• hOrni@lemmy.world
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      7 hours ago

      I think, that while it’s still on the body, it’s called skin. When You make a couch out of it it’s leather. Where hide comes in, I have no idea. But in Poland we use the same word for skin, leather and vegetable peels.

      • AngryCommieKender@lemmy.world
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        5 hours ago

        When you skin an animal, you have two choices. Cure it, or tan it. If you just let the skin be, it will rot. You can cure it by coating it in oil, fat, or salt. That will turn into a cured hide which can then be used like other fabrics. Alternatively you can soak the skin in a solution of quicklime (ground limestone dissolved in water.) At that point you scrape the hair from the soaked skin. Then you soak it in a barrel of weak tannin, followed by strong tannin. That becomes leather. There’s a few more details, but that’s the gist.

        • AngryCommieKender@lemmy.world
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          4 hours ago

          Two entirely different processes. Hides are skins cured with oil, fat, or salt to prevent them from rotting. Leather is a skin that gets soaked in quicklime, scraped, soaked in weak tannin, and finally soaked in strong tannin to turn the skin into leather.

            • Doom@lemmy.world
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              2 hours ago

              In traditional tanning different chemicals are used to process leather. Brains, egg yolks, urine, they all work. The urine isn’t a requirement, it’s a possible chemical compound a tanner may choose to utilize.

            • AngryCommieKender@lemmy.world
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              4 hours ago

              While you can do it that way, I don’t know the process. I know how to make tannin by soaking oak logs in water.

              And yes, that is probably the first way we figured out how to do it, but as I understand it, that’s a very stinky process, and to be totally honest, I found tannin made from oak to be rather smelly.

                  • CIA_chatbot@lemmy.world
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                    3 hours ago

                    Metal spikes? I really want to make a good impression when roving the wasteland. Also I’m thinking like a couple of short swords but i have questions about the intimidation factor. Maybe just a broadsword for show and then the short swords for chopping up my enemies. Hmmmm