Fish skin
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I have heard of this being done to be strong enough to be used as soles on shoes.
Sorry,but I haven't a clue how to make it like leather.
Sorry,but I haven't a clue how to make it like leather.
Something worth a look ES Salmon Leather ES Salmon Leather, is a new and exciting material! Our eco-friendly leather is made by re-purposing a by-product of the salmon industry; salmon skin, ...
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www.es-salmonleather.com/ - Cached - Similar►
forestwalker
Bushcrafter (boy, I've got a lot to say!)
You can bark tan it, or use urine, among other methods. Lotta Rahme wrote a book on it a few years ago, not sure if it has been translated into any of the more obscure languages like English.
You could stick an 'eel on each of 'em too.
Talking of eels, I met a chap who made bowstrings from eel skin.
Dogfish, or any of the sharky types, has very tough skin and has been used in the past as sandpaper.
Not sure about the leather thing. As said previously, there was a thread about salmon skin or something or other last year.
I caught a load of dog fish when fishing in Dorset a few years back and their skin has got to be the toughest stuff I've seen seen on a fish, so a good choice there! Bushwhaker, do you ever go through krewkern? If so is 'The Swan' pub still up and running?
Yes it is. For all my sins I was in there on Saturday night.
I worked there about 15 years ago.
Forestwalker if you could source that book or article, I would be very interested in obtaining a copy. My eldest son speaks Finnish and he has a Finnish friend who speaks both Swedish and English......I'm sure I could persuade (bribe
apparantly Tetley teabags and good Scotch whisky does the trick) to translate the pertinant bits for me.regards,
Toddy
Such a decent atmosphere in that place, is the massive blood hound and parrot still there? I recall (mildly) some rough cider they'd sell for 50p a pint that me and my dad would always over do it on.
That's going back some years, it's had a couple new landlords since.
Morticia the Great Dane is dead now and I don't know about the parrot, I think it got sold. Not that I liked that damned bird anyway, it bit me loads.
Ah thats her name, she always wanted the chocolate eggs from the sweet mahcine! the parrot used to call me a c*** all the time. I haven't been there in about 6-7 years mind..but I remember it as one of my favourite pubs. The pubs around here are shocking..such a shame.
Interesting thought this, a mate of mine loves dogfish and catches them regularly so he could easily supply me with the skins, this got me thinking so I did some googling and came up with this:
It is incredibly hard to skin a dog fish....
...Curing/tanning the skin did prove very simple and has always worked for me with mammal skins too.... Stretch out and pin the skin flat to a board (flesh side up).Wet it with kerosene and rub in bicarbonate of soda whilst scraping off any fatty residue...repeat the same daily for a week or two for a cured table odur freee white coloured skin
Worth a try...
Will
It is incredibly hard to skin a dog fish....
...Curing/tanning the skin did prove very simple and has always worked for me with mammal skins too.... Stretch out and pin the skin flat to a board (flesh side up).Wet it with kerosene and rub in bicarbonate of soda whilst scraping off any fatty residue...repeat the same daily for a week or two for a cured table odur freee white coloured skin
Worth a try...
Will
Here is a page in swedish about how it is done: http://svenska.yle.fi/matochfritid/hobbyartikel.php?id=1969 you can translate it using google and this is what it looks like then: http://translate.google.com/transla...matochfritid/hobbyartikel.php?id=1969&act=url
From http://poorbuthappy.com/yourthing/p...tanning-fish-skinsobstruse---by-eskimo-woman/ :
Traditional Eskimo Fish Tanning Method
Urine tanning chemistry
Within the leather trade, urine has been used for dehairing skins, for
tanning skins and for washing skins.
Urine contains formic acid and urinase, and uric acid, among other things.
These acids have a preservative effect on the skin.
When urine is left to stand ammonia is formed, which is a strong base. If
a hide sits in urine for some time, the basic environment will begin to
have a dehairing effect.
The ammonia influences the skin by splitting the naturally occurring fats,
to form glycerol and free fatty acids. These free fatty acids can
penetrate the hide and react with the fibers of the dermis; the skin is
tanned. When ammonia is used as a cleaning liquid, it is it's saponifying
properties that are being exploited.
I have made a few tries at urine tanning of fish skin. The recipes I
started with come from Rita Pitka Blumenstein, who lives on Nelson Island
in southwestern Alaska. She relates the following:
"Fishskins were used for mukluks, mittens, water carriers, and
raincoats....The king salmon is used for boots, heavy-duty boots. Only
female silver salmon is used for hats for girls. And the pike skin is for
water jugs. The trout is for bags....
"You take the skin off and soak it in the water, and then you scrape it
with a sea shell. Some fish you have to scale; some fish you don't. Like
pike and white fish, you've got to scale it, you soak it in urine. The
urine has to come from a young boy baby before weaning. It doesn't contain
any chemicals, just momma's milk. For thicker skins, you have to use the
urine from an older boy, around the time his voice changes.
"[The skin soaks in the urine] sometimes half a day, sometimes overnight.
The longer you soak it, the softer it gets. Then my mother used to
use[Fells] Naphtha soap, and she sudsed it in the water and then cooled
off the water and then put the skin in it. Then she puts aspen shavings
in the water and cools it off, then you rinse it in clear water and wring
it out. My mother used a towel to absorb the water. I asked her one time
in camp, 'What did you use when you didn't have cloth?' She said they used
dried moss. And then you put it on a smooth board, stick it there, the
inside facing in. Then when it dries, it will just peel off itself. You
store it away, and when you are ready to use it, you wet the shavings that
you saved, and you pad them onto the fishskin on the outer side. Then you
roll it and leave it until it dries. Then you shake it off." [Hickman
1988: 19ff.]
I have started from this recipe but have used woman's urine for 10-12
hours and then rinsed the skins, washed them in water with soap, laid them
in a willow bark bath 10-12 hours, greased them with, for example, train
oil, dried them and softened them.
Traditional Eskimo Fish Tanning Method
Urine tanning chemistry
Within the leather trade, urine has been used for dehairing skins, for
tanning skins and for washing skins.
Urine contains formic acid and urinase, and uric acid, among other things.
These acids have a preservative effect on the skin.
When urine is left to stand ammonia is formed, which is a strong base. If
a hide sits in urine for some time, the basic environment will begin to
have a dehairing effect.
The ammonia influences the skin by splitting the naturally occurring fats,
to form glycerol and free fatty acids. These free fatty acids can
penetrate the hide and react with the fibers of the dermis; the skin is
tanned. When ammonia is used as a cleaning liquid, it is it's saponifying
properties that are being exploited.
I have made a few tries at urine tanning of fish skin. The recipes I
started with come from Rita Pitka Blumenstein, who lives on Nelson Island
in southwestern Alaska. She relates the following:
"Fishskins were used for mukluks, mittens, water carriers, and
raincoats....The king salmon is used for boots, heavy-duty boots. Only
female silver salmon is used for hats for girls. And the pike skin is for
water jugs. The trout is for bags....
"You take the skin off and soak it in the water, and then you scrape it
with a sea shell. Some fish you have to scale; some fish you don't. Like
pike and white fish, you've got to scale it, you soak it in urine. The
urine has to come from a young boy baby before weaning. It doesn't contain
any chemicals, just momma's milk. For thicker skins, you have to use the
urine from an older boy, around the time his voice changes.
"[The skin soaks in the urine] sometimes half a day, sometimes overnight.
The longer you soak it, the softer it gets. Then my mother used to
use[Fells] Naphtha soap, and she sudsed it in the water and then cooled
off the water and then put the skin in it. Then she puts aspen shavings
in the water and cools it off, then you rinse it in clear water and wring
it out. My mother used a towel to absorb the water. I asked her one time
in camp, 'What did you use when you didn't have cloth?' She said they used
dried moss. And then you put it on a smooth board, stick it there, the
inside facing in. Then when it dries, it will just peel off itself. You
store it away, and when you are ready to use it, you wet the shavings that
you saved, and you pad them onto the fishskin on the outer side. Then you
roll it and leave it until it dries. Then you shake it off." [Hickman
1988: 19ff.]
I have started from this recipe but have used woman's urine for 10-12
hours and then rinsed the skins, washed them in water with soap, laid them
in a willow bark bath 10-12 hours, greased them with, for example, train
oil, dried them and softened them.
We had an old guy here in Saskatchewan who tanned them in "Prestone antifreeze" thats the stuff you put in a cars radiator, he's long dead but I remember he had wallet made from fish skin he tanned this way.
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