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Hide Tanning Books

Blue Mountain Buckskin
by Jim Riggs

Jim Riggs was one of a small handful of people practicing primitive skills in this country twenty-five years ago. Jim learned the art of braintanning from old-timers Slim Schaefer and Sonny Sherman, and went on to produce Blue Mountain Buckskin as the classic book on dry-scrape tanning. First printed in 1979, Blue Mountain Buckskin remains the most comprehensive text available today on dry-scrape braintan. Jim's book includes an in-depth section on manufacturing buckskin clothing, plus good braintan humor and fun illustrations.

Second Edition, Paperback, 137 pages. 

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Buckskin - The Ancient Art of Braintanning
by Steve Edholm and Tamara Wilder

Buckskin: The Ancient Art of Braintanning (originally titled Wet-Scrape Braintanned Buckskin) is a veritable encyclopedia of the braintanning process. Steven and Tamara first learned the art of tanning from Jim Riggs and Melvin Beattie. They added their own innovations to the process and compiled the most definitive work available on brain-tanning today, with lots of tips for trouble-shooting problem hides. Buckskin: The Ancient Art of Braintanning also includes comprehensive sections on making and using buckskin clothes, dyeing buckskin, tanning deer hides with the hair on, and many other uses of the deer. Steven and Tamara have a casual, fun-to-read writing style.


Counterpart to the above book, this is the most thorough coverage of wet-scrape method.

1997. 2001. 300 pages.

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Deerskins into Buckskins: How to Tan with Natural Materials
by Matt Richards

A Field Guide for Hunters and Gatherers

All kinds of people enjoy making and wearing their own buckskin...and so can you, with this easy to use guide.

Over 130 photos and illustrations bring you step by step from raw skin to velvety soft buckskin and then show you how to create beautiful garments and useful goods. Designed to be easily understood by the beginner yet rich with details for the experienced, this book teaches tanning as a natural process. No chemicals are needed! All the tools and materials are waiting around your home and land. While the tools are simple, having a great method is key. This book has the bethod.

Buckskin is durable, soft, washable and warm. A hand-made garment for people all over the world for millennia, it breathes and stretches with your body, cuts the wind and won't tear on briars. It is excellent to wear hiking, hunting or around the house. Plus you don't need to hunt. Deerskins that would otherwise go to waste are available every fall from neighbors, locals and butcher shops.

"Get this book. You'll be amazed at the unexpected ease of the process and more importantly, your results. Deerskins Into Buckskins is excellently researched and presented in a clearly explained, step by step process. What's more, should you desire, you can accomplish all this using only bones, rocks and sticks. It might just change your life." - Jim Riggs, author of Blue Mountain Buckskin

"I have sucessfully completed dozens of buckskins under the mentoring of numerous experts. It is obvious that Matt has created a 'quantum leap' in the art. His process dramatically reduces the time and work, resulting in the nicest buckskin I have ever made. The revolution has begun." - Jeff "Roadkill" Damm, engineer and backyard tanner

2nd Edition, revised and updated. 2004. Paperback, 239 pages. 

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