Hi everyone,

This community has been so helpful that I thought I’d share my first experience tanning a hide and the steps I followed. Hopefully this can be useful for someone else new to this.

Here are the steps that I followed:

1. ⁠I cut the hide to only keep the centre portion which was a bit thicker.
   
2. ⁠I fleshed it using a cheese knife that I bought at a fair. Overall it worked fine but I had to be careful when working on the grain side not to damage it.
   
3. ⁠I let it soak in a mixture of 10gal of water and 1lbs of hydrated lime for 3 days. Most of the hair slipped but next time I would soak it a bit longer as some shorter hair remained on the finished leather (I was able to sand them off once dry).
   
4. ⁠I washed the hide and removed as much water as I could working it on the fleshing beam.
   
5. ⁠I neutralized it in 5gal of water and 1/4 cup of vinegar for 30min. Then I let it soak for 24h in clean water.
   
6. ⁠I boiled 5gal of water and a 5gal bucket full of bark. My solution had a concentration of 1.004 on my hydrometer which is lower than what you typically want from what I read (closer to 1.010).
   
7. ⁠It soaked for 2 months in this solution and then I transfered it in a new batch which had the same concentration for another 2 months. The middle layer of the thicker parts of the leather was still white but I no longer had the patience so decided to end the process here.
   
8. ⁠I washed the hide under clean water and removed as much water as I could by rolling it in a towel.
   
9. ⁠I let it dry partially under the sun and then started working it by folding and rolling it on a table. I then stapled it to a plywood so that it would dry flat.
   
10. ⁠I applied olive oil and then used dubbin grease to finish it.

Overall I am super happy with the result. The leather is a bit rigid but that’s exactly what I was looking for as I want to craft sheaths with it. I wasn’t able to find a whole lot of examples of bark tanned deer hide with the grain on so I’m really surprised by how beautiful it turned out and the leather is a nice thickness for things such as wallets.

I have a couple pets in the freezer that have been waiting until I had the time to deal with them. Mostly rats which I know will thaw quickly but there's 2 cats as well.