Fish Leather Tanning – My First Experiments – 2018

A few years ago I became interested in learning how to turn fish skins into leather. I sourced the fish skins from a local on-line fish seller. Many of their fish are skinned and fileted before sale so often they have a plentiful supply. I did have to pay a small fee for the skins.

There are several steps involved in turning a fish skin into a soft and wearable fish leather. Here is a brief outline. I took some short videos with my phone as I was doing the fish tanning. I recently found these videos and have compiled them into a short YouTube video. I will provide more details in future posts.

Supplies Needed

• measuring cups
• Protective Eye wear – used when scaling the fish
• plastic gloves
• pH tester
• Fish knife
• scrapers, metal or plastic spoons
• boards for stretching fish
• pickling salt
• vinegar
• dish soap

Wash the fish skins

If the fish skins are frozen, thaw them out in cool water. Always keep the temperature of the water under 20 Deg. C – or this can cook the skins and make fish soup

Once the skins are defrosted, wash them under running water, using some dish soap such as Dawn or Fairy liquid. Rinse well.

Remove the remaining flesh

Carefully remove the remaining flesh from the fish skin. Use a sharp fishing knife or scrape with a spoon or a shell.

Remove the fish scales

Scrape the scales from the fish using a spoon, a scraper, a shell or similar tool. The fish scales may fly around as you are doing this, so it is best to wear goggles or protective eye wear.
Rinse the fish thoroughly under clear or running water.

Wash the skins again using a dish soap. Rinse well.

Salt Water Soak

Fill a bucket with cool water. Add a few tablespoons of salt. Soak the cleaned fish skins in the salty water for a few hours. This helps to remove some of the fish oils from the skins.

Calc Soak

Fill a bucket with cool water. Add Calcium Hydroxide (Gardening Lime) or Soda Ash to the water.
Measure the pH of the solution. Add sufficient garden Lime (or soda ash) to the water to bring pH to +10.

The Calcium softens the epidermis and tough ligaments which will remove the fish oils from the skin. Let this soak for a few hours. Cut a small piece of the fish skin. The colour should be even throughout. If not, soak the skin a bit longer and check again.At this point, the fish skins should no longer be smelly of fish.

Neutralize the pH

After the Calc soak the pH of the skins need to be neutralized. Do this by using another vinegar soak.
Fill a bucket of water – add some vinegar to pH 3. Put the skins into the acidic water until the water is neutral – pH 6 -7 This should remove much of the Calcium from the fish skin cells.
This will allow the fish skin to be softened and to allow the absorption of the tanning solutions. After drying, The skins can now be stored until you wish to tan them.

Dyeing and Tanning the Skins

In order to tan the skins with natural dyes or tree barks, the pH of the skins need to be acidic, so that the dyestuff will be absorbed into the skins. Make a vinegar bath, adding enough vinegar to pH 3.
Soak the skins for 12-24 hours.
Make an Alum Bath and soak the skins 12-24 hours

Tannins – Tree Bark

There is a wide range of tree barks that you can use for dye and tannin such as:

Birch bark

• Oak Bark
• Fruit tree barks: Cherry, Apple, Pear
• Alder
• Cedar

After the skins have been tanned and dried, they can be stored as is or softened with an oil.

Next: Oiling

The Flexibility of the Fish Skin – In the process of removing the fish oils, the softness and natural flex of the fish skin is lost. This can be restored with proper oiling and softening.

The proteins and natural fish oils that were removed from the skins need to be replaced with other proteins and oils.

ORIGINAL FILE DATE: JUL 26, 2024