Course objective: Each participant goes home with a piece of leather they have tanned themselves.

Course content: scraping the rawhide in the frame, inserting it into a brain mass, pulling the rawhide dry to the leather, smoking the leather, tips for further processing

Historical background: The making of clothing is one of the essential requirements that made it possible for people to populate most of the earth. The earliest pieces of clothing were made of leather, and under the conditions of the ice age, careful production was of vital importance. The rawhide had to be tanned in order to permanently withstand wind and weather and to make it comfortable to wear. Almost certainly the skins were tanned with which the tents were covered so that they could be used as long as possible. Animal products such as fat rinds or brain matter were used as tanning agents, which, like vegetable substances such as bark, had to be worked into the skin. Even in later epochs, leather was an enormously important raw material from which not only clothing and shoes, but also bottles, bags or other everyday objects were made. Different methods of tanning made it possible to make raw skins usable for a wide variety of purposes, ranging from shield leather covering to carrying bags to writing parchment.

Instructor: Alexander Ernst
Course duration: 9 a.m. - 6 p.m.
Course costs: 250 euros
Material costs: 40 euros