The first and perhaps most important step is fleshing the skin. This can be accomplished only with "elbow grease" and stamina! Place the "green" skin on a flat surface and scrape it completely with a tool of choice that most readily removes virtually all of the tissue adhering to the skin. A finished skin is a white skin! Some fleshers prefer variously a knife, a meat cleaver, a spoon, a putty scraper, and a host of other devices designed to get flat down on it and remove the stubborn tissue. By stroking the skin with the grain downward toward the tail, it seems to do less stretch damage to the skin or scales on the opposite side. Trim the tail carefully by inverting it so the tip is preserved as a part of the skin. Staple the skin on a board or flat surface without unduly stretching it. Leave it in a straight position so that you end up with a straight skin, a natural shape without curves. (Have a look here).

Do not put salt on a snakeskin! There are several good commercially available tanning solutions (too numerous to list, but have a look in the Tandy Leather mail order catalogue) to apply to the wet skin after stapling flat.

After the skin has dried, remove and rub, or break it, over a surface corner like a table edge - much like a shoeshine buffing rag. This last step is not necessary if you are planning a wall mount display. Just mount the skin on the desired board and be done with it.

Tanning fish skins:- There are those who say fish skins being tanned for leather have to be treated almost like hair-on skins being tanned for leather. The scales and outer epidermal layer of skin is removed by using a lime solution, then its de-limed, pickled, degreased (a must!), shaved, neutralized (depending on what tanning agent you use), tanned, oiled and then worked soft. Although you do not retain the original colour and markings, nevertheless you have a nice piece to work with. Unfortunately not a large piece however, because normally the fins, and extras are trimmed off.

That said you can always have a stab at the following.

Some considerable time ago I did look into methods of tanning fish skins and most of them are laborious and time consuming. You may think the following is a wind-up, but I assure you it’s not.

There is a method used by the Inuit that gives, I’m told, good results, using salmon, trout and most smaller fish skins and does not smell after preparing.

What you do is this. Pee a couple of times in a bucket, (although a woman’s urine is said to be superior) let it sit with a lid on for a day or so, to bring the ammonia out, which draws the fat out of the skin. Then pour in the same amount of water as you have urine, half water half urine that is. Put your skins in it after taking all the flesh off with a spoon or a dull knife, but not at this stage the scales. Trim off  the fins etc. Let them sit in the fluid while stirring once in a while for about 12 – 24 hours depending on how thick the skins are.

Then wash them out in lukewarm water using shampoo or a mild soap. When washed, the scales on the surface of the skins, are easily rubbed off. After they are washed the skins need to be flattened out on a piece of board, stroking down towards the tail. Seemingly they stick like glue to the board until dry, then they fall off.

When they are completely dry comes the tedious part of the job. You must scrunch the skins in every direction possible to break the fibres as much as you can, to make them soft enough for sewing. Also you can draw the flesh side over a not too sharp edge to get it smoother. They really do turn out great apparently and not smelly. One thing to remember is not to get the skins wet afterwards, otherwise they will become hard. You can use textile waterproofing on them.

This is an edited extract from an email sent to me by someone using the above described method.

 Hello David,

Being an avid fisherman I always wondered if there was any use for the fish skins once I had gutted my quarry. After doing some research on the net, I came across your site. A very informative site it is too. I decided to have a go at tanning some trout skins by following the instructions on your site. I thought you may be interested to learn the results. It was an interesting experiment (although the wife wasn't too keen on me storing urine in the shed). The skin became thinner after sitting in the urine for 36 hours, then it was washed in warm water and Johnson's shampoo (Aqua, Polysorbate 20, Sodium Laureth Sulphate, Disodium Lauroamphodiacetate, PEG 150, Distearate, Lauryl Betaine, Quaternium 15, Benzyl Alcohol, Citric Acid, Parfum, Panthenol, CI47005, CI15985).
I had to be careful with the washing as I found the skin was easy to tear. The skin was laid flat on a board, and left to dry in the shed, although I did leave it in the garden for a couple of warm sunny days. I scraped half the scales off during washing and left half on, just as a trial. The skin lifted off the board after about 5 days and it was like a rigid piece of plastic and not at all brittle. However I felt I still had to be careful working it as I felt it could break soon. Having never done anything like this before I was very pleased with the outcome, I shall experiment some more and see what I can make with a couple of finished skins. Thanks for a very good site, and if you have any other tips for tanning fish skin please let me know.

Best Regards, G B

P.S. There is a very faint odour of fish, and nothing else!!

A very good book is Leather. Preparation and Tanning by Traditional Methods, by Lotta Rahme, 112 pages, published by Caber Press, ISBN 1-887719-00-8 and I believe costs about £20.00.

Currying:- After the tanning, the next stage is the preparation of the tanned hides for its necessary smoothness, colour and flexibility. This is called currying. Probably originating from the old French word "correer", meaning "to make ready". Traditionally this was done by specialised craftsmen.

The tanned hide has to be rinsed in fresh water over a period of several hours. Between each rinse the water is squeeged out of the hide using a slicker. The object being to remove as much unfixed tannin as possible. At the same time you must be careful not to tear the grain off.

Next, dry the hide off a bit, then grease and soften. Dyeing comes before oiling.

Dyeing:- Vegetable-tanned hide at this stage is whatever colour has been imparted by the tannins. To change the colour of the hide you can soak it in any tannin-based dye.

Oiling:- As well as making it softer and darker, oiling also prevents it from cracking. Using a waxy, animal, body-fat, also imparts a heavier feel, as well as making it more resistant to water. A light oil, such as neatsfoot oil, gives a much more stretchy, lighter leather.

When the hide is dry, it can be dampened by rolling in damp towelling or hessian type material. This process, the oiling, stretching in all directions, then drying, is repeated until the necessary softness is acquired. The terms "staking" and "perching" are the names applied to other processes by which a hide is stretched, softened and made more flexible. The leather is drawn back and forth over a blunt, horizontal blade fixed on an upright stake, whilst in perching, a hide suspended from a perch has a blunt blade drawn over it. 

It is in comparatively recent times that machinery has taken over from the hand operation, though not totally, as the hand method is still the method of choice for some very light leathers.

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