasing a
few people around the camp site) while still fresh and salted. The application
of salt brings all the capillaries to the surface, not to mention some
of the fleshy bits, which will be scraped off later. A good covering of
salt is required in this step and the hide is then rolled up back in on
itself so the hair is outside and flesh is all protected. and left for
24 hours. You can keep the hide for quite a while without freezing, without
too much worry. The lower the temperature, the longer it will keep. What
the salt does is help draw out the moisture in the skin, all the blood
and other stuff. With our horse, it was only salted for about 12 hours.
Step
3. Scraping the hide
Next, Trigger is taken from his stable and unrolled onto the ground. The
salting has done its job and now the scraping begins. Working in the shade
so as not have Trigger dry too fast, the Stray dogs as a group take turns
scraping the hide and explaining the process to the growing crowd of the
public gathering to watch. Trigger is then lead to water and washed.
Step 4. Braining the hide
The Stray Dogs researched methods of tanning hides and found a recipe
that used the brains of the animal as a tanning agent. Tannin is the chemical
required to preserve the hide and the brain of the animal contains enough
tannin to cure its own hide..... kinda handy huh !
We
didn't have the horse's brain, so we used alot of sheep brains 'cause
none of us could work out how big a horse brain was compared to a sheep
and the sheep brains were easy to come by. Laying Trigger out after washing
in the shade, the Dogs set about rubbing the brains into the hide until
an even consistency and layer covered the hide.
There are a few ways to go about this, but I will tell you how we did
it cause it worked for us. Put on rubber gloves 'cause there is some nasty
stuff in the raw brain and if it gets into your blood stream you can be
seriously screwed up. Leave the brains in the sun for a bit so they go
a bit ripe then add to hide. Rub it in really well and cover out to the
very ends of the critter. Once all done, wrap it back up if you don't
have a place to strech it out straight away.
Now lay out the hide flesh up and start scraping
off all the excess salt and mucky bits, keeping the hide in the shade,
as you dont want it drying out too quickly as that will cause hairslip
and more of a rawhide leather. When you're happy with the removal of all
the excess stuff, take your critter and give it a wash. We used the Brissy
River cause it was close and suitable for our needs. (Enter river at own
risk holding a bloody skin.)
Step
5. Stretching
Once satisfied with step 4, Trigger was taken home to the Old Dog's house
and nailed to a stretching rack and left in the shade away from direct
sunlight for 4-6 weeks, allowing the hide to naturally air dry. When dried,
the skin will have a whitish colouring on the non-fur side indicating
that the job is done. (meanwhile little critters will eat any excess fat
and brains that didn't soak in... eeeeewwwww!!!)
Step
6. Breaking the hide
After drying is complete, the hide is removed from the stretching rack
and the breaking of the hide can start. Six weeks in the stretching rack
has left Trigger as stiff as... a board. In order to soften the tanned
hide, it must be broken. This is done by rubbing the hide over a log (in
our case we used the Old Dog's rear deck railing, rollled it, hit it with
hammers, dragged it over a post, danced upon it... all sorts of things
in order to break the individual fibres of the leather in the hide. And
couple of coats of neat's-foot oil helped soften the hide. When your're
happpy with how soft it's become, you can give it a wash. Any type of
shampoo will do. The more work you put into breaking, the softer your
hide will be.
Step 7. Bask in our efforts
Now I don't claim that this is the best way to do it or by any means the
correct method but it worked for us and achived the desired results. All
100% natural (bar the rubber gloves). Your hide is now ready for use.
For the full sequence of bigger photos, click
here.