Suggestion for those interested in tanning hides

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Recipe for tanning hides submitted by a gentleman in Indiana…. Did you know that Fels-Naptha makes a great leather tanning solution??? It's much safer than almost any other (chromium or solvent) method for tanning. In 1980, a friend and I tanned 30 deer hides....some for leather, and some with the hair on for rugs, with great success! The hides with the hair on, STILL retain the hair to this day! Use 1 bar per gallon of liquid....we reduced the bars to shavings first, over low heat (we did this in a big cast iron kettle over a campfire), then allowed it to cool. It turns into a runny "gel". Then the hides need to be fully immersed for 1-2 months, depending on ambient temperature. Just thought I'd pass this along, as I'm preparing to do some tanning again just now. :)
 
Much better...:D...Thanks

I've got a couple of cow hides that I would like to tan...but they weigh 100+lbs. :eek:

The little deer hide I did years ago was ALOT of work, I cannot even imagine the effort that I would have to put into it.
 
Hmmmm - I think I'll try that. Whereabouts can you get that naptha?

Also... it must be pretty toxic to prevent slipping over two months!!

I did mine with egg tanning (basically brain tanning) and I got it mostly right... fur slipped a little, but apparently that's because I worked it too hard to soften it and shocked it, rather than bacteria causing slippage.

Also - here's from huntingbc, another effective method that's much simpler, though not as simple as your naptha method if that's all there is to it:

http://www.huntingbc.ca/forum/showthread.php?t=30369
 
Just for some clarification - Fels-naptha soap's prime ingredient is Stoddard solvent... whose general name is... wait for it.... MINERAL SPIRITS!!

This comes back to the suggestions of using a turpentine or other thinner to treat hides, as it basically pickles and poisons them. Mineral spirits are suggested because they usually stink a lot less... so the hide stinks less after too. Stoddard solvent was created as a "less volatile" dry cleaning agent, (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_spirit) and comprises 50% of WD-40.

I suspect as long as the solvent chosen didn't eat the skin/hair and make it smell like a gas station/paint booth, any solvent could potentially do the job. Many people suggest using kerosine or white gas, which are somewhat similar to Stoddard solvent, much more available, and from the volume of people to attest to it, more commonly used.


Oh, and the use of naptha soap rather than strait mineral oil is because in order for a skin to tan properly and be flexible when dry, it needs some sort of oil or fat in the skin, which in this case is readily provided from the soap mixture. This is the same process as pickling and brain/egg/soap/ tanning, or the combo or mineral spirits and oiling, where the skin is made inhospitable to bacteria, then impregnated with some sort of fat/oil that allows the skin to remain soft and flexible when properly worked and dried.

I'm betting I got some of it wrong... but that theory has worked relatively well for me at least.

P.S. If you're doing a skin with on... 1-2 months seems like a long time to me.... Maybe the mineral spirits are strong enough to kill any bacteria, but everything I've read has said that any skin being immersed in a solution involving water should be well stirred twice daily to avoid any spot evading penetration and allowing bacteria to flourish.
 
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