Processing White tail hide into (part III) ... grain off bark tanned leather!

Well folks, after a long while ... I'd say I've finished with the WT hide! Sorry or the long wait, ladies and gents ... spring kinda sprung unexpectedly here and I got busy starting seeds for the vegetable patch!

After about 60-ish days in the tea (I've also added some spruce bark tea to get the more golden highlights and the preservative qualities) the hide was taken out, washed in mild soap (in a washing machine, if you must know!) and rinsed.

 

Dove body soap (1/3 cupful) with a squirt of betadine surgical scrub.

 Let the hide drip off the excess water, and in the meantime, make yourself some leather mayo. Again, I'm using 1/3 liquid soap and 2/3 olive oil to make 1 cup of leather mayo emulsion.                                    

Just so it can cover the hide, I've diluted it in half a litre of WARM (not hot) water. Work, agitate, pummel, massage, rub, stir, etc for 30 minutes. Kinda wring it the best you can, let it drip off excess dressing, then repeat the work/agitate/pummel again. Then let it sit in the dressing for an hour.

After an hour, take it out of the dressing and let it drip off the excess overnight.

After dressing the hide, I folded it and plonked it in the freezer overnight. Took it out the next day, let thaw outside (8 deg C in the sun that day) let it dry off excess moisture from drippy slippery hide to just damp, and let it freeze outside at night, and prepare to work it the next day.

Even with all the holes and missed grain patches, it looks pretty darn good.

After letting it freeze dry overnight, it still contained a fair amount of water in it. Think of a bath towel after a trip to the swimming pool. Not sopping wet, but it is heavy with moisture. Here's where you'll need a fair amount of OCD ... softening a hide can take upwards of 8 to 12 hours of working it! Of course, you don't have to do it all in one sitting --- roll it up and put in a plastic baggie and into the freezer when you're done for the session.

The hide contains just enough moisture that it WON'T freeze solid - more like a very stiff pair of un-broken jeans. For working the hide, I lashed a canoe paddle onto the deck's steps and used the edge. You can also lace the hide onto a frame and work it with a paddle in your hands -- but I like to be able to rub n' fluff the hide in my palm in between edge working. Plus a hide on a frame won't fit in a freezer all that well .....

Just so I have a quantifiable way to determine the "dryness" of a hide, I weighed it before working, and after working. Once the weight stabilised, it is truly dry! I cannot emphasise how important it is to work the hide till it's completely dry -- most people stop working the hide too soon, and as the fibres dry out (without movement) it'll harden into stiff, plank-like quality! Good rule of thumb is to continue working for another hour when you think you're done ... or until the weight stays constant.

After 2 hours of working ... 1.362 kg

After 6 hours of working .... 0.743kg. Nearly half of it's original weight was water!

After 8 hours of working ... only 3g difference. Yup it's dry. Bear in mind that you also scrape a heck
of a lot of membrane off the hide when you work it ... so you'll lose maybe 2-3 grams of fibres per 2 hours.

Once it's dry, I change technique ... and used a deer scapula for finishing. The way I do it is to sit on half of the hide, lift the edge with my left hand until you have a bit of tension, then use the scapula in my right hand to scrape/fluff the stubborn areas like the back, neck and edges into the softness I want - in this case as soft as a broken in denim fabric feel, as I'm thinking of making a quiver and bow case.

It's funny how well the deer scapula fits in my hand and works so well to fluff up the fibres!

 

 

Once you've got the degree of softness you want (of course, if it's still not soft enough, you can always use a spray bottle to re-dampen it and rework), it's time to finish off the flesh side with a pumice stone. Working on an edge kinda make the fibres a bit rough on the flesh side ... so to make it smoother out comes the pumice stone. Drape the hide on your thigh (flesh side up) and rub lightly with pumice stone until it's smooth. Don't over pumice - or you'll make a hole in the hide!

Rough un-pumiced on the top half, smooth silky suedey pumiced on the bottom half.

Yeaa ... I kinda fail at graining the hide because I used a kukri (hence the holes) and missed a few patches on the grain side, but these patches just scrapes off easily with your fingernails after softening ... and kinda adds an interesting character of light coloured patches.

Grain side. Nice golden brown with the odd light tan patches from bad graining.

However, the flesh side looks amazing! Maybe I should finish off the grain side with the pumice stone, too, to even the surface a bit more.

Silky suede smooth!

Soft enough to sew without pre-punching with an awl, yet stiff enough to hold it's shape once sewn into ...
dunno yet. Quiver and bowcase, maybe?

The trimmings are not wasted either. They'll make fantastic ammo or coin pouches. Maybe a deery something for my niece.

So my verdict? For my First Ever Hair Off, Grain Off, Non-Commercial Chemicals Involved Tea Tanning ... definitely do it again. Need a bit more practice in degraining (a proper drawknife would help!) to stop poking so many holes in it ... but yup, B+ for this hide!

Deer neck skin + tea + deer sinew = Phone Holster [HTC Desire]

While waiting for the grain off hide in the tea bucket to take up the nice brown colour, I decided to make something else from the sample piece of tea tanned leather .... 

First, grab yourself a deer neck skin; if it's rawhided, rehydrate it. If it's frozen, thaw it out. If it's still on a live deer "ketch da deer, killit an skinit". In my case it was frozen with the hair still on, so into a bucket of soapy room temperature water it goes!

After you wash out the blood, goo, rutty smell, dirt, etc ... dry off the hair side (hair dryer, roll up in a towel, whatever works for you) and tack it on a flat board to dry out the flesh side.

Once dry, scrape off membrane, dried "hide snot", and other superfluous tissues.

While waiting for the piece to dry out, take all the used tea leaves (teabags, too!) and boil yourself a nice tub of tea liquor. Doesn't have to be extra strong for the first soak, just strong enough to discourage rot.

In about a week, the hair will start to slip - if you have the solution too strong, it'll take longer or won't slip at all. Rub your fingers to remove the hair and epidermis but leave the grain intact. If you're using really acidic tannin source (like spruce bark, say) soak it in plain water for 3-4 days to slip the hair first before you tea it.

3 days later. Nice golden colour to the leather's grain side

After a month, the leather has struck through - not "full" of tannin, but the centre of the skin is golden-orangey hued instead of bluish white of untanned leather. Take the piece out of the bath, and give it a good rinse with plain water to wash out unfixed tea tannins.

Grain side - golden brown!

Flesh side - deep cocoa!

Roll the piece up in a small towel to drain off excess moisture, then rub in the leather mayo (1/3 soap + 2/3 oils) into the flesh side. Work it in well until it's slightly oily (the fibres will absorb the oils as it dries). The flesh side will darken into a nice mahogany colour.

Here's where I did something really stupid - DON'T LET WET TANNIN LEATHER COME INTO CONTACT WITH METAL! IT WILL STAIN!!!

 

Well, good thing stains does not affect the function. Now I tacked the piece flat on the boar, grain side out, and rolled a smooth rounded glass object (marble, jam jar, crystal ball, etc) on the grain, pressing down, so it'll dry flat and have a tighter look. Then, to increase waterproofing, rub in a good dollop of dubbin.

Look at how the grain compares to an "unrolled grain" leather. It's from the same piece of neck skin, treated using the same tea bath, but was let dry un-tacked and un-rolled.

here comes the phone holster makin' bit. Cut out a paper pattern of your phone holster and place it on the leather bit. This is to maximise leather use and reduce wastage - plus it'll let you figure out how to cut the leather.

Obviously, make sure the paper pattern does form a holster shape and fit your phone.

Make a "body double" of your phone using thick hard cardboard - make sure the dimensions match, as we will use it in the final form fitting stage! Draw funny pictures on it to amuse yourself, if you're easily bored like me.

Now cut the paper pattern open, lie it flat on the leather and use binder clips to secure it in place while you cut out the leather bits.

Taa daaa! Front panel, back panel and belt loop.

Sew on the belt loop first, before you stitch the sides. Tea tanned grain on leather is really hard, so poke holes with an awl, or any sharp pointy things you have so you don't break your needle. Also help if you soak the leather in water for 30 mins or so, to soften it a bit.

I actually used real deer sinew that I harvested from the deer's main quadriceps muscle. Pound the dried sinew to separate the fibres, then pop it in your mouth (yes, I did! Taste like deer jerky) and chew it to moisten and soften it. The sinew is very strong stuff, and has natural glues that will keep the stitches tight and waterproof as it dries.

All the sewing done!

Now here is where you need the cardboard phone. When the leather holster is still moist, soft and pliable, stuff the phone's body double into it and let it dry overnight. The leather will shrink and harden, and conform to the shape of the cardboard phone, ensuring a perfect fit to your real phone!

Will continue when I figure out the clasp! So there you go - 2 hours of leather cutting and sinew sewing, and you have yourself a primitive lookin' phone holster, made from genuine deer leather!