Tanning your own deer hides is a great way to round out your skills as a hunter. Not only does it teach you something useful, but it means you’re taking steps to utilize every part of the animal. It’s also quite a process, one that requires not a little sweat and patience. To make things a bit simpler, I’ve put together this list of steps to the traditional tanning process with hair off (meaning you’re making usable leather). It’s an adventure, and I highly recommend taking the leap. 

How Tanning Works 

You’ll find myriad chemicals and natural substances used to tan hides, and just about everyone will proclaim their way is the best. Reality is you’ll need to find the method that suits your needs, time, and personal preferences — not to mention regional restrictions when it comes to accessing certain materials. 

What You Need to Tan a Hair Off Hide

Hair off hides is preferred by many deer hunters due to the brittle texture of the animal’s hair. Deer hair tends to snap off and fall out far more than other animals – such as bears – and because of that, a lot of deer hides become leather. You can do a hair on hide as a wall hanger, but if you want a blanket or rug, the life of the item is likely limited. It’ll shed like my red heeler in the spring. 

You’ll need a few things to process the hide. Doing this by hand rather than with professional machines is more work, but the investment in high-end equipment isn’t worth it for most hunters.

• Fleshing blade
• Fleshing beam
• 5 gallon bucket or plastic garbage can
• Cinder block, brick, or other object to use as a weight
• Disposable gloves
• Cable, PVC with cap, 2×4, or another curved object for breaking the hide
• Non-iodized salt (iodized can discolor hair-off hides) 
• Hydrated lime (calcium hydroxide)
• Ammonium sulfate
• 36 eggs or 15+ gallons of bark liquor (more on that later)
• Olive oil if using eggs
• Punky, decaying wood
• Old jeans split open and stitched together to form a funnel
• Clothes pins
• Mink oil
• Optional: Taxidermy apron (rubber or vinyl)

If you’d like to do brain tanning but don’t have access to any, you can use egg yolks. Although egg tanning isn’t an exact copy of brain tanning, it’s a good process that creates a soft hide. For bark tanning, you need a large amount of bark — around 10 pounds — from the tannin- rich tree of your choice.

Step One: Fleshing the Hide

The first step to tanning is cleaning the flesh side of the hide. At this point, the opposite side is still covered with hair. You can put together a makeshift fleshing beam, but it’s easier if you have an actual beam for this. You’ll want the end you work on to be rounded to match the curve of the fleshing blade, positioned at just above navel height at the working end with the other end on the ground.

Put your hide on the beam, hair down, and use the sharper – but still blunt – side of the blade to remove the layer of fat and flesh covering the skin. You’ll be pushing downward with firm strokes to break through the fat, and once you get going you move the hide around as needed to access a new area. You don’t work the full length of the beam or hide. The top of the beam is your workspace; the length of the beam serves to support the weight of the hide and present a comfortable angle for fleshing.

Remove all the flesh, taking care along the edges and around any holes. Aside from the expected bullet or broadhead hole, it isn’t unusual to find other damage from fighting, especially during the rut. There might also be scars you need to be careful when cleaning.

Note: Because you’re tanning this hide hair off, you don’t have to salt it before the next step. However, if you want to pause the process and come back to it later, it’s a good idea to put a heavy layer of salt on your hide before rolling and freezing. 

Step Two: Bucking Solution 

The bucking step is necessary to properly remove hair from your hide. Caustic substances are used in this step, so take care not to breathe them in. While I don’t put gloves on to begin the bucking process, I do wear gloves later when removing the hide from the solution. Hydrated lime (calcium hydroxide) such as Hi-Yield, which you’ll find in the gardening section, is a good option. You’ll use one ounce of hydrated lime for each gallon of cool water. Use a broom handle or stick to mix it, and when you’re done, submerge the hide. You might need a weight that won’t be affected by the lime to ensure the hide is fully covered. 

Leave the hide in the bucking solution until the hair can be easily tugged out or wiped off. This can take two to five days, and while you wait, you’ll need to use a broom handle to stir and move the hide a couple times a day. Wear gloves when touching the hide to check the hair. 

Note: Never use a metal container for bucking. I’ve used 5-gallon buckets from Bucees, rubber storage totes, and plastic garbage cans. You’ll want a lid, but that can be as simple as a piece of plywood. Also, prior to moving to the next step, consider using a glover’s needle and heavy thread to close any holes in the hide. 

Step Three: Removing Grain and Membrane 

When the hair is coming out of the hide easily it’s time for graining and membraning. First, the hair must be removed, so do that with your blade or hand (if you leave it in the bucking solution long enough, hair can slip out with a press of the hand). Then, with the hide on your fleshing beam and the hair side up, use the fleshing blade to remove the grain. This takes some hard work and is something that gets better with practice. Areas where the grain is removed can be brighter, but you can also tell by how slick the area is. Grain-on areas are generally smoother and slicker than those where the grain is scraped off.

After you’ve removed the top grain on the hair side of the hide, move on to the flesh side. Scrape off any membrane that was missed the first time around. It is possible to remove small pieces that were missed later, carefully using an orbital or hand sander with 80 grit sandpaper (you can also use 120 grit sandpaper to further smooth and soften your hide at the end). Keep in mind missed pieces interfere with tanning and breaking. 

Step Four: Deliming

It’s possible to delime the hide with clean water in a lengthy process of stirring, water changing, and days of waiting. I prefer using ammonium sulfate for deliming because it’s more efficient. Mix four ounces of ammonium sulfate – you can get it online – in five gallons of cool water. Submerge the hide for four to five hours, stirring occasionally. At the end of deliming, I submerge my hide in a bucket of clean water for thirty minutes. 

Step Five: Tanning

Brain tanning involves using the brain of an animal to tan the hide. Bark tanning refers to the process of boiling bark down to create a dark, tannin-rich liquor to soak the hide. In addition, there are quite a few chemical tanning solutions you can get online and from taxidermists. The “orange bottle” is often used – it’s really Deer Hunter’s & Trapper’s Hide Tanning Formula – and can be a good starting point if you’d prefer that process. 

Egg tanning is sometimes done under the guise of brain tanning. They’re full of fat and lecithin, and while they don’t technically tan the hide, they do soften and treat it. To egg tan a hair off hide, I use 12 egg yolks – yes, toss the whites or eat them – to each half gallon of warm water. You’ll need between 24 and 36 eggs to create a fatty liquor to submerge the hide in. I mix the eggs and water by hand and add 1/8-cup olive oil per gallon of water. Although some hunters make the egg process brief, it’s better to give it 24 to 48 hours to penetrate. Swish it around periodically to ensure complete coverage. 

For bark tanning, I pack my metal water bath canner with mesquite bark, fill it with water, and simmer it for several hours. It takes about ten gallons of bark liquor – you remove the bark itself — to submerge the hide in an 18-gallon Rubbermaid tote (the hide must have room to spread out and not be crumpled into a small space). You can use a barometer – a specific gravity hydrometer specifically made for this process – to check tannins. On a barometer, the goal is between 10 and 20. You can taste the liquor as well; it should be astringent, not unlike a strong black tea. 

You can start with a weakened/watered-down bark liquor for the first day, gradually building in strength thereafter. Starting with full strength and keeping it others jump right into breaking. You can use a cable strung between two objects, a 2×4, a rounded fence post, or even an old axe to break your hide. The point is constant movement to separate the fibers and create a soft product rather than stiff, unusable rawhide. Don’t stop working the hide until it’s dry. If it’s cool to the touch, it isn’t dry. Check out YouTube or a hide tanning group on social media for a variety of breaking methods. 

Step Six: Breaking

Commit to at least a half a day to break your hide by hand. For this method, we’re not lacing it into a frame. You can, but you’ll still need to stand there and break the hide as it dries. Break the hide by first wringing it out then stretching it so it regains its proper size. At this point, some prefer to let it hang and partially dry while others jump right into breaking. You can use a cable strung between two objects, a 2×4, a rounded fence post, or even an old axe to break your hide. The point is constant movement to separate the fibers and create a soft product rather than stiff, unusable rawhide. Don’t stop working the hide until it’s dry. If it’s cool to the touch, it isn’t dry. Check out YouTube or a hide tanning group on social media for a variety of breaking methods.

Step Seven: Smoking

Using old jeans stitched together and soaked in water, form a funnel with the waistband end circling your metal bucket or fire ring. Wooden clothes pins can be used to attach the hide to the other end of the jeans. Sew or clip the hide closed so the smoke is forced to pass through it. Rotten wood is used to produce smoke and a smoldering fire rather than one with tall flames that could damage the hide. Watch your hide. It doesn’t take long to smoke this way—about 30 minutes per side — and you don’t want it to overheat or burn. Smoking gives an egg tanned hide a nice tan color while simultaneously waterproofing it. This is thanks to a chemical reaction between the aldehydes from the smoke and the hide’s collagen. If you bark tanned, you’ll still smoke the hide to prevent it from stiffening if it gets wet. 

Step Eight: Oiling — Or Not

If you like, you can use small amounts of mink oil to further preserve and soften the hide. Pure neatsfoot oil can also be used but be sparing due to the heaviness of that type of oil. Rather than applying directly, I prefer to apply the oil to my hands and work the hide. 

Enjoy your hide! There’s nothing like the smell and texture of a tanned deer hide. 

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