This weekend, while most of our friends were at Unity, we were in the middle of nowhere (a.k.a. Diever) in Drenthe for a weekend long workshop of making buckskin. Buckskin sounds as a kind of animal hide but it is actually the manner of tanning. The result is a very soft fleece like (not sheepskin, but the synthetic kind) skin without the fur.

The idea to attend this workshop was a result from the Taboe preparations. I was trying to get a lot of furs for my costume and thought "Can't I just prepare some myself?" (there are butchers that just throw away the skins of the deer they slaughter). Well, let's say I was glad for Marktplaats because tanning really is a lot of hard work.

Our instructor, Diederick, who is the owner of Het Stenen Tijdperk, had brought skins in several states of the tanning process. There was a fresh hide that needed to be cleaned of the connective tissue (bindweefsel) and pieces of left over meat. There was a fresh hide that needed to be scraped clean of hair. And there was a hide that had already been in the tanning bucket (eggs plus olive oil) and could be softened already.

The cleaning of meaty bits was hard and unrewarding work. The hide lay on the forest floor and you had to scrape all the nastiness off, but it didn't want to come off and it only worked for small pieces at a time. So you didn't see much result even though you were sweating like crazy.

The scraping of the hair from a fresh (already cleaned of flesh) hide was rather easy. It was hung upon a pole so you could work from top to bottom. It's amazing how sturdy a hide really is. No matter how rough you were you would have to do your very best to pierce the skin.

The hide that was cleaned of it's fleshy bits was strung into a frame and left to dry over night. The next day we scraped off the hair. The dry scraping method. This was a lot harder than the fresh-scraping method. It was also more prone to errors and cutting holes in the hide. However, when you get a hide it most probably has been salted or frozen and the fresh-scraping will be impossible.

The hide that we depilated was put into a mixture of 16 eggs and some olive oil. Then wrung out and again submerged into the egg-oil sludge. Repeat this several times. The goal is to have the hide soak up the fatty substance and get it worked in through and through. When wringing the hide little bubbles should form on the surface, showing that the egg mess has really gone through all layers. This will keep the hide nice and supple.

After the hide has had enough egg baths and wringing sessions it is hung to dry for a while. When it feels cool to the touch but is not dry yet you start to soften it. This is a process that can only be stopped if you put the hide away in a plastic bag so it can't dry further. When it gets too dry you can't soften it anymore and you have to wet it all through again (with water) and start over with the softening. The softening itself is done by pulling the hide from side to side against a steel cable. Side to side, top to bottom, don't forget the edges and keep repeating this until the hide is completely dry and baby soft. This takes quite some time and strength.

After the softening the hide will be very soft and nearly white. Then you smoke it to make it water proof. If you do not smoke it and the hide gets wet, it will dry up hard. Smoking keeps the hide soft even when it gets wet. It also gives a yellow/brownish color to the hide. We did the smoking over a smouldering "fire" in a pit. Around the pit we put sticks in the ground to lay the hide on and over it all we put some sails to keep the rain out and the smoke in. After about an hour you turn the skin so the other side gets smoked and after about another half hour you're done.

All participants (7) got a piece of the skins we worked on. Renate even got the whole skin from the frame to further process it at home. I don't know what to make from my pieces yet. The pieces are not large enough for clothes, except perhaps a small hat. It will be stored with the other pieces of leather we have lying around until I think of something.

I put up a gallery with our photos.