Furs and hides are necessary for making warm clothes. Previously, in order to start sewing sheepskin coats, the skins were soaked in salt. How to make skins using salt for this? In the modern world, chrome alum is used. This is a long but effective method. Leather tanning is necessary to make jackets and other clothes from it. Everyone can master this method.
What is chrome alum?
Alum is a double salt obtained by mixing hot equimolar aqueous solutions of metal sulfates. When this solution is cooled, alum crystals are obtained from it. To dye woolen things and yarn, they are etched with alum, and the skin of animals is tanned with alum. They are also used in the photographic industry, in medicine (for cauterizing wounds with an alum pencil), at the beginning of the twentieth century after shaving, alum was burned to the skin to stop blood from cuts. Alum is of different types: potassium aluminum, aluminum ammonium, iron-potassium, chromium-potassium, iron-ammonium, aluminum-rubidium, aluminum-aluminum. From the names of the chromates, it immediately becomes clear which chemicals were used to produce them. But do not try to make them at home, the result may not live up to expectations. You can buy finished chrome alum, which sells hides or finished products of home production. It is unlikely that they can be found in large supermarkets; you need to search the Internet or in the markets.
How to make skins using alum?
If you are the owner of the skin of an animal - a rabbit, elk, snake, giraffe or elephant, and you know where to buy chrome alum, then this is an occasion to try yourself as a skin dresser. From childhood, everyone knows tales about Nikita Kozhemyak. This is a healthy strong kid who has been engaged in tanning animal skins all his life. Do I need to have immeasurable power to properly handle it? How to make skins at home? First you need to soak it in a solution of alum. This must be done to degrease and harden the material. Only chrome alum should be used for skinning. These are chrome and chrome potassium varieties. They have long been used for tanning. Chrome alum where to buy? You can go to a chemical reactor shop or photo store. After the skin has become stiff, it must be removed from the solution, rinse well and soak again. Do not be afraid to spoil the thing, using alum is completely safe. Take care of your hands so that you do not get salt burns, you must use durable rubber gloves when working. During soaking, the skin should drift freely on the surface of the solution, this will mean that there is enough salt in the water. Measure how much solution is currently being used, exactly the same amount of it will be needed for subsequent actions.
Getting rid of the skin from germs
Even if the animal was kept at home, in its skin it is still full of microbes that are harmful to humans and can cause rotting of a thing made from this skin. In order to get rid of these organisms, an antiseptic must be added to one of the picks. For this solution, you need fifty grams of table salt, a milliliter of formalin or sulfidine (calculated per liter of water). You can add natural antiseptics - bark and leaves of oak, willow. Soak must be at least twelve hours.
After tanning - drying and stretching
Tanning animal skins or skin is a necessary process. This is done in order to give the material elasticity, softness and a good look. In the drying process after tanning, all heroic strength is needed. How to make skins, if such strength is not available? Use a well-polished round log. This log needs to be fixed on both sides to get something like a horizontal bar. For such tanning, you will need two people and cotton gloves, so as not to rub the corns. Hang the skin on the wrong side of the log, on both sides firmly grasp the ends of the canvas. Strongly pressing the skin on the log, with sudden movements, pull it in one direction or the other. Alternate this process with crumple. Mash the skin as if you are kneading the dough. It is necessary to crush strongly, not sparing forces. And then again on the log, and so on several times, until you realize that the skin is quite elastic. After such manipulations, the product from this skin will turn out to be soft, light and warm.
Sour or rawhide
Such leather is used to make belts, bags, jackets. Of course, such products will be inferior in quality to factory things, but if there is a skin, why not try to make a useful thing out of it? To begin with, tanning is mandatory - soaking the skins in an alum solution, then the process of mezdrovka follows - stretching, wrinkling the skins on a log. When all the manipulations are over, you need to carefully shave the skin. In the process of shaving, the upper thin layer of the skin, the epidermis, will also be removed. Use a sharp hunting knife to shave. The hairline will be easily removed if all the above prescribed actions are correctly performed.
Chrome alum: where are they sold?
In order for the animal skin to serve you for many years, it must be properly processed. To do this, chrome potassium or chrome alum is required. Where are these salts sold? You can start your search from agricultural markets. There, hunters can sell dressed skins. Ask if they can sell alum. If not, check with them about chrome alum (where they are sold). You can go in search of alum at the pharmacy. These salts are used for medical purposes to stop bleeding, cauterize a wound. Chemical shops also have a chance to buy a variety of alum. Photo shops must have alum in stock. If they were not found, you can ask to be brought, or order online. The ads are posted offers for the sale of alum. It’s better to buy chrome alum from private owners, their price will be much more affordable. In fact, alum is salt. In stores, the price can be very high - up to three hundred rubles per kilogram! Through the Internet, according to the announcement, it is possible to purchase alum up to one hundred rubles per kilogram.
Is it possible to make skins without alum?
Leather tanning is an ancient craft. How to make skins without salt? No way. Salt is still necessary. How to replace chrome alum? These are decoctions of willow bark, bark and leaves of oak, ledum. In addition to tanning properties, this decoction also has an antimicrobial effect. Even using alum, you will have to once again soak the skin in an antiseptic, and when using a decoction this action will not come in handy. In order to make a decoction, take in equal proportions the branches with foliage and the bark of oak and willow, ledum. Place the plants in a metal container, put on a fire, fill with water so that the branches hide. After boiling, simmer for at least half an hour. Cool the broth, strain well from leaves and other debris. Pour in table salt (fifty grams per liter of broth). Stir well so that all salt crystals are completely dissolved. Put the skin in the solution. The tanning process will take from twelve hours to four days. If the salt is not completely dissolved and the skin is put in the solution, it may become stained.
How to find out that the skin has salted and is ready for further dressing?
In the process of soaking in chrome alum or a decoction of the bark, the skin on the inside acquires a yellowish tint. There is nothing to worry about in this staining - the usual chemical reaction. After twelve ches, if the color appears, make a small incision in the trial section of the skin. If the soaking is completed, the skin will be stained through. If the color inside is different, then you need to wait again. Just do not again be guided by the same cut, because at this point the painting process will go faster. For each test, a new cut is needed, so do not check often. Even if the skin lay in the solution, nothing bad will be done to it, it will not go bad.
How to achieve a factory result?
In order for the skin or leather to resemble factory products in quality, you need to try hard, but still the result will not be ideal. You can approximate the quality of home-made things to factory products by the following steps: Before soaking the skin or skin, it must be cleaned of all films, pieces of meat, vessels and veins, boil fat from it in a decoction of oak bark and willow. Simmer for about an hour. Next - salt soaking according to the scheme prescribed above. Soak for twelve hours, remove and rinse in running water. Wash the skin well, scroll and stretch it on a log. Place in saline again. Performing these manipulations is worth at least three times, but the result will please. A fur coat, jacket or sheepskin coat from the skin of such a dressing will be light as a feather, soft, elastic and beautiful. The quality of tailoring, of course, will depend on the seamstress creating the thing. Everything that could be done with the skin for its beauty, brilliance and quality has already been done. Most importantly, do not forget about the safety of hands - salt very quickly corrodes the skin.