Braintanning

Best how-to book on the subject!
• Excellent step-by-step instructions
• Efficient tanning method
• Extensive section on crafting with buckskin and garment construction
• some spelling and grammar errors

A very easy to follow step-by-step presentation of the simplest method we know of to tan a hide (uses the wet-scrape method). Most folks who have tried the tanning method in this book, now use it. The more experienced the tanner, the more they've been impressed (because they compare it to what they're used to). Also features the most thorough chapters on using stone, bone and wood tools, history, science, hide glue, and garment construction. The interior presentation is a bit crowded and the author should have used his spell checker a couple more times. You can find the latest up-dates and tanning tips for this book at Braintan.coms' Use Your Brains newsletter.

Excellent general resource
• Museum quality illustrations
• Information that is not available anywhere else
• How-to is buried in text
• Wet-scrape method (how to do multiple brainings efficiently)

This is an encyclopedic information source for brain-tanning. Its only weak-point is that the basics of 'how-to tan a hide' are buried in all of the information. Their approach is to give you a general knowledge of each step and then let you choose how to go about it. This can be confusing for the beginner. It is rich in how-to information however, and very worth having. The best illustrations, bibliography, dyeing chapter, trouble-shooting, tool sharpening, and glossary of any tanning book. Good chapter on garment construction and a user's guide to the various brain-tanning methods. Packaged with a steady flow of primitive post-industrial humor.

The Classic Guide to Dry-Scrape
• Thorough and expert tanning instructions
• Good garment construction section
• The best moccasin pattern
• How-to is a little bit buried in text

This is the guide that taught so many of us the pleasures and pitfalls of braintanning. Jim writes in a way that makes you feel like you're hanging around the fire drinking a beer with him. You do have to follow him on a few tangents to get all the how-to information, but it's expert, and you'll have a good time doing it. Beginners might want to brain their hides more than the one time he recommends.

Short and Effective
• Probably taught more people than any other book
• Very easy to follow
• Not a particularly efficient method
• But it works...

This booklet has turned alot of people on to brain-tanning. He has a few un-necessary steps, a few that strike me as waste-ful and a few that influenced me. John really excels at presenting information in a way 'that do work'. His method of braining dry-scrapes repeatedly will make up for just about any mistake you may have otherwise made. There are much easier ways to smoke hides than he shows, check out another book for this step. This book is now a chapter in their "Naked into the Wilderness" guide to primitive survival skills.

Get this with a book
• Recommended if you don't have access to hands-on instruction
• Helps you see how to do each step of the wet-scrape process
• Valuable learning tool, but lacks the detail to be used as your only guide

If you don't have the opportunity to take a class or work with someone more experienced, watching this video will show you what a book can't. Mel's hides are so even, soft and beautiful, that they inspired a whole generation to switch to the wet-scrape method. His depiction of braining and softening wet-scrapes is way over-simplified (through no fault of his, he was actually doing something to the hides that he wasn't aware was greatly affecting them - which he doesn't show in the video. If you take a fresh hide, and tan it exactly the way he shows it will not come out soft). Despite this, it is very helpful to see someone scraping, wringing, softening etc. You get to see motions and details that just can not be shown in a book. Get this video with Deerskins into Buckskins or Wet-scrape Braintanned Buckskin

• The only complete guide to buffalo tanning we know of
• Very well done, good attention to detail and complete
• You should have a few deer under your belt before attempting a buffalo

Wes Housler has braintanned over 500 hair-on buffalo robes! (Thats alot). I've never bought a video in my life (cause we've never had a TV), but when you are taking on a project as big as a buffalo and someone has done 500 of them, you listen. Wes takes you step by step through the entire process. He does it well and it makes alot of sense. If you ever want to do a buffalo get this video...and once you've wrapped up in one, you might start wondering if native peoples really had it so bad.