Talk:Tanning (leather)

Major rewrite
I did a major rewrite of this article and upgraded the modern tanning section. The ancient method section still needs upgrading. I'm removing this from the cleanup list. Jerdwyer 07:05, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

Cultural differences
Saying that the ancients considered tanning a job for the poor, or attaching negative connotations to it in general is hugely culture specific. To assign that attitude to a group of people dubbed 'the ancients' is plain folly. This world has birthed untold millions of cultures, and certainly many of them did not treat tanning hides with such distaste. The indigineous peoples of North America treated brain-tanning with great appreciation and respect. They were in possession of the knowledge of many scores of different tanning processes, utilizing hundreds of different plants or other naturally produced resources. It was the combination and re-combination of these processes that allowed someone with a creative urge to entice highly specific qualities out of the hides they worked.

Unfortunately I don't have first hand experience in tanning under a primitive setting, but I know lots of people who do. It is a vast field, with many many many things that aren't even touched upon in this article. I will try and find someone to edit this.

-Jared — Preceding unsigned comment added by 150.131.35.163 (talk) 15:57, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

"except Buffalo" ???
what's with that buffalo bit in the last paragraph of the 'ancient tanning' section? Looks like random vandalism or something to me. It should be elaborated on if it is true...I'm certainly not familiar with it and it appears to be some local thing —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 125.238.11.116 (talk) 03:21, 19 February 2007 (UTC).

Changed a bit
Now I have done a major rewrite of the page.Specially the "Modern methods of Tanning" portion. Feel free to upgrade it or pass suggestions to make it even better

urbane26 8th December 2007

Links
I just deleted a link (that has aparenly been deleted before) to a comercial site selling cow hides, leather rugs, and other products. Had they ANY discussion of the tanning process (which could have been linked to directly) I would have perhaps seen some relevance. I also added back a link to a U.S. Government publication on home tanning of leather from a previos version of the page. For some reason somebody thought it was link spam. There are probably more good links out there to be found. Ferritecore (talk) 23:48, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

Review
I am in the process of writing the entire leather making process linked through the "Leather" main page in accordance with the WP:MOS. This page is ambiguous as it lumps other leather making operations into the "tanning" operation. I acknowledge that tanneries do many things other than tan and for many years the entire leather making process was called the tanning process but I submit that this terminology is misleading and confusing for the reader and not robust enough for the encyclopedic nature of Wikipedia. With this in mind I propose that we move some of the valuable content from this page into the relevant sections of the leather making process and use this stub as the rightful place of the "tanning" operation to avoid reader confusion. I welcome any discussion on this before I start these changes.Plugflower (talk) 15:38, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

Wet white and Tanwater
The above articles should probably be turned into redirects to this article and anything relevant incorporated into this article. If anyone is interested, please go ahead and do it. dougweller (talk) 23:08, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

Unclear sentence
Curing is employed to check putrifaction of the protein substance (Collagen) because of the chance of bacterial infection due to the time lag that might occur from procuring it to processing it.

This is unclear. How is bacterial infection caused by a time lag, and what is being infected? The hide? The tanner? I don't know what it is supposed to mean. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.48.64.119 (talk) 07:48, 12 March 2009 (UTC)


 * I recast that sentence, and worked over that whole paragraph to some extent. It's better, but still needs improvement. If nobody else works it over I'm likly to have another go at it later. Ferritecore (talk) 01:23, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Bias
There's a lot of bias in this article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.29.175.52 (talk) 22:46, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Whiskey making
Just for the record there appears to have been economies of scale between whiskey makers and tanners in late medieval Ireland with the same person receiving a license for leather tanning and whiskey making. This was probably connected with the need for oak casks in both professions, although there could be another reason that I am unaware of. 213.202.140.74 (talk) 11:01, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

ancient and modern tanning methods
I came looking for tanning in Wikipedia because of that reference form Silence of the Lambs about using brains to tan skins. I found that reference, sure enough. Now I'm getting more and more curious about the history of tanning, and the transition from ancient to modern methods. Can that be included?--Alphapeta (talk) 01:28, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

Basics
Well now, can we get back to basics, which are unexplained (at least in layman's language), and should be in the first line. I presume the object is to stop the hide rotting, and as such is a more localised form of embalming which aims to prevent the whole corpse rotting? Embalming works by making the whole corpse extremly poisonous.

Why does this process work?

Am I correct in inferring that (oak) bark is poisonous (presumably to protect the tree from insect, animal, vedgetable and bacterial attack)? And this process removes most of what would rot and then makes the remainder poisonous ditto? Is leather poisonous? Could I chew, suck or eat leather, or would I be poisoned? Could I chew, suck or eat (oak) bark, or would I be poisoned? Why is oak bark used in horticulture to provide a plant (and therefore weed) free surface - presumably because it is poisonous? 89.168.87.17 (talk) 10:33, 11 August 2011 (UTC)


 * We are always looking for ways to make articles both accessible (understandable to people not versed in technology) but accurate. Your analysis of what is at work is probably partly correct but it is imprecise because "poisonous" is too vague. An intelligent person could extrapolate several ways to think about tanning, one being that the processing is somehow supposed to do for the skin what the living creature did for it. Furthermore chrome-tanning is somewhat like vulcanization of rubber and embalming of corpses: it entails a crosslinking process that enhances the mechanical strength of the material.  This aspect is explained in Tanning.  One message being delivered in many Wikipedia articles is that the fundamental basis for many consumer products (soap, hair dying, toothpaste) is often technical, unavoidably.  Nonetheless editors here are conscious that the article need to be readable, especially in the opening paragraph.--Smokefoot (talk) 13:04, 11 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Yes, some of us have little chemistry (and biology!). Also on the page on chamois leather it mentions tanning using oxidised fish oils, but there doesn't seem to be anything here on that subject. Vince Calegon 13:26, 1 February 2016 (UTC)

Ready for a section, "Leatherworkers and Culture"
By now this has become a superb article, useful for teaching four or five kinds of cultural history classes. Henry Mayhew, for instance, in his pioneering work of sociology, the 1850s London Labour and the London Poor, could count on his readers knowing what the people collecting "pure," (dog's feces) from the London streets were doing. My students can't guess, and are shocked to know. Since, in several cultures, the people who handled leather were considered ritually unclean-- and perhaps we get a better idea why, after reading this-- can we add a section on leatherwork and culture? Just from memory, leatherwork was reserved for "untouchables," so to speak, in Japan and parts of India. Perhaps in Europe the Ashkenazi Jews were accepted as furriers, and as cobblers, because there was an overlap with the tanneries? BTW, my great-grandfather was a cobbler in 1890s London. The East End was full of cobblers and other Jewish leather workers. Profhum (talk) 23:33, 15 February 2015 (UTC)

Redundant article?
So it seems to me that this article and leather production processes are pretty much covering the same thing, the transformation of raw animal skins into leather.

Looking at it, it appears the other article was an attempt to have an overview article that linked to a series of sub-articles for each step, which is seen in its guideline-inappropriate plural title. There are multiple problems with that.

Firstly, the steps aren't independently notable. This is seen by the fact that most have no articles and wouldn't qualify for them anyway due to lack of sources covering them independently.

Secondly, the sub-articles that do exist are poorly written stubs with only a couple of sources. They would be prime candidates for merging no matter what. In fact, that's really what should happen to them, as readers are far better served by having a one-stop, not-too-technical encyclopedia article than trying and aiming to be a comprehensive how-to of leather making.

Thirdly, the other article's title is just poor. As I noted, it's plural despite the article title guidelines. But more importantly, the entire process is known as "tanning", even if only the one step is the actual process of tanning. In this regard it is analogous to baking a cake, which is the name of the entire process from selecting and measuring ingredients to icing the cake, even if only the part where the food is in a hot oven is properly called baking. Readers would be best served by that same mentality here. oknazevad (talk) 18:44, 8 February 2018 (UTC)


 * Oppose 'the entire process is known as "tanning"'  It isn't.  This is (still) a significant industry. It's one of mankind's oldest industries. WP should not change that by redefining the terms out of ignorance. Andy Dingley (talk) 20:19, 8 February 2018 (UTC)


 * Well then, maybe the opposite should happen and the redundant coverage of the pre-tanning steps should be removed from this article. That would work too. My main concern is the redundancy, regardless of how we address it.
 * It just seems to me that having one fairly comprehensive article (but one not too bogged down in technical minutia) covering the entire process to be a better way to serve readers, regardless of its title. oknazevad (talk) 20:28, 9 February 2018 (UTC)

Here we are almost six years later and there is still two almost entirely redundant articles. That has not been addressed, despite Andy's misreading of what I wrote. I'm going to be bold and tag for a merger to prompt discussion. oknazevad (talk) 16:53, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

Pickling
It says:

"Small skins are left in this liquor for 2 days, while larger skins between 1 week and as much as 2 months. This is done to bring down the pH of collagen to a very low level of 2.8-3.0 so as to facilitate the penetration of mineral tanning agent into the skin substrate. This process is known as pickling. The salt penetrates the hide twice as fast as the acid and suppresses the swelling effect of the sudden drop of pH."

This looks like a straight contradiction. Either it soaks for as much as two months, or there is a sudden drop in pH. The last sentence seems particularly dubious. I propose to delete the uncited part of this section, i.e. from "2 months" to the end. MrDemeanour (talk) 18:32, 8 October 2023 (UTC)


 * ...and I deleted it. MrDemeanour (talk) 09:39, 10 October 2023 (UTC)

Requested move 25 February 2024

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: moved. Consensus there is no primary topic (closed by non-admin page mover) Vpab15 (talk) 15:24, 4 March 2024 (UTC)

Tanning → Tanning (leather) – This page was moved by with edit summary "moved page Tanning (leather) to Tanning: moving it back onto the redirect: tanning isn't just for leather, and the more general term should be the primary.  later mentioned in an edit summary "... the undiscussed move is a problem because there are other things called tanning that have nothing to do with leather production". I am also also unsure that hide tanning is the primary topic for tanning, given that Sun tanning is popularly known as "tanning" and that article is much more popular . My proposal is to create a disambiguation page at Tanning. Shhhnotsoloud (talk) 12:15, 25 February 2024 (UTC)
 * Well, I don't really care so much and maybe a dab page is a good idea. I just found it very limiting that tanning was about leather tanning, when other things--and I'm not talking about sun tanning, which really is a different thing--can also be tanned, meaning treated with chemicals in a way that makes them easier to use and increases their lifespan. In the case I was looking at, it was rope. But no I wouldn't say that the first meaning of "tanning" should be "sun tanning". Drmies (talk) 18:13, 25 February 2024 (UTC)
 * Support the sun meaning has 1,394,763 views compared with only 565,826 for the leather meaning.  Crouch, Swale  ( talk ) 19:38, 25 February 2024 (UTC)
 * Note: WikiProject Textile Arts has been notified of this discussion. Vanderwaalforces (talk) 19:53, 25 February 2024 (UTC)
 * Note: WikiProject Fashion has been notified of this discussion. Vanderwaalforces (talk) 19:53, 25 February 2024 (UTC)


 * Support per nom. No primary topic. -- Necrothesp (talk) 14:10, 27 February 2024 (UTC)
 * Oppose Seems to be primary topic (certainly by WP:PT2 - long term significance, etc.). "Sun tanning" is already disambiguated, and could just as easily be called "Sun bathing" or some other term.  Not sure a disambiguation page is necessary, if a DAB note at top can quickly redirect lost souls.  What other "tanning" entries do you have in mind?  10:29, 28 February 2024 (UTC)
 * "Sun tanning" is very often just referred to as "tanning". I'm a staunch advocate of long-term significance, but I really don't think it applies here. -- Necrothesp (talk) 15:01, 28 February 2024 (UTC)
 * Quite more long-term significance methinks. Humans have been tanning for thousand of years, very widespread and a major industry in many countries. Sun-tanning is very recent recreational activity, and among a narrower group of people (race & class).  More to the point, the article "Sun tanning" is already disambiguated.  Why does this need to be disambiguated as well?  Just how many things are referred to as "tanning" that it requires a whole new disambiguation page rather than a simple DAB at the top here?  Walrasiad (talk) 15:18, 28 February 2024 (UTC)
 * Quite recent as a leisure activity, indeed, but I would suggest that people have been getting sun tans naturally even longer than they have been tanning leather! And not another comment that a non-naturally disambiguated topic should take priority over a naturally disambiguated one? No, that's not how disambiguation works. -- Necrothesp (talk) 11:34, 29 February 2024 (UTC)
 * Then explain to me how you'd like it to work. You want to direct "Tanning" to a disambiguation page with two entries? Seems like adding a pointless extra step, when the other meaning can be disambiguated here at the top. Walrasiad (talk) 19:55, 29 February 2024 (UTC)
 * No problem whatsoever with a two-entry dabpage. We have thousands of them. See WP:NOPRIMARY. It's a common misconception among editors that we don't use two-entry dabpages. -- Necrothesp (talk) 15:09, 1 March 2024 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
 * Support name change, so as to differentiate between "sun tans."Davidbena (talk) 18:09, 29 February 2024 (UTC)
 * Support as no evidence that the leather meaning is primary for 'tanning'. If the fact that 'sun tanning' is NATDAB as an over-riding concern (which it shouldn't be), then article should be 'leather tanning'. That seems more cumbersome (is it really most-often actually called that?), so I don't support it. But it even more strongly points to having Tanning as a DAB page. DMacks (talk) 19:14, 29 February 2024 (UTC)