The Tanner's Touch

03/27/2026

Going to have some really cool leather and a full belly from this big snapper! (none target catch) you set off your last 330 ya little ninja turtle. 🪤 🐢 🥣 😋

03/13/2026

Sweet sweet music to my ears 🎶

From Hunt… to Tree… to Drum 🦌 🪘

This 16” deer hide drum has officially found its home (SOLD), but the story behind it started long before the wood and rawhide ever came together.

It began with a bow hunt last season. I took the deer with an arrow from about 40 yards. After the shot I tracked her through the brush but lost the blood trail, so I went back and got my best tracking partner — my dog Atlantis.

After searching a bit he gave his alert bark and led me right to her. She had actually circled back and passed about 25 yards from where the arrow first hit. She weighed right around 150 pounds.

That animal fed our family and nothing was wasted.

The meat went to the freezer and the hide was saved and turned into something meaningful.

For the drum frame, I went out and selected the right Eastern Red Cedar (Juniperus virginiana) tree. After harvesting it, the cedar was milled down to about 3/16” thickness and carefully bent by hand into a circular frame.

Working with natural materials always brings challenges. The cedar’s fiber structure fought the bend in a few places, but that’s part of learning with every new project and part of what makes handmade pieces unique.

Drum Details 🤙

• 16 inch diameter frame drum
• Frame made from hand-harvested Eastern Red Cedar (Juniperus virginiana)
• Cedar milled and bent by hand into the drum frame
• Real deer rawhide drum head from the deer harvested on that hunt
• Hide thickness approximately 1/8”–3/16” natural rawhide
• Hide hand processed and stretched into rawhide
• Hand-cut rawhide lacing tightened as the hide dried
• Handmade be**er with a beaver chew handle and buckskin leather head

Many drums can be assembled in just a few hours using pre-made frames and prepared hides.

This one took roughly 40 hours of work, including harvesting the cedar, processing the hide, milling and bending the frame, cutting the rawhide lacing, and assembling the drum.

Most drum makers don’t harvest the deer, process the hide, cut the tree, mill the wood, and build the frame themselves. I wanted this one to truly come from the land to the finished instrument.

This drum is part of The Tanner’s Touch Tom Tom Series — instruments created from materials I personally harvest and tan by hand.

The buyer will also receive a Certificate of Authenticity documenting the hunt, the materials used, and the craftsmanship behind the drum.

Drum Code:
FF-DRUM-001
Kansas • 2026

Out here everything I trap or hunt we eat, and whenever possible I turn part of the animal into something lasting like this.

This drum is already sold, but more handmade pieces will come when the right materials and time come together.

Every drum I make will have its own hunt, its own tree, and its own story.

And Atlantis will definitely be getting a few extra bones.

Thanks for the continued support and for supporting our family.

- Touched By The Tanner 🫰

03/03/2026

Beaver trap line 🤙 😜 🦫

02/25/2026

The Tanner's Touched

02/25/2026

Native drum project 🤙 🪶 🪘

02/19/2026

Native drum incoming… 👀 hides out of first bath

02/19/2026

01/23/2026

Current Project 16 hours in... and just the beginning

Native/Shamen Style Drum

I pour my blood sweat and tears into your projects.

They are truly one of a kind items. Not because I'm the craftiest with it or the best tanner or even the most intuitive woodworker but because the creator crafted everything inside nature that we need. Nature is so beautifully and wonderfully made.

The wood frame from a carefully picked Juniper tree, Eastern red cedar.
The scarf joint, bound together with the sinew from a deer.
The glue itself made up from a hardwood ash and tree sap.

The Challenges so far on this project have been the almost subzero temps.
The moisture I needed from the fresh cut tree in order to bend the wood froze and has created small fractures throughout the frame.
The deer hide I fleshed has frozen into a solid sheet of ice. Compromising structural integrity of my green hide.

Fortunately I know the fixes to these minor but potentially project ending road bumps. It will just take a little extra elbow grease, a little more attention to detail, a little more craftsmanship.

I like the adversity Lord, grow me.

01/21/2026

You know my work but do you know the heart behind it? 💔

It can be hard to imagine that I love animals doing what I do… but I do.
I would even venture to say I love animals more than most.

I grew up hunting wih my dad and remember vividly telling him, with tear filled eyes, that i didn’t want to finish off the first deer I’d shot.

That seems a life time ago now

See it’s that sadness i had as a little boy that I carry with me now. That i think we should all carry in a
Sense.

There’s fun in the hunt sure, excitement in seeing such elusive animals up so close but yet so far away. Getting dressed up and camo’d out.

I don’t think the killing of the animal should be the fun part in and of itself.

It shouldn’t be the taking of an animals life that gives us joy in our lives.
Stop and Seriously think about that!
It’s the fact that their life has meaning that should give us some insight into our own.

This is God’s creation, his animals, his land. Though I truly believe God has given man dominion over the animals that doesn’t mean we should abuse it or take it for granted. We should utilize it, respect it and honor it.

Understand that the taking off a life is a big deal and of great significance that should be recognized.

When God was in the garden he made garments for Adam and Eve out of animal skins. It required sacrifice and we should see this. Scripture can tell us so much in seemingly hidden nuances of its pages.

Please remember I’m not a company, a conglomerate pushing 1000’s of Prada/Gucci fur coats. I’m not in this for the money Lord knows there’s other options. Though I feel God has allowed me to have great joy in doing what I do. I feel like I can honor that by never abusing it.

Everytime I make something for you guys, please remember this…

I pray over that animal before I dispatch it. I ask God to keep my heart clean, thank him for the Dominion he’s given us over these beautiful creatures and ask him to help me honor their life afterward but utilizing them to the fullest extent I think I can.

My family eats the meat for food, the pelts for clothing, the bones for tools and jewley.

Often times I get teary, yeah I’ve maybe even asked God for some help to get through that when in the sticks.

See I recognize that I’m the only person to ever touch this animal while it’s been alive. The only person who will be with them as they pass on.

The only person to feel their heart beat under my bare hand, hear their cry of confusion in my ears, see their labored breath in the early hours of a beautiuful sunrise on a cold winter morning.
In their last minutes on this earth I normally get to pet them, comfort them and talk to them, talk to God.

I find true joy in doing this type of work. Maybe you can understand why i have a hard of a time I have letting go of some of the work I do, ask my wife. Sometimes hours turn into days for each hide.

So even though I love this, it can be bitter sweet. If I ever lose that feeling of being a little sad then I will take a step back, assess myself and comeback later.

Just a little insight from a trapper. Just a little perspective I’ve come appreciate.

What do you think? Have you thought about this?

01/21/2026

FOR SALE – PURE SKUNK ESSENCE (UNDILUTED)

I have a very limited quantity of pure skunk essence available.
This is gland-extracted, undiluted, and properly aged — not cut with oil, alcohol, or fillers.

• Extremely potent
• Single-source extraction
• Stored in glass
• Intended for lure-making and trapping use/ stink bait or hunintg to mask human scent.

Price
• $35
A little goes a long way. One drop goes along way. One bottle will last you all season!

⚠️ Use caution when handling – very strong odor.
📍 Local pickup preferred. Limited quantity available.

If you know, you know.

Message me directly if interested.

01/20/2026

Made a couple for myself as well out of ground hog!