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Curious about how goatskin leather is tanned.

What are the ingredients/chemicals involved in getting the goatskin hide during the process for a jacket? My reason is... I have a G-1 that has a real bad odor, and there seems to be nothing to remove it. My last thought was the shipping carrier may have spilled hydraulic fluid on the shipping package, as that seems to be the type of odor I remember when I was air crew in the Navy. However, after some investigating, that may not be the case. Different tanners may have many different type of chemicals in their tanning process.

This jacket has a different purpose than one being issued for Navy aviation air crew. Wearing it in public today with this odor would get some "not so pleasant looks" from people.
On-board ships such as aircraft carriers, we didn't care too much about what odor, or the condition it was in, just so we had something to wear to keep warm on the flight deck and in flight..
If you were lucky to have met a girl off base and she liked the leather jacket, you gave it to her and you ask the Navy to issue you another one. That is how I ended up with two in my first two years in the Navy.
 

Flightengineer

Well-Known Member
What amazes me most of all is that, despite your venerable respectable age, you still remember the manufacturers and specifications of your issued jackets.
 
What amazes me most of all is that, despite your venerable respectable age, you still remember the manufacturers and specifications of your issued jackets.

That's a laugh. Don't take any old brain cells to remember the jacket makers, size. etc.. when they hanging in a closet some twenty feet away.

Oh! I almost forgot.. I have a three log books" from those Navy days, and just about everything that happen... Including have sex with a couple Japanese girls.
Also, I remember my first day of school, and one time when a copperhead snake bit me while was helping my grandfather dig his potatoes. But, I rather not spend the next 24/7 writing my memories in life.
 
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STEVE S.

Well-Known Member
I have heard that in the “olden times” urine was used. Think some of the overseas tanneries may still use this method as I had some samples sent to me a few yrs back from a tannery that smelled like a cat had pissed on them.
 

Flightengineer

Well-Known Member
That's a laugh. Don't take any old brain cells to remember the jacket makers, size. etc.. when they hanging in a closet some twenty feet away

If so you would be very kind to show them to us here, these are original jackets and a pieсes of history, worthy of demonstrations on this forum, without a doubt.
 

robrinay

Well-Known Member
The older ‘natural’ methods involved soaking in Urine, brain slurry or faeces slurry - apparently dog poo is one of the best containing enzymes which help to remove muscle and fat remnants leaving just the hide. I’m pretty sure these methods are still used in some places.
The later stages of the process are supposed to remove the bad smells but I remember those Afghan embroidered hippy coats from the late 60’s and early 70’s that always retained a ‘Je ne sais quoi’ odour (but now I do know).
I’ve also heard that formaldehyde (methanal- not to be confused with methanol), is sometimes used to ‘stabilise’ the hide. You may remember the sharp chemical smell of this stuff from those glass jars of biological specimens the teacher kept in the prep room at school?
For all the above reasons in olden times it was never a good idea to buy a house downwind from a tannery, and tannery workers were often shunned as the smells were absorbed by their skin hair and clothes.
 
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