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smoking braintan

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Abo:
I am really just kneading some feedback from anyone who does braintan on what you use to smoke to get a dark colour in your hides. I normally use oak or cottonwood and I always get more of a golden colour than brown. Has anyone used pine bows and what colour does that give? I have enough hides to make a pair of pants and long shirt but was thinking of going to the trouble of smoking if I could get them darker. Headed to rendezvous this weekend here in Texas. This will be my first since 2 years ago so I'm looking forward to that. Wish I had my new skins made up but too late getting started even though I have my old ones on standby. Wish y'all could be there. Thanks for the help.

nclonghunter:
Not sure what wood will give you a darker color but I would avoid wood with a smoke resin like pine that has a black suet to it. Same reason not to burn pine in a home fireplace. I have seen that the longer and more you smoke it the darker it becomes when using hardwood decayed punk wood. Just smoke it long time.

Redhand:
I use punky cotton wood. My experience is that the longer you smoke it the darker it gets.

riverrat:
im gonna give you some advice that if used will yield you not only a beautiful colored hide but something that smells wonderful.....and for years! at most pet supply places they sell huge bags of cedar chips that have that cedar smell. build your hard wood fire.let it burn down to coals maybe keeping a couple small sticks going through the process of smoking to keep it hot enough to slowly burn the "damp" cedar chips. yep use damp cedar chips. the longer you smoke the hide, the darker it gets.Tony

BowEd:
Cool your revisiting your old rendezvous circuit and loop.I'm sure you'll see old friends.To me it is'nt any trouble at all to smoke these hides.It's just another step to getting what I want.Lots of choices out there for fuel to smoke with.I've personally always have used shag bark hickory bark.It can be golden if not smoked too much.The longer the darker brown.Personally I may smoke mine darker for the reason that when they get wet and dry out and get scuffed to softness again they will lose a little color or lighten up a bit.I don't want to have to resmoke mine again too quick.I use the old tri pod set up with the hide sewen into a tube and force the smoke through the leather.A word of caution doing it my way.You need to sit there and baby sit your smoking procedure to avoid any flame ups.If you don't want to baby sit it then just hang it up in the teepee for a few days and the smoke will adhere to the leather.Which I'm not a big fan of really.

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