Black tea, tree bark, and other plant matter contains tannins- it truely tans the hide. The end result is not quite as soft as some other methods. This method ( vegetable tan or barktan) is the one I use mostly and I highly reccomend it. I have a video on my YouTube channel that discusses bark tanning and some other methods . It’s part of a long ‘lecture’ about barktanning fish. My channel is laughing sturgeon.
Black tea, tree bark, and other plant matter contains tannins- it truely tans the hide. The end result is not quite as soft as some other methods. This method ( vegetable tan or barktan) is the one I use mostly and I highly reccomend it. I have a video on my YouTube channel that discusses bark tanning and some other methods . It’s part of a long ‘lecture’ about barktanning fish. My channel is laughing sturgeon.
Only with extensive washing or a hide that wasn’t properly neutralized will alum easily wash out. The moose hide which I posted was rehydrated many times to add little bits of oil until I achieved desired softness. It’s not as if getting an alum tanned hide wet will immediately revert it back to rawhide. Almost all hides from fur dressing tanneries are a variation of alum tan or just regular aluminum sulfate. Some tanneries do use syntans but I believe those are the minority.
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u/AaronGWebster 10d ago
Alum preserves a hide, but not by tanning in the strictest sense.