Skinning and Tanning Hides
From the long leather tube, Kog removed what appeared to be a large piece of closely rolled,
soft-tanned hide. It was very light in color, almost white, and tied with a string. There was a slight
smell of smoke about it, probably from the smoke of a turl bush. Such hides may be waterproofed by
suspending them from, and wrapping them about, a small tripod of sticks, this set over a small fire on
which, to produce the desired smoke, leaves and branches of the turl bush are heavily strewn.
Kog placed the roll of hide on the table. It was not rawhide, but soft-tanned hide, as I have
suggested. In preparing rawhide the skin, suitable fleshed, is pegged down and dried in the wind and be
used for such things as shields, cases and ropes. Soft tanning a hide, on the other hand, is a much more
arduous task. In soft tanning, the fleshed hide must be saturated with fats, and with oils and grease,
usually from the brains of animals. These are rubbed into the hide and worked into it, usually with a
soft flat stone. The hide is then sprinkled with warm water and tightly rolled, after which it is put
asideway from the sun and heat, for a few days. This gives the time necessary for the softening
ingredients, such as the fats and oils, to fully penetrate the leather. The skin is then unrolled and
by rubbing, kneading and stretching, hand-softened over a period of hours. The resulting product ranges
from tan to creamy white, and may be worked and cut as easily as cloth.
Savages of Gor page 32
how to skin the animal you are to work with
Skinning is a straight forward endeavor if you follow the body's built in guidelines. This is because
the skin and muscle tissue are naturally separated from one another by protective membranes. Simply make
the initial cuts, and then pull the skin off, as if you are removing the kailiauk's coat. When you peel
the skin, it easily separates from the meat along these membranes. After getting a clean start, there is
little risk of tearing the skin or the meat. So all you need to do is use your hands and body weight to
pull and pry the skin from the kailiauk. It is generally a ten to fifteen minute process.
The biggest mistake you can make is trying to cut the hide off with your knife. When you use a knife to
slice the hide from the animal you inevitably violate these layers, making the whole job harder. Once
the meat is cut into, you are no longer working with the natural division between meat and hide. You
usually end up removing large chunks of meat, as well as putting cuts and holes in the hide. These cuts
(also called scores) and holes open up and enlarge easily, increasing the amount of work at every stage
of the tanning process.
The membranes that encase the meat also protect it from flies and kailiauk hair. When you cut into the
meat you create moist and protected habitats for flies to lay their eggs in. If you peel the skin, the
muscle layers remain intact, the outer membranes dry out, and flies will not lay their eggs. For some
reason, most modern hunters do not know this and that makes finding well skinned hides a real challenge.
There are absolutely no advantages to knifing a skin off. It is not faster!
Hanging the animal makes it easy to use your body weight to pull the skin off. It also assures that the
meat will stay clean. You can either hang it from the neck or from the legs. Most people prefer one way
or the other. Antlered animals should be hung using strong ropes. Do it within a few
hours of the animal's death and it will peel off especially easily. Make sure your knife is sharp,
and proceed as follows: To hang a animal by its back legs, find the large tendon that connects the
lowest leg segment with the rest of the leg. Poke a hole in between that tendon and the leg bone. Use
your fingers to feel the lump that is created by the double jointed bone. Then sever the lower leg at
the lower of the two joints as illustrated.
Cut skin and tendons around the joint, then snap it over your leg.
Make the incisions as shown in the illustration. Once you've made the initial incisions, put that knife
down. Then use your hands and body to pull, yank, and pry the skin from the kailiauk.
There will be a very thin layer of meat that wants to come off with the hide. This is the muscle that
the kailiauk uses to twitch flys off of its back. Nobody eats this meat because it is so thin and
membraney. It is easily fleshed off later, so most folks let it come off with the hide.
removing the brains
Animals conveniently come with just enough brains to tan their own skin. If you are planning to tan the
hide right away, the simplest place to store the brains is in the intact skull. To remove the brains
from the skull you first need to cut away the skin that covers the area between the eyes and the back of
the antlers (or just go to where the horns would be). Then use a saw of some kind to make a V shaped cut
into the skull. The antlers can be used as a lever to remove the cut bone. A messier but equally
effective alternative is to smash this section of skull with a stone. Be careful not to cut yourself
on bone shards. Once the skull is open use a spoon, fingers or straw to remove all of the brains.
Protect the brains from flies.
how to actually tan the leather
1. Flesh the hide. All you are concerned with is getting the meat and fat off. Then place the hide in
water and soak over night. Make sure the hide is completely soaked (the greener the hide the easier to
dehair).
2. Dehairing : Take the hide out of the water and place it over a beam and dehair. The objective here
is to get the brown layer (epidermis) off. Keep in mind the fresher the hide the easier it is to dehair.
If you are using a "flint" or dried hide with the hair still on, soak it overnight and flesh it again
and you will notice the hide whitening out as you flesh. When done, throw it back in the water overnight.
It soaks much faster. Dehair the next day.
3. This is what is called pre-braining. Its better to pre-brain the hide after you dehair while the hide
is still pliable rather than letting it go to rawhide. After you de-hair the hide put the hide in either an
old brain solution or a new one. If it goes to rawhide, soak overnight in cold water and then stretch by
hand. You will see the hide whitening out (not totally). The objective here is to open the pores ( don't
work all day it only takes a couple of minutes) A metal strapping band ( the kind used to bundle wood
with) works the best for me. You can soak the hide in the brain solution for as little as twenty minutes
or over night. Brain solution recipe is at the end of the article.
4. After pre-braining take the hide and hang it out to dry. Its not necessary to wring out the hide.
Don't fold the hide on itself, prop it open with sticks or whatever, or hang it straight up and down.
5. Soak the dried hide in COLD water over night. Lace the hide on a frame, this is the pre-stretching
phase. (cold water because the hide is plyable enough to put on the frame and whiten out.) Before
beginning to stake the hide, sew all the holes. Do it at this point because then there is no pucker.
All you are trying to do is whiten the hide out by staking it. The weather dictates how often the hide
needs to be staked (remember, your not trying to soften it your just trying to whiten it). In recent
experiments it seems to stake out better when working side to side rather than up and down. You will
notice that when staking the hide, it sometimes starts to soften up, if you like keep working it.
6. Pre-smoking. After the hide is whitened and dried out, smoke it. If you think about it, if a white
skin is smoked and gets wet, it softens back up with very little work. Why can't you do a
pre-stretched hide! Smoke the hide for three hours in a smoke house. Hang the hides horizontal about
three foot from the smoke pot. The thing to keep in mind is don't bake the hides. Keep a warm smoke
(punky cedar is one of the best wood to use but you can use any kind of punky wood.)
7. After smoking, put the hide back in the brain solution. Leave the hide in it for thirty minutes to
an hour. Take it out and rub it over the band (do this to make sure that there are no hard spots in the
hide, if there are hard spots, then soak it a bit longer.) Put it back in the brain solution, you can
either leave it for three hours or over night.
8. Take the hide out of the solution and wring it out in any method you choose. Work the hide on a rope,
beam, cable etc. to soften it up. Remember, a smoked hide doesn't require that much work to soften it up.
This is the same principal as was described in the pre-smoking step. The idea behind this method is that
you don't work on it constantly until it is dry. It requires you to be lazy. Not real lazy. It IS
possible to overwork the hide.
Brain Solution Recipe: One kailiauk brain, two gallons of water. Make it look like a weak tomato soup
but don't eat it. Heat the solution until warm, NOT hot. The beauty of this pre-smoking method is that
you can tan more hides with one kailiauk brain. You will notice if you use this same solution (add more
water when needed) the hides will get easier and easier to sofen out and the solution smells more like
smoke than brains. Sometimes you have to add another kailiauk brain depending on how much additional
water is added. Rain water works best when making the brain solution.