What's the best way to prepare a hide? Like say SHTF and

>>1004206
In a survival situation, away from the coast, with no salt or tanning chemicals, you can use smoke and brains. Some deer do have CWD, which is in the brain and nervous system, but there has never been a case where it was transmitted to humans and even if your were to be patient zero for transmission, it would be from consumption, not brain tanning.

>>1004206
Chronic wasting disease is unlikely to jump species. Spongiform encephalopathic diseases rarely do except scrapies in sheep becoming mad cow disease I have not heard of any others doing it, that is what made mad cow disease such a scary situation. Species barriers are wonderful things.

>>1004209
Now what would I do with the smoke and brains.

I do live near the coast. How would I use salt?

>>1004206
I've heard that if you scrape all the meat off the hide it'll dry naturally once you string it up, otherwise do the same and rub it with salt.
I vaguely remember seeing a show where they soaked it in charcoal and water for a time and then strung it up.
Most important thing is to get all the meat off.

>>1004251
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=iTfa7E2N2Gg
Check out this guys channel hes got abunch of cool shit involving hides

>>1004258
Drying it isn't terribly useful for clothing because it stays really stiff.

Brain tanning is the way to go, the emulsified oils in the brain allow it to be carried deep into the tissue, which is otherwise only penetrable with water. Plus brains are always available (unless you're skinning redditors), so you only have to learn one method of tanning, regardless of where you are and what resources are available.

>>1004206
Skin
[de-hair if you aren't keeping fur]
Scrape the fat off.

Extract Tannin's from Oak bark/Gulls/Acorns
- Boil water with finely chopped/grinded oak bark finer the better
- Let it simmer [if you can burn yourself, you burn the skin]

Throw your hide in the tannin water and let it sit for 24/48 hours or even longer. I like closing off the containers if possible and keeping them out of the sun light after boiling.
-A skin is done tanning when tannins have penetrated all of it’s fibers. Checking by snipping off a sample from a thick edge is the easiest way to see this process, you should see a color diffrence all the way through.
- For thicker skins such as cow, elk, moose. making too strong of a tea can ‘shock’ the hide, meaning the exterior of the hide tans too fully too fast, blocking tannins from getting to the interior fibers of the skin.

Softening your leather.
First off, this can be accomplished by taking out the hide from your tannin and washing it off well in a steam/creek.
hang it up to let it dry, as soon as it starts looking a little dry start appling the oil.
-some good oils to use are lard, bear grease, seal oil, olive oil any liquid and semi-soild oils work best.
- If your gonna "wear" the skins then the oil only should be applied to the outside [grain side] not the side that would come in conntact with your skin.
-keep it hung some place to dry, you're gonna have to strech and oil it many times so be prepaired.
-More oil applied the more "water proof" it will be.

>>1004474
No salt needed, do a good enough job at scraping the fat and don't be lazy, and salt need not to apply.

if you're hanging your pelts outside, make sure to make a cage or something to keep them out of reach of raccoons and other critters.

ants aren't too bad, they will pick the flesh and fat off before any damage to the hide happens. so hanging them in a tree and coming back to fire-ants isn't end game for you. just figuring a way to get all the fire ants off the hide.. well that's on you! lol

>>1004474
How would I prepare a hide if I wanted the fur, and if I wanted it to last in rainy weather? Just the smoke and brain method?

>>1004616
Do the same, just don't scrape off the fur. Also, if you want to preserve the fur as best as possible get to work on the hide right away.

>>1004689
Salt.
An initial treatment of salt shrinks the pores as it quickly dries the surface and sets the hair.
Any exposure to bases will make the hair slip until it is tanned.

>>1004699
But salt is a base. Do you mean just in the flesh side, then?

>>1004699
Ummmmm... Tannic acid shrinks the pours too. Boy-o

>>1004616
Read the copy pasta. Answers all your questions.

>>1004251
Brain tanning is pretty easy, get the hide relatively dry and cool and massage the 1/2 brain-water blend into the hide every day for a few days. Once it turns a little grey-white you want to stretch it by hand, adding brain when it gets stiff, until its pretty much white. Then smoke it for 20-30 min.

Every animal should have enough brains to tan its hide.
Remember to flesh the hide.

t. trapper

>>1004474
when I was a kid and would shoot and skin squirrels, I would roll the fleshed skins up in leaf compost/mulch and beat it, replacing the leaf mulch and doing it again and again. Didn't work well at all, but it was easy enough an 8 year old could do it.

I just thought of it in case being able to boil a bunch of water is an issue.

>>1006412
Did you know humans are one of the few species who can contract all known prions? This is why I advise not fucking with brains/spinal fluid..

>>1006610
Ok but there's been no recorded cases.

>>1006412
What's fleshing the hide?

>>1006627
No recorded cases of rabies or madcow? Wut. I need some explanation.

>>1006610
Read the wiki on scrapie

>>1006632
scraping off the remaining flesh and fat attached to the hide