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Buckskin (leather)


Buckskin is the soft, pliable, porous preserved hide of an animal – usually deertanned in the same way as deerskin clothing worn by Native Americans. Some leather sold as "buckskin" may now be sheepskin tanned with modern chromate tanning chemicals and dyed to resemble real buckskin.

Buckskin is preserved with a of some kind of lubricant, physically manipulated to make it soft and pliable, and usually smoked with woodsmoke. Smoking gives buckskin its typical dark honey color, and is highly recommended. Smoking prevents the tanned hide from becoming stiff if it gets wet, and deters insects from eating it as well. Unsmoked buckskin is lighter, even white, in color.

Buckskin is simply "the skin of a buck (deer)".Clothing made of buckskin is referred to as buckskins.

The dry-scrape method involves taking a wet deer hide and stretching it on a rack to dry flat. A scraping tool is then dragged perpendicular to the blade along the hair side, scraping off the epidermis and hair, including all the hair follicles. The flesh side should be scraped as well. When the entire hide is scraped, it is taken off the rack, rehydrated, and dressed.

The wet-scrape method involves scraping the wet hide on a smooth downward-slanting log or fleshing beam with the upper end at stomach or sternum level. A steel blade or split leg bone can be used for a scraper. The hide is draped on the log, the person leans into it, holding the hide in place with their body and pushing the scraper away with both hands. The epidermis is scraped off the outside of the hide to achieve a soft finish. The membrane is scraped off the flesh side.

If the hide is more than a day or two old, it should be "bucked" first, via an alkali soaking process called bucking (from a Latin verb of the type *bucāre "to steep in lye, wash clothes"); The hide is soaked in a solution of wood ash lye or hydrated lime in water. This causes the grain layer (epidermis) to swell, making it easier to slip the hair and scrape off the grain.

Once the hide has been scraped it must be dressed in a dressing solution. These can be made from any emulsified fat, such as egg yolks or the animal's brain mixed into water. Another option is an oil and a soap mixed in water. Typically the wet hide is wrung out, then left in the dressing solution for 15 minutes or more, then wrung out and dressed again. Repeating this a third time ensures that the dressing reaches the middle of the hide.


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