Bark-tanned Sheepskin Rug
Team whole bark pieces: When you swap out your spent bark-liquor for some of your first extract (the bark-liquor “already waiting for you” is your first extract), you can set aside + label the spent solution, to use for a future hide.
Day 5
By Day 5, our hides have taken on a lot of colour, indicating tannin absorption. They may even feel “leathery” by now.
Time to scud!
Scudding is just wet-scraping on the membrane side of a hide, when the hide is partially bark-tanned. See the video “Recording Week 4” for a live demo of scudding.
Now is a good time to cut a little piece of your sheep skin off - at the neck, the thickest part - to see how far tannins have absorbed. Cut the piece, look at it sideways, and you’ll see tannins making their way through to the centre. After looking at a piece from the neck, cut a piece from the belly (thinnest part).
By Day 5, you’ve now put 2 gallons of your 1st extract (the strong/concentrated one) into your hide. You have 8 gallons of 1st extract remaining.
Check back here by Monday, March 3 for an updated bark-liquoring schedule. In the meantime, keep turning your hide every day, twice a day.
Bark-liquoring Schedule, Days 6 to 18
I recommend scudding hides every 3-5 days. For the sake of simplicity, let’s say you’re going to scud every 5 days.
That means the next (2nd) time you scud will be on Day 10. This would be Tuesday, March 4 or whatever day is Day 10 for you.
The last (3rd) time you scud would be Day 15. This would be Sunday, March 9 or whatever day is Day 15 for you.
Here’s what we’re going to do:
On Day 10, you’ll scud. You’ll cut a piece of hide off at the neck. You’ll check out the cross section and see how advanced the tanning is.
(1) If the inside of your hide is just big, bright, white ~ with a minority tannin absorption ~ then you will swap out 8 gallons of spent bark-liquor for the full remaining 8 gallons of first extract. You’ll put your hide back into this super-strong solution to pressure it into getting fully tanned.
(2) If the inside of your hide has a thin white line ~ with a majority of tannin absorption ~ then you will swap out 4 gallons of spent bark-liquor for 4 gallons of first extract. You’ll put your hide back into this stronger solution and we’ll see if by Day 15 the hide is fully leather.
Please note: the above timelines are predicated on the baseline that the hide is being stirred often + is kept warm. If the hide is not stirred or kept warm, tanning will slow down. You’ll then need to adjust accordingly, because your spent solution will be higher in tannin (because the tannins won’t have had a chance to absorb into the hide yet).