Deerskins into Buckskins: How to Tan with Natural Materials

If you want to make the softest, most beautiful buckskin in the easiest and most reliable way, then you should get this book. This is an excellent guide to the wet-scrape process for making buckskin. It contains step-by-step instructions for brain, soap or egg tanning, and over 130 photos and illustrations. Includes a resource guide and a nifty section on making your own buckskin clothing. The author has made his living by tanning buckskins and teaching others how to tan, so he definitely knows what he’s talking about. Excellent tips and hints for the beginner to expert tanner. Primitive Wilderness Living & Survival Skills by John and Geri McPherson. When John McPherson started brain tanning buckskins in the late 1970s, he found that none of the available books gave accurate and complete information. Through trial and error, and by making many mistakes, he discovered what was missing from these books, and then wrote his own guide to help others brain tan without having to learn the hard way. McPherson’s original booklet, Brain tan Buckskin, has probably taught more people the art of dry-scrape brain tanning than any other book, and is now Chapter 1 in Primitive Wilderness Living & Survival Skills. It provides clear, practical, well-illustrated instructions for dry-scrape brain tanning of hides. See Chapter 4 references for a more complete description of this book.