>>605521Guide to the cheap florida way skinning and tanning.
Skin
[de-hair if you aren't keeping fur]
Scrape the fat off.
Extract Tannin's from Oak bark/Gulls/Acorns
- Boil water with finely chopped/grinded oak bark finer the better
- Let it simmer [if you can burn yourself, you burn the skin]
Throw your hide in the tannin water and let it sit for 24/48 hours or even longer. I like closing off the containers if possible and keeping them out of the sun light after boiling.
-A skin is done tanning when tannins have penetrated all of it’s fibers. Checking by snipping off a sample from a thick edge is the easiest way to see this process, you should see a color diffrence all the way through.
- For thicker skins such as cow, elk, moose. making too strong of a tea can ‘shock’ the hide, meaning the exterior of the hide tans too fully too fast, blocking tannins from getting to the interior fibers of the skin.
Softening your leather.
First off, this can be accomplished by taking out the hide from your tannin and washing it off well in a steam/creek.
hang it up to let it dry, as soon as it starts looking a little dry start appling the oil.
-some good oils to use are lard, bear grease, seal oil, olive oil any liquid and semi-soild oils work best.
- If your gonna "wear" the skins then the oil only should be applied to the outside [grain side] not the side that would come in conntact with your skin.
-keep it hung some place to dry, you're gonna have to strech and oil it many times so be prepaired.
-More oil applied the more "water proof" it will be.
