#Veg tan leather hides skin

Oak bark tanning used to be the standard method of tannage in Britain, but now the Baker family is the only remaining oak bark tannery in Britain. Some tanneries, like J&FJ Baker Tannery in Devon, England practice a unique and age-old technique of vegetable tanning, using oak bark – a tree commonly found in England. How J&FJ Baker Tannery Makes Vegetable Tanned Leather The precise processes will naturally vary from tannery to tannery. Subsequently, the hides are washed in baths of salt and soap in order to preserve further extract fatty oils.

#Veg tan leather hides skin

Some of the features and benefits associated with vegetable tanned leather which makes it relevant in the heritage community include:īefore hides are taken to a tannery, the hair and fat from the skin has to be removed, preferably as quickly as possible as the fats easily oxidize and go rancid, which can lead to discoloration and affect the look of final leather. This method is the most typically associated with heritage clothes and goods, and the traditional approach of vegetable tanning should be sure to appeal to any ‘wabi sabi’ enthusiast.

It is still used for special purposes of heavy leather for shoe soles, belts, etc. Vegetable tanning is generally a time-consuming process requiring highly skilled craftsmen, which involves soaking hides in large baths of concentrated tannins over a course of several months. The method utilizes large rotating drums with chromium salt solutions “washing” the leather.Ī look inside Horween Leather Tannery’s vegetable tanning pits. This is done by binding chrome salts to the collagen protein, forming cross-links between the two, thus creating stable structures of chromium-protein complexes. It’s basically the same principle: to cross-link the collagen matrix to prevent putrefaction and hence decomposition. chrome tanning, chromexcel), which wasn’t invented until the mid-nineteenth century. Newer, faster tanning methods make use of minerals like chromium sulfate (i.e. Tannins from trees such as oak, chestnut, or mimosa are popular, but hundreds of tree types and other plants are known to have been used. Like the name suggests, veg-tanning is an organic method relying on natural vegetable tannins from bark or other plant tissues. Vegetable tanning is the traditional method of tanning leather, its method dating back to approximately 6000 BCE. The oldest and most intricate process is vegetable tanning. There are various tanning methods being used today. Tannins’ sharp, astringent taste is known from tea and some types of red wines and is due to binding of tannins to proteins in saliva. Bog bodies dating back to 400 BCE are good examples of how the tannins in swamps are able to preserve the skin post-mortem.

If you want to get into the science behind it, tanning replaces the water molecules in the hide with the phenolic groups of tannins–the less water, the less likely it is to rot.