Here's what I did long long ago, and I'm still wearing the pants. Check out local taxidermists. They will a lot of times have deer and elk hides that have been tanned and then not picked up by the owners. I got several hides that way by just paying the tanning bill. Otherwise, if you hunt you can get your hides comerically tanned if you aint up to all that work yourself. After I got the leather I took a old pair of blue jeans and ripped them apart at the seams and used them for my pattern. Worked out great. I'm big enough that it took four of them little wormy tickey black tail deers to make my pants. I wear a cotton calico shirt. I don't want nothing to do with a leather shirt. Buckskin pants are bad enough. Brain tan leather breaths and isn't as bad as comerical tan, but trust me, comercial tan is HOT, sticks to you, miserable when wet -- need I say more. However, a pair of leather pants and a calico shirt, and it only takes minor changes to the outfit and you are good as a mountain man, frontier settler, militia type, just about any way you want to go during the flintlock era and even into cap locks.
eace:
