Basics of Barktan – Zoom Class (No Materials Kit)

Pull up a chair and a soothing beverage and experience the magic of making leather with your own hands from the comfort of your kitchen in this Zoom class with Matt Richards. You’ll learn how plant tannins and animal skins combine to become one of humanity’s most important discoveries. No specialized tools or equipment needed, just basic kitchen implements. We’ll tan one square foot of deerskin to keep the labor simple and focus on the process and knowledge. Check it off your list of things you’ve always wanted to do, or go on to tan more and bigger skins armed with the knowledge of how to do it simply and efficiently.

You’ll love this class if:

• You want the hands-on experience of making a piece of leather
• You work with leather, crafting, bookbinding or tailoring and want to deepen your relationship with the material
• You are a tanner and want to learn how we do it, and what we know. We plan to offer more advanced classes in the future and this class will be a pre-requisite.

The materials kit is not included in this class fee so you’ll need to come up with the equivalent of everything you need that you might not have around the kitchen – a square foot of raw salted deerskin, lime, 2 lbs tan oak bark, leather finishing balm and 1/4 lb wheat bran. The most important part of this kit is the oak bark. I’ve found in the past that people providing their own materials, even experienced tanners, typically have low quality materials, forcing us to figure it out on the fly. If you want to just get the oak bark, we sell it in the tannins, dyes and alkalis section of the website.

You might also consider getting a barkometer. They aren’t necessary for the class but are super useful for this type of tanning, especially if you are wild sourcing your own tannins and will add to your experience. They are $40. They will pop up as an option when you checkout.

There is one time slot for this class in May 2026: 6 pm pacific standard time. All sessions will be recorded and available to re-watch.

Customs: declared values will only be the value of the materials kit, not the class cost

Starting Monday May 4th: 

60 minutes: Fleshing and Liming

Monday May 11th: 

60 minutes: Dehairing and neutralizing

Thursday May 14^th: 

120 minutes: Make tannin teas, start tanning!

Thursday May 21st:

60 minutes: Rinse out excess tannin. Apply oils, sleeking, set up to dry

Monday May 25th:  

60 minutes: Softening and conditioning