hide tanning, when is it really chemical tanned?

the following was a post to a youtube video I had done but I wrote so much I thought I should share it here as well...


see, chemisrty is everything, and by definition, even the brain is a chemical, what we use from the brain is an emulsified oil (mixes with water). now enough of that, on with the show.
you see the idea behind basic brain tanning, whether doing wetscrape( using and alkali in forms such as Hydrated lime, Wood ash or even KOH), or dry scrape (no alkali), is brain penatration.
to understand that, think of a bunch of hide fibers like a bunch of pipe cleaners all twisted together... now take this mass and soak it in glue.
this would be the hides natural state. fibers intertwined and coated with the mucus membrane.
now picture your brain solution as a glass of milk mixed with near a gallon of water.
now your job is to make that watery milk penatrate that gluey mass of pipecleaners, forcing out the glue completely by multiple dressings.
tough huh?
this is why dry scrape is less popular.
now with wet scrape add alkali, we'll say it's a hot soapy solution and completely cleans out all the glue but DOES NOT AT ALL hurt the fibers-because that's what alkali does.
now you have the pipe cleaner mass easily and ready to accept the milky water with no glue left! YAY!

ok now to the second part.
natural veggie tanning;
will take to long to type, I work two jobs father of twins and I have finals, so I'll be brief this time,
think tea
put a bag in your mouth, seriously, do it. makes ya pucker huh? coagulates blood too, reason why? it's hydroscopic, like brake fluid, absorbs water!
so any ways a series of baths are made weakest to strongest, slowly allowing the hide to soak in each bath of weeks to months leacheing out water and replacing it with tanic acid( stuf in the tea, you'll also find it in bark, nuts, etc, more on this later...
well yeah it's wet so don't get confused, it does have water in it, just like A cup of strong tea made from 5 bags of tea, but it's still bitter and makes you pucker right?
ok so anyways, the tanic acid, basically what you did is preserve the hide like this, it's taken out of the baths and left to dry, som ancient european, and native american cultures (pacific northwest and north east coast were known for this) would break the hide down as it dried so it was somwhat pliable, think commercial suede to saddle or belt leather.
not buck skin soft, but pliable.
why?
Because of the lack of oil, no manipulation till the very end, and the use of a chemical (tannic acid) to extract water and mucus from the hide.
is it better or worse?
well you wouldn't want a belt or saddle out of braintan, nor would you want a shirt or coat out of commercial or vegtable tanned hides, each have their own purposes, and each animal speicies exhibts different traits good for something like elk doesn't make good moccasins due to the coarse grain structure, but better for coats, moose is better for mocs anayways, tighter grain and thicker, and so on...
want a cooler summer shirt of buckskin? try antelope, very thin yet strong as or morse than deer, plus the breathability factor of braintan is a plus "Sweat all you want!"

hope this helps some...