# Curing leather **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [August 5, 1999, 2:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/curing-leather/2409 "1999-08-05T14:29:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![system](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/original/2X/e/e489c3b7d8fce19c4b355dd4fc3f88cc39c34b87.png) [@system](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/system)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 1999, 2:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/curing-leather/2409/1 "1999-08-05T14:29:00Z")
What is the process involved in curing leather? ---
**Author:** ![system](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/original/2X/e/e489c3b7d8fce19c4b355dd4fc3f88cc39c34b87.png) [@system](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/system)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 1999, 2:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/curing-leather/2409/2 "1999-08-05T14:48:00Z")
It depends on how sick the leather is, and what disease it suffers from. ---
**Author:** ![system](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/original/2X/e/e489c3b7d8fce19c4b355dd4fc3f88cc39c34b87.png) [@system](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/system)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 1999, 3:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/curing-leather/2409/3 "1999-08-05T15:35:00Z")
Haw HAAWWWW!!! ---
**Author:** ![system](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/original/2X/e/e489c3b7d8fce19c4b355dd4fc3f88cc39c34b87.png) [@system](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/system)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 1999, 5:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/curing-leather/2409/4 "1999-08-06T05:05:00Z")
Boys, play nice! Sqrl, here’s some info I got off [ask.com](http://ask.com). Basically just an encyclopedia article: > [@](#): > > skin or hide of animals, cured by TANNING to prevent decay and to impart flexibility and toughness. Early peoples used pelts preserved with grease or smoke for > garments, tents, and containers. Since the 18th cent. machines have been used to split the tanned leather into the desired thicknesses of flesh layers and grain (hair-side) layers. Pelts are prepared by dehairing, cleaning, tanning, and treating with fats to ensure pliability. Finishes include glazing, staining or dye coloring, enameling or lacquering (as for patent leather),and sueding (buffing to raise a nap). Artificial leather, made since c.1850, is now mainly manufactured from vinyl PLASTIC. and > [@](#): > > tanning process by which skins and hides are made into LEATHER. Vegetable tanning (shown in Egyptian tomb paintings dating from 3000 B.C.) uses tannin, is usually employed for heavy leathers, and requires more than a month to complete. Mineral tanning includes alum tanning and chrome tanning, the process most common > today, requiring only a few hours. In oil tanning, or chamoising, a method used by Native Americans, the pelt is treated with fats and hung to dry; the leather is usually napped on both sides. A modern tanning process employs artificial agents (syntans). and if you are interested in leather fetish, check out [www.fetish-factory.com](http://www.fetish-factory.com) It certainly…umm…illuminated my white-bread world! 😉 * * * And can it be that in a world so full and busy, the loss of one weak creature makes a void in any heart, so wide and deep that nothing but the width and depth of vast eternity can fill it up! -Charles Dickens “Dombey and Son” ---
**Author:** ![mr\_john](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8baadc/32.png) [@mr\_john](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mr_john)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 1999, 1:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/curing-leather/2409/5 "1999-08-07T01:19:00Z")
my 2 cents worth.I have cured a couple of deer hides. Oak leaves are a natural source of tannin, soaking the hide in a stew of deer brains and fat is a preliminary step. Napping is just rubbing and rubbing with a hard edge till your arms fall off.Then there is raw hide which is uncured. When it is wet it stretches when it drys it shrinks. The evil pagan Indians used it wet to spread eagle the poor innocent white man over the ant hill. Then the sun came out and it shrank.Then the lady with the crop and the thighboots comes out and … HEY! how did I get to Mz Bunny’s link? * * * Signitorily yours, Mr John " Pardon me while I have a strange interlude."-Marx ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 1999, 2:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/curing-leather/2409/6 "1999-08-07T02:07:00Z")
> [@](#): > > What is the process involved in curing leather? > > It depends on how sick the leather is, and what disease it suffers from. Hey, no joke. Working with hides is, or least used to be, a major risk factor for contracting anthrax. ---
**Author:** ![funneefarmer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/9fc348/32.png) [@funneefarmer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/funneefarmer)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 1999, 10:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/curing-leather/2409/7 "1999-08-07T10:37:00Z")
Tannin can be found in the tree bark of various species. But the most interesting tanning story I ever heard was that after you shot a squirrel you stripped its hide then scooped out its brains and rubbed it on the hide and tacked it on a board. Yes our forefathers were ingenious. ---
**Author:** ![EnigmaOne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/d2c977/32.png) [@EnigmaOne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EnigmaOne)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 1999, 9:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/curing-leather/2409/8 "1999-08-07T21:10:00Z")
{{{…scooped out its brains…}}}—funneefarmer Well, I do like the SDMB for it’s “cerebral” qualities–didn’t expect that tho’. Time to start cooking dinner. * * * – **Kalél** (The Original **EnigmaOne** ) ---
**Author:** ![mr\_john](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8baadc/32.png) [@mr\_john](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mr_john)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 1999, 2:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/curing-leather/2409/9 "1999-08-08T02:16:00Z")
" Hide ,hide, a cow’s outside!" Bud Abbot Yep funee the brains soften it. Works for any critter, but you had to mention squirrel. On behalf of us all here I would like to apologize, SqrlCub. ---
**Author:** ![funneefarmer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/9fc348/32.png) [@funneefarmer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/funneefarmer)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 1999, 9:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/curing-leather/2409/10 "1999-08-08T21:31:00Z")
Ooops, no offense. Didn’t even catch the extension of those consonants till just now. Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa. ---
**Author:** ![SqrlCub](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ea5d25/32.png) [@SqrlCub](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SqrlCub)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 1999, 12:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/curing-leather/2409/11 "1999-08-09T12:09:00Z")
No offense taken. ---
**Author:** ![SqrlCub](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ea5d25/32.png) [@SqrlCub](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SqrlCub)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 1999, 12:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/curing-leather/2409/12 "1999-08-09T12:09:00Z")
If you would have talked about my cat, that would have been another story. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![SqrlCub](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ea5d25/32.png) [@SqrlCub](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SqrlCub)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 1999, 5:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/curing-leather/2409/13 "1999-08-11T05:30:00Z")
One other question about curing leather. Is it true that urine can cure the leather in question? I read this once in a Gary Jennings book called Raptor and was wondering if this were true.