Post by Kris on Sept 28, 2008 20:59:53 GMT -6
Tanning is the process of making a non-perishable skin out of otherwise perishable hide through tannins. In short, you soak a clean hide in an acid bath; the hide comes out supple and will never become rawhide. (By contrast, rawhide is simple. I'll post how to make that later.)
First, you clean the skin and soften it by soaking it in water. Once the dirt and gore are gone, you pound the skin and scour it to remove any remaining flesh and fat. This would take off some hair, but not all of it. To take off the remaining hair, you have to either soak the skin in urine, or just let it decompose for a couple of months before soaking it in a salt solution. (I'm gonna say the urine soak is what our elves use.)
Once the hair is softened, you scrape it off with a knife. Here's where the really nasty, smelly part of tanning comes in: the hide gets treated by either being soaked in a solution of water and animal brains, or a solution of water and animal dung. Wolf dung would work, as usually it's either pigeon or dog dung that was used in ancient times. Usually, the tanner gets into the vat and tromps on the hide when it's soaking in the dung/water solution.
The alternative to the dung bath (or brain bath) is a vegetable tanning bath, which it seems Moonshade uses. Vegetable tanning is where the hides, after being scraped free of hair, are soaked in a bath of water and bark. The best barks to use for tanning are: oak, tanoak (an evergreen beech), chestnut and hemlock.
After that, the hides can be retanned in order to increase flexibility and allow the hides to be colored. Retanning usually means subjecting the hide to the tanning process, but using a different method. So maybe our tanners would subject the hides to a dung-and-urine bath, let the hides stretch and dry, and then put them through a vegetable bath.
Once retanning is finished, the hides can be dyed. After the dyeing is finished, the hides have to be fatliquored--oil has to be introduced to the hide to keep it supple and soft. This is usually done in small amounts, with a mix of oil/fat and water to emulsify it. Apparently, the best fat solution to use is fish or animal oil treated with sulfuric acid at 10 - 20 degrees Celsius. The sulfurated oil is treated with a strong brine solution to wash the acid away; what's left is then treated with soda ash to neutralize the last traces of the acid.
How can our Wolfriders do that? Well, you can make sulfuric acid. But trust me when I say this is NOT a good thing to have around in a natural setting. However, it could be they discovered the uses of sulfated oil when they first met trolls centuries ago. Sulfuric acid is immensely useful in metalmongery; it cleans metal like nobody's business. And the trolls would know how to store it and use it properly.
For now, I'd say our Wolfriders could rely on an acidic solution made from wood ash or lime, mix it with water, and use it to fatliquor the hides. It would work better than the safest (and least effective) way of fatliquoring hides, which is mixing soap and oil. The other method is using sulfonated oil . . . and I'll add that process once I find out how feasible it is for our elves' technological level.
When fatliquoring the hides, the hides are placed in a drum with the oil and then rotated for about 30-40 minutes. I say, making a barrel and rolling it downhill would be great fun for the cubs . . .
After the drum process is done, the hides are taken out, stretched, and dried. Then they're ready to be cut, sewn, and worn.
First, you clean the skin and soften it by soaking it in water. Once the dirt and gore are gone, you pound the skin and scour it to remove any remaining flesh and fat. This would take off some hair, but not all of it. To take off the remaining hair, you have to either soak the skin in urine, or just let it decompose for a couple of months before soaking it in a salt solution. (I'm gonna say the urine soak is what our elves use.)
Once the hair is softened, you scrape it off with a knife. Here's where the really nasty, smelly part of tanning comes in: the hide gets treated by either being soaked in a solution of water and animal brains, or a solution of water and animal dung. Wolf dung would work, as usually it's either pigeon or dog dung that was used in ancient times. Usually, the tanner gets into the vat and tromps on the hide when it's soaking in the dung/water solution.
The alternative to the dung bath (or brain bath) is a vegetable tanning bath, which it seems Moonshade uses. Vegetable tanning is where the hides, after being scraped free of hair, are soaked in a bath of water and bark. The best barks to use for tanning are: oak, tanoak (an evergreen beech), chestnut and hemlock.
After that, the hides can be retanned in order to increase flexibility and allow the hides to be colored. Retanning usually means subjecting the hide to the tanning process, but using a different method. So maybe our tanners would subject the hides to a dung-and-urine bath, let the hides stretch and dry, and then put them through a vegetable bath.
Once retanning is finished, the hides can be dyed. After the dyeing is finished, the hides have to be fatliquored--oil has to be introduced to the hide to keep it supple and soft. This is usually done in small amounts, with a mix of oil/fat and water to emulsify it. Apparently, the best fat solution to use is fish or animal oil treated with sulfuric acid at 10 - 20 degrees Celsius. The sulfurated oil is treated with a strong brine solution to wash the acid away; what's left is then treated with soda ash to neutralize the last traces of the acid.
How can our Wolfriders do that? Well, you can make sulfuric acid. But trust me when I say this is NOT a good thing to have around in a natural setting. However, it could be they discovered the uses of sulfated oil when they first met trolls centuries ago. Sulfuric acid is immensely useful in metalmongery; it cleans metal like nobody's business. And the trolls would know how to store it and use it properly.
For now, I'd say our Wolfriders could rely on an acidic solution made from wood ash or lime, mix it with water, and use it to fatliquor the hides. It would work better than the safest (and least effective) way of fatliquoring hides, which is mixing soap and oil. The other method is using sulfonated oil . . . and I'll add that process once I find out how feasible it is for our elves' technological level.
When fatliquoring the hides, the hides are placed in a drum with the oil and then rotated for about 30-40 minutes. I say, making a barrel and rolling it downhill would be great fun for the cubs . . .
After the drum process is done, the hides are taken out, stretched, and dried. Then they're ready to be cut, sewn, and worn.
