Alternative tanning comparison

Since I was playing with oil soap, I decided I might as well try the brain tanning it's supposed to be an alternative for. And egg yolk too, since I'd heard it mentioned a few times.

Let me be strait out here, and say that I'm not any kind of authority on this.

I'm a spoiled modern hobby tanner who likes my new-fangled chemicals and what I consider much more guaranteed results.
For pelts that are important to me, I treat them with salt, saftee acid, a syn-tan, and a neatsfoot oil based tanning oil. Every tanner has different preferences. It's to be expected.

My understanding is that brain-tans or oil tans aren't as suited for hair-on pelts as they are for hair-off buckskin leather. The danger of slip is greater with this method than a method that uses salt and an acid pickle.

That disclaimer aside. There is a lot of environmental concern over harsher chemicals and even the salt used in tanning, and I feel it's certainly worth it to explore alternative methods.

I was able to get these pelts to come out OK. Each one broke supple. All were very thin doeling pelts. There was only one patch of slip on the blue pelt I brained, the problem seemingly grease burn from too much brains on too thin of a pelt.



All were treated exactly the same. Simply fleshed from a raw state, "oiled" with the substance marked, and broken soft.

I guess I just wanted to list my thoughts about the whole thing.

The actual brained pelt has the softest leather and the best stretch of the three. It does however, smell weird. I do not appreciate the aroma at all. I used VERY fresh brains so I know that is not the problem.. There is also a good amount of grease that was left in the fur from the whole process, brains getting on my hands, etc.

My overall opinion: Brains are greasy and smelly and I don't like using them on furs. I'll probably try making a properly de-haired, brained, and smoked buckskin in the future. Maybe the smoke helps neutralize the odor some?

The egg is an interesting in-between. Reminds me of the oil soap in stretch and suppleness. The smell is a lot like raw meat and egg. It's better than brains but I still wouldn't want to make a pillow out of it. Also some concern for attracting insects and hungry pets. I had to cut away good bit of dried egg that had gotten into the fur around the edges. Well, now that I think about it, it has all the disadvantages of the other two substances, and none of the strengths!

I do feel that the Murpy brand oil soaped pelt was the nicest to work with. It's pretty supple. Poor stretch. No greasy mess or dried stuff left in the fur which really surprised me. It has a citronella-like smell.

It's the only one of the three that I'd toss on my pillow. (mainly because of the odors on the other two)

Thanks for doing all of that work, Zass! I think I would be interested in experimenting with an egg/brain combo to get the best of both worlds. Not sure how it would effect the smell though... Will the smell fade, do you think?

SA Farm":1dkkowm0 said:

Thanks for doing all of that work, Zass! I think I would be interested in experimenting with an egg/brain combo to get the best of both worlds. Not sure how it would effect the smell though... Will the smell fade, do you think?

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Maybe Gbov knows?

That one brained pelt of mine kinda stinks up the whole room. It's not a rotten or spoiled smell...Just an odd one that I rather dislike. It's very possible that others may not even find it offensive like I do.


For me, a pelt has to do more than just be unoffensive, it should smell good.

Very interesting! Thank you, Zass!

Thank you for sharing these experiments!

In a deer hide, smell of the brains will go away with smoking. I find the egg offensive-smelling, but not the brains.

How did you flesh them successfully? I can flesh a deer in 15 minutes, but the rabbits take me FOREVER.

Also, with this type of tanning, it's my experience that they are not "fixed" until they are smoked. Will you smoke them? I assume they'll get hard again, if they were ever to get wet.

Zinnia":5g4cm9hz said:

Thank you for sharing these experiments!

In a deer hide, smell of the brains will go away with smoking. I find the egg offensive-smelling, but not the brains.

How did you flesh them successfully? I can flesh a deer in 15 minutes, but the rabbits take me FOREVER.

Also, with this type of tanning, it's my experience that they are not "fixed" until they are smoked. Will you smoke them? I assume they'll get hard again, if they were ever to get wet.

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Thanks for letting me know! I'd be interested in experimenting more with brains if the finished product smelled more like smoke than brain.

I use a dull old fashioned carpet knife to flesh my rabbits. It IS more tedious than deer hides.
I was accustomed to fleshing every part of the buns for taxidermy, and the carpet knife is especially good for the detail work, like faces and the bases of their ears. I still use it for the rest of the hide because I'm so familiar with it. You know, once we have a fleshing tool that we know how to use, us tanners tend to stick with em.

Rabbits just rip too easily, you can't put any muscle into it. And yep, they aren't water proof or even water resistant when just oiled and broken.
I've yet to start smoking skins to investigate the water resistance it can lend. It's on my to do list.

Thanks, Zass. Smoking rabbit skins shouldn't take long. I intend to rig up a long pipe for smoking hair-on hides, so there will be less chance of burning the hair.
Thanks for the tip on the carpet knife. I have a dull, rounded-tip kitchen knife that I've been using to flesh my bad ram's ball sack. He was very aggressive, and I'm making a purse out of his sack. :twisted: The skin there is tender, as it is with rabbit, so this knife just might work!

Zinnia":2yiypqcq said:

Thanks, Zass. Smoking rabbit skins shouldn't take long. I intend to rig up a long pipe for smoking hair-on hides, so there will be less chance of burning the hair.
Thanks for the tip on the carpet knife. I have a dull, rounded-tip kitchen knife that I've been using to flesh my bad ram's ball sack. He was very aggressive, and I'm making a purse out of his sack. :twisted: The skin there is tender, as it is with rabbit, so this knife just might work!

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That reminds me of the bull scrotum I did for a farmer. :lol:
(He wanted it for his marble collection.)

TONS of connective tissue. Cow hide is tough though, so I never felt that there was any risk of putting a hole it it, just had to keep at it until I got it all.

I wonder if you could just smoke them in a smoker?

alforddm":3lkhzxtj said:

I wonder if you could just smoke them in a smoker?

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I don't know too much about smoking hides, but I was under them impression that cold smoke would be better for fur than hot smoke.

Yeah, probably would be. My smoker will go down to 100F though. Not sure how much actual smoke would be produced at that level. I may have to try it with some of the tender young hides I'm getting in the next few weeks.

Since they are so thin, I can't imagine them needing more than 15 minutes to a half hour of good smoke. I don't have a smoker, so I thought I'd try sewing it up into a sack as for a deerskin and extending a pipe out of my covered fire pit (I do this for deer). I would go further out than usual for a rabbit skin.... Then, I'd get a low, slow smoke going from punk. Since it takes so long to set up, I'd probably have several hides ready to go... or maybe sew several together just for the smoking to get more out of my efforts.

Summer project.

Ahhh, summer.... Back to reality... We have a week of subzero temperatures ahead of us and loads of baby bunnies to check on through it.