I have received many questions about how to make hides for drums, clothing and so on. In the old days, especially in the north, the hide was taken off the animal, laid flat in the snow and buried. When spring came and uncovered the hide, the hairs had usually loosened and were easy to remove.
Other methods involve fastening the hide in a brook/river and leaving it there until the hairs loosen. This often took several weeks depending on the water temperature, and that method does not work with reindeer hide because it floats.
The method I have used most is to wash the hide in mild lukewarm soft-soap water, place it in a sealed plastic sack and keep it warm (above 20). Repeat every day! After about a week the hairs come off nicely. You can use chemicals (lime) to remove the hairs, but the downside is that the hide becomes somewhat porous and swollen. Once the hairs are removed, the hide is basically ready to be used on a drum.
If you want to use it for clothing or other things, you have to tan it. When you take the hide off an animal, an enzyme process begins immediately. If you can keep the hide at the same temperature and moisture as it was on the animal, the hide will be hairless within 48 hours.
The important thing is to stop this process.
That is done in many ways. In the old days the hide was stretched in a frame and scraped with a scraper until it was completely clean of meat remnants and membranes. It was then dried (in the frame). Brain matter and warm water were stirred together, and when this was suitably lukewarm the hide was rubbed in with it. When the hide was then suitably dry, it was stretched and pulled over a log to make it soft. Finally it was smoked and pulled more to make it completely soft. The advantage of this method is that you then have a hide that can withstand water.
Another method is of course to use bark from various trees. Willow is a good way. You first make the liquid by taking half a bucket of willow bark and filling it with water. Boil or steep it. The bark is strained off and you mix half a bucket of this with half a bucket of water. The hide is placed in it and stirred every half hour for the first few hours. After a day you can carefully increase the strength of the mixture. Cut carefully into the edge of the thickest part of the hide to see whether it is tanned all the way through.
Alum tanning is the quickest and easiest way:
250 g potassium alum
500 g salt
10 litres of water.
The hide is placed in it, stirred, and left for about a day. All methods require stretching if you want the hide to be soft. This could easily have become a whole book, but if anyone is wondering about anything, get in touch.
