I’m a bark tan convert! This is a bit of an odd question but I’m wondering if I can bark tan a hide that has been tanned with a chemical tan? I have 2 hair-off deer hides that were tanned with TruBond 1000b. But I don’t like them. Can I fix/improve these by bark tanning?
I was able to tan this salmon skin in about a week with white mulberry shavings. I absolutely love the warm brown color it turned out. I couldn’t find information on tanning with mulberry wood but osage is documented fairly well. The trees are related so I wanted to experiment (plus I generate a ton of mulberry shavings)
I used a roughly 5:1 mix of heartwood and sapwood shavings from a bow I’m working on. I used a shoebox full of hand plane shavings (1-1.5 gal) and added just enough water to cover them when packed tight in the pot. Boiled for an hour covered then removed lid and reduced for another hour. The resulting “tea” was quite astringent so I felt confident in giving this a shot. About a week later and boom, it’s done!
I finished this piece with an emulsion of 1/2c warm water, 1/4c canola oil, 1 egg yolk, and 1 small pump of liquid hand soap as described by Aaron in this video (thank you!!!). This gave the leather a nice soft buttery feel. I’m definitely going to keep doing this on my bark tans.
I’m absolutely delighted with how this salmon skin turned out and I’m excited to continue experimenting with mulberry as a tannin source.
Edit to add that it makes a really strong cordage too! I pulled like crazy on a 3/16” wide scrap and couldn’t get it to snap. I don’t know if this is normal for fish skin but I’m impressed!