How exactly to make elk leather

[More_tribal_interaction]

Tried to search the forum for an answer, but to no avail.

How exactly do I make elk leather (or bear/reindeer etc)?
Is dehairing once enough?

Tks.

[Signatus]

You have to de-hair and then tan it normally. I don't think you need to dehair more than once, since it takes a few days, but I'm not sure. I usually just make furs.

[Ara D.]

Word to if advise keep a close I on leather the soaking process takes days and once it is complete the hide will begin to lose quality and rot like normal. I have lost or let many hides go to harsh because I was away roaming when the de-hair process was done

[Brygun]

The need to track when de-hairing is done is often how players start writing a character journal.

Dehair is just once.

The process will be like

kill animal
skin animal
clean skin
dehair skin (takes weeks of soaking)
tan skin
rinse skin
finish skin

you can usually put the animal fat into a cellar to have it available for the tanning. If not use bark from rowan or adler

[Tom H]

I'll reiterate the warnings of others- DO NOT lose track of the status of your furs. I'm sure that I've wasted more than I've made into leather from spending an extra day on the road and then finding my skins rotted.

Otoh- Unless you've a desire to outfit yourself with a lot of leather armor, there's really very little call for leather in the game. Skis, ski poles, that's pretty much all you'll find a use for.

[Saiko Kila]

Skis don't use leather, they use exclusively furs. Additionally they are hard to make (use Carpentry), and it's possible the first effort will make poor quality ones, so probably more fur is needed to make decent skis.

Ski pole yes, I would add grainflail, but both of them can be made only once and there's no need for more. Maybe they can be remade later with better quality. There's also a skin (container), but it's practically worthless, given you can buy bags and birch-boxes, or make bowls.

The real reason for acquiring of leather may be repairing stuff: it takes as much leather as is missing from the clothing, plus 3% of base weight. I use most of leather this way. Also sometimes you just can't find boots, so have to make them yourself.

[JEB Davis]

Leather armor is valuable (especially if you roleplay) for the summer. A layer of leather underneath mail or lamellar for example. While I know there are not penalties in-game for wearing fur when it's hot, there will be when Sami implements heat penalties.

Also, leather skins for water are great because who would carry a wooden bowl full of water as they tramp through the wilderness? Again... realism / roleplay versus what game mechanics allow.

[Tom H]

Skis don't use leather, they use exclusively furs. Additionally they are hard to make (use Carpentry), and it's possible the first effort will make poor quality ones, so probably more fur is needed to make decent skis.

Ski pole yes, I would add grainflail, but both of them can be made only once and there's no need for more. Maybe they can be remade later with better quality. There's also a skin (container), but it's practically worthless, given you can buy bags and birch-boxes, or make bowls.

The real reason for acquiring of leather may be repairing stuff: it takes as much leather as is missing from the clothing, plus 3% of base weight. I use most of leather this way. Also sometimes you just can't find boots, so have to make them yourself.

Saiko- Yep. I forgot that skis require furs- AGAIN! I actually have a thread here, somewhere, where I was reminded that skis need furs to make them. (sigh) It's just that I make them so seldom. And, I saw a thread somewhere that said the quality of skis and ski sticks has no bearing on your movement speed, so, that detracts from the desire to make more of them. Likewise, the villagers will discriminate some about the quality but, overall, they think everything I make is of little value. It's kind of strange, really. I cannot make, for instance, a Masterwork Staff, but the villagers will trade me their's for a few scraps of dried meat. So, If I could make them, they'd be worthless, regardless of their quality.

[More_tribal_interaction]

I got my answer. Thanks for contribution.

So just dehair once after cleaning skin. The rest of the steps are the same.

I consider this matter closed.

Atm, leather is used for armour, skins for water (can't carry bowls of water for travelling), leather ropes, and very specific tools that u normally only make one copy of.

[PALU]

And you tend to get huge piles of bird leather, so there's no reason to dehair furry animals except for role playing reasons.

[Saiko Kila]

Also, leather skins for water are great because who would carry a wooden bowl full of water as they tramp through the wilderness? Again... realism / roleplay versus what game mechanics allow.

I also use skin, when I can acquire it for free (for example after a quest which gives credit), but realistically bags are better - empty ones weigh less than the skin, they have much higher capacity. Bags are feasible water containers, if you assume they are made of water-proof material.

[PALU]

Well, I assume water skins are heavier than bags exactly because they're water proof, unlike the bags that shouldn't be (or else the contents would risk getting moldy fast).

Also, since bags have a higher capacity, they weigh a lot more than a water skin when full... You typically don't need to haul more fluid than a waterskin's worth between topping up anyway (and my characters usually don't carry any water at all, but that's at least partially because the Nerp Cooking Mod's goulash and, in particular, borstch, contain some water).

[JEB Davis]

PALU beat me to it.
I think it's logical to assume the bags are not waterproof, as they are used for grain & seeds.

[Saiko Kila]

Well, I assume water skins are heavier than bags exactly because they're water proof, unlike the bags that shouldn't be (or else the contents would risk getting moldy fast).

Also, since bags have a higher capacity, they weigh a lot more than a water skin when full... You typically don't need to haul more fluid than a waterskin's worth between topping up anyway (and my characters usually don't carry any water at all, but that's at least partially because the Nerp Cooking Mod's goulash and, in particular, borstch, contain some water).

Hm, I do carry a wide range of containers, for different purposes, and different names and sizes help me to organise it a bit. Skin is too small to me - I need more (or less - birch-bark box), because I often make use of hideworking skill in the place where the animal was killed. Often it has no water. The same with cooking. My dog carries some pots (to make soups, mushrooms and herbal beverages, which I use a lot), while my bull carries some tubs of water, but I have to carry some water (bowl preferably) on my character's person, because animals often are dumped or tied some tiles away for safety, and I want the cooking going before I start looking for them.

Also a character has to drink very frequently, so both while wandering and while spending time at home I just have to have water, even without making hides. I live in caves only, and they rarely have water nearby.

However, the main reason skin is bad is that it has lesser volume than a cooking pot. So bowl (identical volume) or something bigger is needed to empty the heavy pot quickly.

The biggest inconsistency is that skins require 4 lbs of leather to make - while they weight 0.3 lbs. I wonder what happens to the rest. When you make a shirt, it takes as much material as it weighs later.

[JEB Davis]

So mod the skin to be how you want it. Make a bigger one.
I modded mine to be heavier because I agree with you on the 0.3 lbs.
But nobody can convince me carrying a bowl of water around is feasible except for a short distance.
And bags & birchbark boxes can't really hold water, can they?