u/Bows_n_Bikes

This is a buck skin that sat in a pickle at 2.5 ph from last November til about 3 weeks ago. I just scudded it on the bear so it’s a bit dark and streaky in the photo.

I was going to try my first brain tan but the grain was so well bonded that I couldn’t get it to separate. I pivoted to a bark tan and tried mimosa extract for the first time. I let it steep for about 2.5 weeks with almost daily mixing. I followed the instructions from braintan.com and checked with a barkometer. I only use non-iodized feed salt and I neutralized overnight with a hose trickling into a bucket. Our tap water doesn’t have iron but we do have calcium in the water. Those 2 really dark areas are from a period of about a month when the hide was in the pickle and they were above the surface - oops!

So what’s going on here and how do I avoid it? I don’t like this color and I was hoping for the light pink that mimosa is known for.

This pattern used both sides of a nice size salmon. I tanned it with mulberry wood following the guidance from the good folks over on r/hidetanning. The leather turned out really soft and had good stretch. It’s also super thin (and strong) so my back is thanking me. I learned how hard hand stitching can be and you can easily tell my first lines from the last ones. This was a fun project and I’m looking forward to learning a lot more about this craft!

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!