How to seal deer skin leather for a blanket

[jarheaddoc]

I am making a blanket with deer hide I've tanned out. Other than smoking it, what can I use to seal it, if that's the right word? I would like the leather to be at least hand washable. My reason for not wanting to smoke the hides is the after smell.

Thanks.

[tsunkasapa]

I machine wash my rendezvous buckskins at the end of every season. There is no 'sealer' on them. If you seal it, you won't be able to wash it. And if you chemical tanned it, smoking won't do anything except make it smell good. You are equating smoked brain tanned skins with chemical/chrome tanned. Two different critters entirely. The ONLY thing the two have in common is, in both cases the skin came from deer.

[jarheaddoc]

What is it about chemical tanning,i.e., orange bottle stuff, that inhibits the smoking process?

[tsunkasapa]

Brain 'tanned' leather is not truly tanned. The hide has not been altered. It is more like softened rawhide with the fats from the brain mixture infusing it. And unsmoked BT will revert back to rawhide if it gets wet and dries unless it is worked until dry. The smoke does not waterproof it but allows it to dry and remain flexible.

Chemical/chrome and even vegetable tanning actually changes the nature of the hide. As I said above, I wash my buckskins in the washer and tumble dry with no heat (as with wool, this avoids shrinking) and there is no stiffening. You can smoke chemical tanned skins, but all you will get is smokey smelling skins.

I'm not a chemist by any means. But I have been a Men's Traditional dancer and fur trade reenactor for the greater part of my life and that is just my experiences with buckskin of both types.

[jarheaddoc]

 

1 hour ago, tsunkasapa said:

Brain 'tanned' leather is not truly tanned. The hide has not been altered. It is more like softened rawhide with the fats from the brain mixture infusing it. And unsmoked BT will revert back to rawhide if it gets wet and dries unless it is worked until dry. The smoke does not waterproof it but allows it to dry and remain flexible.

Chemical/chrome and even vegetable tanning actually changes the nature of the hide. As I said above, I wash my buckskins in the washer and tumble dry with no heat (as with wool, this avoids shrinking) and there is no stiffening. You can smoke chemical tanned skins, but all you will get is smokey smelling skins.

I'm not a chemist by any means. But I have been a Men's Traditional dancer and fur trade reenactor for the greater part of my life and that is just my experiences with buckskin of both types.

I'm still new to this, so any information I pick up adds to my knowledge base. Funny how life is like that, a working man will often be better at something than a person with a lot of letters after their name.

So if the BT can be "reversed", so to speak, is the same true of an egg or soap and oil tan? I was actually wondering about this as I was working a hide the other day. Oy, that hide drying, too much like running, it gives you too much time to think while you're getting your exercise for the week. I used the soap/ neet's foot oil mixture on it so that I can try my hand at smoking a hide.

thanks again for your answer.