How Animal Hides Are Made Into Parchment At The Last Workshop In The US | Still Standing

[Music] this goatskin is about to be turned into parchment an old kind of paper made from animal skin it goes through a laborious process of having every last hair scraped off [Music] the craft dates back to 2500 bc and this is the last place in the u.s that still makes it [Music] every piece takes at least two weeks to make and only a handful of people in the entire world know how parchment as a product almost hasn't survived there was almost no need for it as a material but it was the centuries-old work that helped jessie meyer save his family tannery we visited their facility in montgomery new york to see how it's still standing [Music] making parchment is a messy craft it's cold and wet around the workshop but the lingering smell is something jessie's gotten used to it all starts with the skin deer goat calf and sheepskin are sent by slaughterhouses or local hunters [Music] jesse soaks it in a mixture of water and calcium hydroxide to break down the fibers loosen the hair and clean it [Music] this is the longest part of the process taking at least two weeks then it's time for de-herring [Music] jesse scrapes at the skin pushing the hair off [Music] he uses a makeshift tool a 100 year old piece of wood that has the perfect shape for the job even the hand tools that we use most people have never seen before and in some cases they don't exist and i've had to you know recreate these tools myself after dehairing he removes the extra meat layers on the other side they've installed machines to help speed this along but sometimes jesse prefers the traditional way the more involved you can be with your own hands the better and more control you have over the end product but there is a point where if you're doing this on a commercial scale to try to be efficient more economical you don't really have the ability to handle each one by hand the hides then go through a thorough rinse that adjusts the ph level after weeks of intense chemical treatment jessie selects some of the clean skins to be dyed in a large drum uses plant-based pigments and water to create a range of colors [Music] as the skins tumble they soak up the dye until they're saturated he hangs the skins to dry overnight so that the color spreads evenly throughout [Music] but most of the rinse skins are left their natural white color and sent up to the dry room jessie stretches the skin to keep it flat while it dries [Music] first he scrapes the hide while it's wet to remove excess moisture then when it's dry he shaves it to clear away tissue [Music] he made this medieval knife with a saw blade a threaded rod and leather its proper latin name is lanellum for its crescent moon shape sanding is the very last step jesse refines the surface smoothing it out until almost every blemish is undetectable finally the skin is now parchment [Music] the first record of parchment dates back to 2450 bc famous ancient documents like the dead sea scrolls and the magna carta were all written on it for its durability the use of parchment peaked in the middle ages in europe when it was mostly used for illuminated manuscripts and book bindings paper made from wood pulp or plant fibers was invented in china around 105 a.d it made its way across asia the middle east and europe through the centuries with the rise of literacy and the printed word it was faster and cheaper to make it quickly industrialized and rendered parchment virtually irrelevant by the 16th century early in the 20th century designers incorporated parchment into high-end furniture and decor and it is still used for that today preserving history is what saved parchment in this business conservators use the material to mend old manuscripts make copies and restore missing pages it's been a very niche product it is something that happens alongside of leather production and that's how i kind of rediscovered and have been trying to sort of reapply it since then [Music] the rare craft saved his family's centuries-old tannery business which has been in the country since his ancestors moved here in 1820 by the time jesse took over demand for leather was on the decline and by 2005 keeping the business going was getting more difficult that's when jesse introduced parchment making but he struggled to find out about the process there are a handful of other companies around the world that do this sort of thing and they're far far away and they they've never told me how they do what they're doing so i've had to try to figure this out in a vacuum so it's me figuring it out as i go and what seems to work best for me because it's such an old medieval craft anytime i would try to go look up information a lot of times it was from medieval recipes that was written in latin from 13 1400. eventually parchment became such an important part of the business jesse changed the name from meyer and sons to pergamina which means parchment in latin and he found a niche of customers conservators and designers who use the material in lampshades upholstery headboards and even as wallpaper no two pieces of parchment look the same so which is a blessing and a curse that's part of the artistry a single sheet starts at a hundred dollars what started out feeling like an albatross around my neck um ended up becoming a way to help revitalize the family industry i want to be proud of this and to be able to pass it on to my family and for people to know that skilled work like this is still being done in the world it's being made right here in the united states by a family that's been doing it for 450 years you

Channel: Business Insider

Views: 7,906,673

Keywords: Business Insider, Business News, parchment, paper, USA, family business, small business, middle ages, tannery, leather

Id: KchdBfAK2aw

Length: 8min 4sec (484 seconds)

Published: Sun Mar 07 2021