Phase 02 — Stone, bone, wood and fibre toolkit / About year 1
02.15
Scraped, brain-tanned and smoked hides
soft leather that survives rain
AWhat it needs
Needs 8 other products in all, 3 of them directly.
View
- 02.15 Scraped, brain-tanned and smoked hidesCloth Year 1 needs 8 products
- 01.05 Twisted plant-fibre cordMaking Year 1 needs 2 products
- 01.03 Sharp stone flakeMaking Year 1 needs 1 product
- 01.02 HammerstoneMaking Year 1 raw materials only
- 01.08 First fire and stone hearthMaking Year 1 needs 5 products
- 01.06 Tinder and kindling storeMaking Year 1 raw materials only
- 01.07 Bow-drill fire setMaking Year 1 needs 3 products
- 02.03 Stone knives, scrapers and engraving pointsMaking Year 1 needs 3 products
- 02.01 Knapping kitMaking Year 1 needs 2 products
Open a box to see what it needs. A dashed box is a product already drawn in full: click it to jump there. In the org chart, drag to move around.
BWhy
A raw skin dries as stiff as a board and rots when wet. Worked with the animal's own brains and then smoked, it becomes soft, strong leather that can be soaked by rain and still dry soft. This is the cloth of the first year.
CYou need
DSteps
- Flesh it the same day. Lay the skin hair-down over the beam and push all meat, fat and membrane off with a blunt scraper.
- Soak it for two to three days in water mixed with a few handfuls of wood ash, until the hair pulls out easily.
- Back on the beam, hair-side up, scrape off the hair and with it the thin, dark top layer of the skin. Every patch of that layer left on will dry hard.
- Rinse well in the stream and wring it out: loop the hide round a branch, put a stick through the loop and twist until no more water runs.
- Mash the brain in a little warm water to a thin cream. Work it into both sides of the damp hide with the hands until every part is soaked, then leave it folded overnight.
- Wring it out again. Now stretch it and keep it moving until it is completely dry: pull it back and forth over a taut cord or the rounded top of a stake, and tug it in every direction. This takes several hours. If it is allowed to dry while still, it dries stiff.
- A stiff patch means the brain did not reach it. Wet that patch, work in more brain and soften it again.
- Smoke it. Lace the edges of the hide together with cord into a bag, open at the bottom. Hang it over a small pit of coals covered with rotten wood, so thick cool smoke fills the bag and no flame shows. Smoke one side for an hour or two, then turn it inside out and smoke the other.
- It is done when it is the colour of honey right through.
EIt worked if
- The leather is soft enough to tie in a knot.
- Soaked in water and dried without working, it dries soft.
FWhat goes wrong
- It dries like a board. The top layer was not scraped off, or it was left to dry without stretching. Wet it, add brain and work it again.
- Holes. The scraper was too sharp, or caught on a lump under the hide. Use a blunt edge on a smooth beam.
- The hair will not slip. Soak longer, with more ash.
- It scorches in the smoke. A flame broke through. Smother it with more rotten wood at once.
- It smells and the hair falls out in patches before fleshing. The skin was left too long before work began. Flesh every hide the day it comes off.
GIn the story
Yara grew up among the tanning pits of Fez and swore she would never smell one again. She stands over the first hide for a week, with Kofi and Wren pulling it across a stake until their arms give out. When she ties the finished leather in a knot and it holds the knot, she laughs at herself, and starts counting hides.
HFigures
not drawn yet
not drawn yet
not drawn yet