Brain Tan A Deer Hide like A Ginius.

Tools:

Knife

Beam (wood log about 4 ft long)

Bucket

Table spoon of lye crystals (find at hardwear store or soap store)

Shower stall(helps)

Two table spoons of veg oil

Half a cup of shredded soap

Scraper (I use a very very dull draw knife)

Deer hide

1) Skin the hide - avoid knives. Knives will score the hide which will become weak spots on the garment. If you use a knife - which I do - be careful, take your time, dull the tip well that is slicing. Take your time to leave behind as much meat and fat - don't waste good food or get it filthy before discarding it to animals - their guts and bodies  are no more resilient to toxins than ours.

2) The hide off, you can either sun dry it for storage when ready to carry on, freeze it (which I don't recomend for many reasons), or hammer through. A hide that is off a deer is extremely forgiving. Don't worry about rot - within reason. You can leave it bunched under a tree for several days in this state if you need to. If the hide will be scraped within a few days, throw it in some cold water. Have a soaking hide - of just water - before you scrape; the soaked hair floats around in the air less and thus easier to clean up after. If you dried it, you will need to soak it in water for a few days to proceed.

3) Throw the hide over a beam, and scrape. DO NOT USE LYE TO HELP REMOVE HAIR. i have tried rotting slightly to help slip hair. Yes, the neck and spine will be difficult to scrape and remove hair - deal with it. Lye will waste on hair folicles instead of the skin and will make the hair caustic to animals. Scrape flesh side first.

4)Put scraped hide into a bucket and cover with water. Mix lye with some water in a jar and add to the bucket. Wash the jar immediately. Mix the hide and water. Make sure the hide is submerged and bucket is covered. You can leave the bucket like this for about a week. It won't rot, is what I'm saying. The lye will keep the hide sterilized. Mix once daily.

5) After three days, the hide will be puckered. Take the hide bucket to a shower stall. Rince the hide well. Put a rag on the end of the scrap beam and another rag between your body and the hide surface. With the managable beam, scrape the hide in the puckered state so you remove any remaining surface gunk both sides. Be careful as the hide is very vulnerable to cutting or breaking in this state; at the same time, the whole idea of scraping it now, is to obliterate the fiber bonds and tear the hide loose through manual force. Scrape downward then pull sideways. You will notice the hide change from being stiff - as it is swolen with water -to stretchy by the end of this step. A lot of gunk will also be squeezed from the hide during this step. DO NOT do this outdoors or somewhere animals with be exposed to the caustic lye chemicals that will come from the hide; do NOT at any time accept that doing so is fine.

6) Throw the hide back into the bucket and reapeat this wait stretch-in-shower process until you feel the hide it's thoroughly trashed to a loose hide.

7) The hide must now be fully rinced of gunk and lye solution. Take it to the shower and rince and scrape, soak (now in fresh water only), scrape, rince. Once the hide starts to look like a white wet white hide and not translucent, throw it in a bucket of water.

8) The shower step broke the fiber bonds to the skins core; the next step of pole wringing, will make the final hide as stretchy as possible. The hide must now be cleaned of base solution and returned to a neutral wet white hide. Put the hide in a bucket of clean water and soak for some time (day?). When ready, throw over a horizontal bean. Flap the rup end over the beam, and then overlap back over with the neck side. Curl the left side to the center then the right. You should now have a doughnut thing on the pole. Put another pole through the hole and twist - slowly - so the layers don't slide undone. Wring the hide of water. Twist clockwise, then counter. Turn the hide a quarter and repeat. Repeat untill the hide is well wrung. Undo the loop. Stretch the hide open again, then put the left side of the wide end of the on the beam. Fold the neck pack over the hide, and loop the right side of the hide over. Curl to the center both ends and twist wring; this step will stretch the hide sideways as opposite the previous wringing, which stretched the hide lengthwise. Undo the loop and throw the hide in clean water for a day. Repeat this wring soak until the hide has been heavy broke and stretched, feels tacky when damp instead of slimy, and is well cleaned of slimy base solution. The process until now should turn a bloody, hair covered hide into a white hairless, stretchy hide; this stretch is different from the original stretch of the hide in that it if far greater and has no ability to want to return to the original skin shape.

9) On the final wring, leave the hide damp and not soaked with water. Prepare the softening solution. I dont measure things but you'll need about 45ml of vegetable oil and half a bar of grated soap blended into a slurry with about a cup of water. Mix the solution into about 3 letters of water. Put the damp hide into the mixture and massage the skin into the liquide. Allow it to absorb the milky slurry for a day or so or epidite by massaging the hide in the liquid and wringing  sooner. 

10) Pull out the wet hide and lay it over a beam, leaving the bucket underneath to catch the falling liquid. Wring the hide just as you did to clean out hide of base solution - the process with also served to stretch the hide. 

11) Take the hide off the beam and stretch the hide open using your hands. Massage into the slurry and let soak again a day or sooner as mentioned above. Repeat the wring process .

12) With the hide now stretchy, damp but not soaked, covered in oil solution, it should be porous and milky white. Stitch the holes over an inch wide if there are any. To do this, I simply use a thong made of the same material using a whip stitch. Smaller holes are stitched after the hide is smoked by stitching and soaking the area, then drying flat.

13) at this point, the hide may be stored in the fridge for a couple days, but no more, if need be, rolled tight, lock in a bag.

14) The hide is ready to be worked by pulling and reafing over a sharp wood beam. This can last a few hours or eight depending on the environment. You can rest now and then but with deer the work should be continuous. If you need to stop for a night or a while, roll tight, throw in a bag and put it in the fridge.

15) The hide, finished drying, should now be at its softest. You should have another to sew and prepare for smoking; if you have one, begin sewing by putting tail end to tail end, as symmetrically as possible, and begin sewing together down one side, then the other. They dont need to be perfectly symmetrical or the same size - just sew, it will work. You need a " skirt". The skirt will be sewn to the neck opening of your "smoke sack". The skirt is just a loop of fabirc that will act as a buffer amd funnel the smoke from the pit or pot into the hide sack avoiding scorching to the hides. For sewing hides, I use a thong of smoked hide, big awl set secure on a surface, push overlap hides onto awl, use a continuous stitch.

16) Smoke. Don't use wet material, but don't worry about what dry material you are using.

Unsew. Done.