Parchment Making
Part of Writing & Record Keeping
Producing durable writing surfaces from animal hides through liming, scraping, and stretching.
Why This Matters
Paper requires either rags (from old textile production) or pulped plant fiber, a complex process with significant equipment. Papyrus grows only in specific climates. But wherever people keep animals—which is to say, virtually everywhere—animal hides are a byproduct of slaughter. Parchment converts that byproduct into one of the most durable writing surfaces ever developed.
Parchment is not the same as leather. Leather is tanned to produce a flexible, water-resistant material. Parchment is dried under tension while still damp, which reorganizes the hide’s protein structure into a smooth, semi-translucent surface. The result is harder and stiffer than leather, takes ink beautifully, and can last for centuries under reasonable storage conditions. The Dead Sea Scrolls were written on parchment-like material; medieval European manuscripts written on parchment are perfectly legible today after 800 years.
The process requires no complex chemistry—primarily water, an alkaline solution (lime or wood ash), and patient scraping. Any community slaughtering sheep, goats, pigs, or cattle can produce parchment as a routine part of animal processing.
Materials and Equipment
Animal hides: Sheep and goat hides are traditional and produce the finest parchment. Calf hides (vellum) produce the highest quality of all—thinner, smoother, and more durable. Pig and deer hides can be used but require more work. Fresh hides work best; dried and preserved hides can also be processed if properly rehydrated.
Liming solution: Traditional parchment-making uses slaked lime (calcium hydroxide) dissolved in water. Wood ash lye (potassium hydroxide solution) works as a substitute. Both are alkaline solutions that break down hair follicles and the epidermis.
- Slaked lime: Heat limestone until it crumbles (quicklime), then add water carefully—this is exothermic and produces considerable heat. The resulting paste, diluted in water, is your liming solution.
- Wood ash lye: Drip water through wood ash repeatedly until the resulting liquid is alkaline enough to feel slippery on skin.
Frame and cords: You need a wooden frame—any rectangular frame of sufficient size—and cords or leather laces to stretch the hide under tension.
Scraping tools: A curved blade (lunellum) is traditional—a curved knife or rib bone can serve the same purpose. The tool must be sharp enough to scrape away surface material but used at an angle that doesn’t cut through the hide.
Pumice or sandstone: For final smoothing.
The Parchment-Making Process
Step 1: Initial Preparation (1–3 days)
Immediately after slaughter, remove the hide before it can begin to decompose. Rinse off blood and surface contamination with cold water.
If you cannot process immediately, salt the hide heavily on the flesh side to preserve it for up to several weeks.
Step 2: Liming (3–10 days)
Submerge the hide completely in the liming solution. The lime loosens the hair and epidermis while beginning to break down the non-collagen proteins in the hide.
- Keep the hide fully submerged—weight it down if necessary
- Stir or agitate daily
- Temperature affects timing: warmer weather speeds the process
- The hide is ready when hair slips off easily when rubbed—this typically takes 3–5 days in warm weather, up to 10 days in cold
Skin and eye protection
Liming solution is caustic. Wear protection when handling it. Wood ash lye is slightly milder but still caustic. Rinse skin immediately if contact occurs.
Step 3: Fleshing and De-hairing
Remove the hide from the lime solution and drape it over a smooth rounded beam (a log section works well).
Hair side first: Using a dull blade or smooth rounded scraper, push the hair off. It should come away easily. If it resists, the hide needs more time in the lime.
Flesh side: Scrape away the flesh and fat adhering to the inner surface. This requires more pressure but the same angle—you are removing material, not cutting through.
Rinse the scraped hide thoroughly in clean water. You can return it to a fresh liming solution for another day if significant hair remains embedded.
Step 4: Stretching on the Frame
This step is what makes parchment different from leather. The hide must be stretched while wet and allowed to dry under tension.
- Lace wet hide into the frame using cord through small holes punched around the perimeter, or by tying loops of cord around small stones or knobs of hide pressed through the frame
- Stretch moderately—not so tightly that it tears, but firmly enough to create even tension across the surface
- As the hide dries over the next day or two, it will shrink. Tighten the cords periodically to maintain tension
- Work the flesh side with the scraping tool while the hide is still damp—this is when the final thinning and smoothing happens
The transformation during drying is dramatic. What began as a thick, floppy, translucent hide becomes a taut, smooth, pale surface—almost like stretched canvas, but with a finer grain.
Step 5: Final Scraping and Finishing
While the parchment is still slightly damp and on the frame, do the final thinning work:
- Scrape with the curved blade at an angle of about 30 degrees, working in parallel strokes across the surface
- The goal is uniform thickness—thick patches will remain soft and absorbent; thin patches will be hard and may crack
- Work both sides until the surface is uniformly smooth
- Check against light to find thick spots
Once fully dry (24–48 hours), remove from the frame. The parchment will be somewhat stiff.
Pumice finishing: Rub lightly with pumice stone or fine sandstone to raise a slight nap that improves ink adhesion. This was standard practice in medieval scriptoria.
Quality Assessment
| Quality Level | Characteristics | Best Use |
|---|---|---|
| Premium (vellum) | Calf hide, uniform thickness, semi-translucent | Important documents, books |
| Good | Young sheep/goat, mostly uniform | Standard records, letters |
| Adequate | Older animals, minor variations | Working notes, practice |
| Reject | Holes, very uneven thickness, embedded hair | Repair scraps only |
Holes: Small holes in the finished parchment are common—caused by imperfections in the original hide or areas where scraping went too deep. Scribes historically wrote around holes rather than discarding the sheet. Patch from behind with a separate scrap piece adhered with paste if the hole is problematic.
Preparing Parchment for Writing
Fresh parchment is slightly too smooth for iron gall ink—the ink will bead rather than absorb. Traditional preparation:
Pumice the surface: Rub gently with pumice to create a fine tooth that holds ink.
Sizing: Some scribes sized the surface with a very dilute paste or glair (beaten egg white) to control ink absorption. For most writing purposes, pumiced parchment without sizing works well.
Ruling lines: Use a blunt stylus to score very light guidelines into the surface, or use a ruled template behind the sheet if it is thin enough to see through.
Storage and Reuse
Storage: Keep in a cool, dry location away from rodents. Rolled parchment in a tube or folded and stored flat both work. Avoid moisture, which causes the stretched collagen to relax and warp.
Erasing: This is one of parchment’s great advantages over paper. Text written in iron gall ink can be partially scraped away with a sharp knife and the surface re-pumiced for reuse. This was standard practice with less-important documents in historical periods. Completely scraped and re-used parchment sheets are called palimpsests.
Rehydration: Dry parchment that has become brittle can be carefully humidified by placing it near (not in) steam, then pressed flat between boards while it redries.
Scaling Up Production
A single hide produces enough parchment for dozens to hundreds of pages depending on hide size and desired sheet size. A sheep or goat hide typically yields 4–8 good writing sheets plus scraps. A cow hide can yield 15–30 sheets.
For a community producing records regularly, establish a parchment-making cycle tied to animal slaughter:
- Reserve hides from slaughter specifically for parchment
- Process in batches of 3–5 hides to justify the lime preparation effort
- Maintain a lime pit or barrel in continuous use during warm-weather months
- Store finished dry sheets in a weatherproof location
One skilled parchment maker processing 20 hides per season produces enough writing surface for several thousand pages—sufficient for comprehensive community record-keeping.