Making Buckskin

L

Lazer32

Well-known member
Anyone ever make buckskin? I shot my first deer in the fall and kept the hide in the freezer to work on come Spring. Any tips or tricks you would recommend? I am planning to make a lye and water solution to start the process.
 
As a kid some older friends showed me using a brain (brain tanning) and we smoked it. I remember the book deerskins into buckskins kicking around. The buckskin was sooo soft before we smoked it, then it was rough and sticky and smelled extremely strong
 
Every warm blooded animal has enough brain matter to tan their hide....or so I'm told. I've personally never done it but use to have a friend that did. He was into the Mountain Man stuff and did it all the time. Years ago there was a guy on our deer lease that did something with the hides. He had them in a bucket soaking and the hair would come off. I don't remember what was in the bucket though. I did make a quiver from a beaver pelt long ago. I stretched it on a frame and scraped all the meat and fat off and kept it salted. Then made my quiver, but the hide was very stiff but that's the way I wanted it. Guess I'm not much help with the tanning part.
 
I have tanned several hair on deer hides with some success, but have yet to try making actual buckskin. Tanning a deer hide with the hair on is a fairly simple process. I use the TASCO EZ100/EZ Tan system. If you want to make buckskin you would just have to add the step of removing the hair. You will probably find that finishing the hide and making it soft is the hardest part of the process.
 
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