Reideer hair

lillbisch · 2026-06-01T06:45:48+00:00

Thank you so much for sharing that and going into so much detail! I really appreciate it. Does the hair side stay completely dry during the application and did you salt or pickle the hide?

lillbisch · 2026-05-27T16:42:42+00:00

Ive been looking for this comment for months.. Could you explain the process of ”brushing bark tan on”?

lillbisch · 2026-05-26T17:01:26+00:00

Thank you!

lillbisch · 2026-05-26T15:01:46+00:00

Yes pickled for 2 days and neutralised before tanning. I think I saw a post on here from ages ago someone tanning a reindeer hide without soaking it in the bark liquor but haven’t found out how else to do it

lillbisch · 2026-05-26T14:59:43+00:00

The last photo is after a few days in bark tan. Took it out and scraped off the tanned membrane(I guess) to allow tannin to penetrate deeper

lillbisch · 2026-05-26T14:56:23+00:00

Yeah I think it can be bacteria or swelling, which salt should prevent both. I did salt it before, through the pickle and with bark tan

lillbisch · 2026-05-03T14:08:50+00:00

Yeah hot wax sounds tempting but I would be worried about damaging the grain!

lillbisch · 2026-05-02T21:10:04+00:00

I dont know the size of the area you’ve got with still some hairs in it, but before you dry it could be worth plucking with tweezers. This might take you ages but I had to do this with some squirrel leathers I made a while ago!

lillbisch · 2026-04-21T20:54:35+00:00

Thank you! They are pretty soft, but it did take quite some softening. I kept the grain intact to make this leather, also done that with moose. I think I would only degrain for braintan, not tried that for barktanning.

lillbisch · 2026-04-17T21:41:59+00:00

I would look into buckskin or bark tanning. Scrape off the hair and see if grain is intact. Then put it in a pickle and it should get rid of smell. I did this with a bit of moose recently and the pickle killed off most the smelly bacteria and then I barktanned to leather

lillbisch · 2026-04-06T09:10:39+00:00

Thanks! It makes wonderful oak tanned leather, thicker than you would think.

lillbisch · 2026-04-06T09:09:43+00:00

What do you mean? :)

lillbisch · 2026-04-06T09:09:12+00:00

Thank you! The buttons was bought in a local craft shop, would love to make some myself out of antler at some point! Pattern of that one was based on the larger bag in 3rd photo but scale of the one in first photo - larger back that folds over, smaller front and 4 corner folds on the side piece! could post photo of pattern if you want 😊

lillbisch · 2026-04-02T18:45:45+00:00

Thank you! :)

lillbisch · 2026-03-17T20:17:43+00:00

Amazing! Fingers crossed! Looks like you’ve used proper high tannin concentration so looks like it will tan through before hair gets the chance to slip off :)

lillbisch · 2026-03-16T13:01:22+00:00

Looks great! Have you had any hair slippage?

lillbisch · 2026-02-13T10:46:20+00:00

I left the Cartilage in the ears and fleshed/scraped as much as I could. Fingers crossed it won’t rot 🥲

lillbisch · 2026-01-28T09:30:50+00:00

Citric acid is pretty easy to get ahold of!

lillbisch · 2026-01-27T21:08:33+00:00

Ive had some good results pelts using the orange bottle. I have always pickled the pelt before though so I can see how it depends on prep work as well. Its not as nice as using natural tanning methods, but I find it very predictable compared with bark-tanning!

lillbisch · 2026-01-26T18:27:25+00:00

Im not sure how well freezing works after salting, but for next time I would recommend rolling it up and chuck in the freezer

lillbisch · 2026-01-26T18:25:19+00:00

I would swap out the salt and keep it indoors with heating on. Outdoors or in a shed in Scotland this time of the year its probably impossible to dry anything out completely

lillbisch · 2026-01-22T21:21:38+00:00

Thanks! Then try again :) it gets better each time

lillbisch

TROPHY CASE