Before the advent of chemical tanning of hides to make leather, animal skins were subjected to all kinds of strange concoctions to degrease and soften them. Urine, wood ashes, tree bark acid, and even ...

Learn how to tan a hide with brains, a chemical-free alternative to modern tanning practices. Brain-tanning is a practice that has been around for ages. I’ve brain-tanned my fair share of deer, ...

ELK MOUNTAIN — The stripped hide looked more like a cotton rag than an elk’s skin. White and silky, it sat wadded in a gallon bag, soaking in a thin liquid of its own emulsified brain. Most animals on ...

In this special Hide Tanning Mini Series from Lakeland PBS's Common Ground, Nate Johnson makes his own durable leather clothing from animal hides. Nate Johnson prepares these two hides, a beaver and a ...

THE PLAINS –– At the end of the cul-de-sac sits Talcon Quinn's canary yellow ranch, a home that her grandparents built decades ago. It's quiet and unassuming, and thankfully she has known the ...

You’re not a fur trader, so many of the terms—hide, skin, fur, pelt, and buckskin—used to describe the outer coat of wild game animals may seem interchangeable. (And frankly, a lot of them are.) But ...

Long before factories manufactured denim for blue jeans, clothes were made from animal hides treated with emulsified oils and wood smoke. Animal brains were a popular source for the emulsified oils, ...