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Tanning is the making of leather from the skins of animals which does not easily decompose. Traditionally, tanning used tannin, an acidic chemical compound from which the tanning process draws its name (tannin is in turn named for an old German word for oak or fir trees, which supplied it). Coloring may occur during tanning. A tannery is the term for a place where these skins are processed. Tanning leather involves a process which permanently alters the protein structure of skin. Making "rawhide" (untanned but worked hide) does not require the use of tannin. Rawhide is made by removing the flesh and fat and then the hair by use of an aqueous solution (this process is often called "liming" when using lime and water or "bucking" when using wood ash (lye) and water), then scraping over a beam with a somewhat dull knife, then drying. The two aforementioned solutions for removing the hair also act to clean the fiber network of the skin and allow penetration and action of the tanning agent, so that all the steps in preparation of rawhide except drying are often preludes to the more complex process of tanning and production of leather. Tanning can be performed with either vegetable or mineral methods. Before tanning, the skins are unhaired, degreased, desalted and soaked in water over a period of 6 hours to 2 days. To prevent damage of the skin by bacterial growth during the soaking period, biocides, such as TCMBT, 2-(Thiocyanomethylthio) benzothiazole, are added. After 1980 the use of pentachlorophenol and quicksilver (mercury base) biocides and their derivatives was forbidden.
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