| Colonial tanners This report is about colonial tanner in the colonial times -1600’s -1700’s.It was so interesting. Tanners are still here today. Tanners had a good job. Importance of a tanner Many colonists needed tanners goods for a lot of things. One is the shoemaker. The shoemaker needs leather from the tanner so he could make shoes for colonists. Anther one is the black smith, he needs a apron so he does not get burnt or his cloths gets ripped. Another one was a bookbinder, he needs a rectangle, piece of leather. Anther one is the hater he needs a strip of leather. A farmer needs pieces of leather to make a saddle and a bridle. Colonial Tanner’s Tools Tanners used along process to make leather. Colonial tanners used at least eight different tools to do their job. The tools were made of wood and metal. A vat hook has a long wood handle with a metal hook at the end. It was made to move leather. They were also used for dipping leather in and out of the pits. The mace is a four sided piece of wood with rough sides on a long pole. It is used for making the leather nice and smooth. There are three kinds of sleekers. There are used for making leather smoother. Two sleekers are made of wood, one of them is made of wood and metal and one of them is a boat shape piece of wood. The second one is a triangle shape of wood. The third one is a piece of triangular shape of metal and a round piece of wood. Buffers are a piece of leather and a piece of wood, the buffer is made for making the leather shiny. Fleshing knife is made for removing the hair the remaining flesh. The fleshing knife is a curved piece of metal with two pieces of wood at the end of the blade. Unhairing knife is made of metal with two piece of wood at the end of the blade. The unhairing knife is for taking off loosed hair so no hair is left. The unhairing knife is about two feet long and is longer than the fleshing knife. Tanner’s Raw Materials Metal-four kinds of tools were made of metal. The metal came from ore in the ground. It went to the blacksmith, and the blacksmith made the tools the tanner needed. One of the tools made of metal was the unhairing knife. The second one was the fleshing knife. The third one was the sleeker. The last was the vat hook. Wood-Four tools were made of wood. The wood came from the lumberjack. Then it went to the carpenter, and he made the tools. The name of one tool was the mace. Another one was named a buffer. Another was a sleeker. (There were three different kinds of sleekers). The last one was a beam. This was not a tool, but it helped when using a tool. It was a log that had been cut in half. Hides came from other colonial people to make leather. Water came from a close stream. It was used for washing, soaking, and rinsing the hides. The Tanner’s Process Tanners had a hard and stinky job. For instance, they had to smell decaying animal hides and skins. Colonists could not wait for shipments of leather, so they asked the tanner in the town to make their leather. Step 1- The tanner received the hide and put the owner’s mark at the end (tail). Step 2- The raw and grimy hides, with the hair still on, had to be washed, and salt had to be rinsed away. Step 3- The hides had to be cleaned and softened if they had been dried. To soften the hide, the tanner would hit it with a mace. Step 4- The tanner had a method called liming. Liming pulled off some unwanted hair. He would leave the hide the liming solution for days, or until the hair came loose. Step 5- The tanner also loosened the hair of all kinds of animals with heat from fires. This was called sweating the hide. Step 6- The tanner scraped the hairs off the hide on a beam. A beam was a cut tree trunk. He used a tool called an unhairing knife. He collected hair from the base of the beam, and he sold the hair to stuff pillows. Step 7- The tanner flipped over the hide and scraped off any flesh with a fleshing knife. Step 8- Another solution was bate. It removed the liming and made the hide softer. Step 9- Then it was time for a solution called ooze. Ooze was made of ground-up bark and water. Ooze stopped hides from rotting. The tanner would stir the hide in pits—holes in the ground. After many weeks, the tanner would cut off a piece of hide to check on whether it had become leather. He could tell if it was brown all the way through. Step 10- Then the tanner washed and stretched the leather. The tanner made sure it was brown and smooth for the shoemaker and other colonial people. The colonial tanner’s process could take up to a year or even occasionally two years. Sometimes soaking the hide in bate could take up to two weeks. Liming took three to four days. Steaming could take as long as one, two, or three days. Modern Tanners The tanner’s job has changed a lot since the colonial times. Some parts are the same. One of the ways it has changed is that now we have machines that do the unhairing, rinsing, and other jobs. In colonial days, they did not have machines. They had to do the work by hand. Another way the job has changed is that leather is worth more today. Colonial leather cost less money. Modern tanners take less time than colonial tanners did to make the leather items because electric tools help them work faster. Colonial tanners used the hair they took from the animal hides to stuff pillows. Modern tanners use hair for fertilizer, but not for pillows. Last of all of the different ways, a new technique is called pickling. The tanners in colonial days did not have this technique. Pickling is used to stop the leather from rotting. These are the ways a tanner’s job as stayed the same. They both used there hands. They also used the same kinds of skins. Colonial and modern tanner used soaking to make leather clean. They bother used leather, and liming solution. . |
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