Gathering crafting materials
Collect animal hides for leather strips
Hides supply leather and leather strips, which appear in forge recipes and make hunting trips contribute to Smithing materials.
WHERE & HOW TO FARM
Collect animal hides for leather strips
Hunted animals across Skyrim’s wilderness; tanning racks are commonly found near smithies.
Before you go
- Find animals or loot hides from them.
- Carry the hides to a tanning rack.
- Leave space for leather and strips.
Farming steps
- While traveling through roads and wilderness, hunt animals you can safely defeat or loot hides from other sources.
- Open the loot inventory and take the hides you need, checking weight before collecting more.
- Find a tanning rack near a smithy or settlement and activate it.
- Convert the hides into leather using the rack’s available options.
- Use the rack again to turn leather into leather strips where the option is available.
- Check your forge recipe and carry the required strips to the forge along with any other materials.
- Gather hides during ordinary travel instead of pursuing wildlife far off your route.
- Process hides before a crafting session so you know how much leather and strip stock you actually have.
Repeat, collect and use
Repeat the hunt-and-tan loop as needed. Hides come from animal encounters and other loot sources, so the supply depends on what you find rather than a fixed route yield.
Common mistakes
- Do not take hides without checking whether your planned recipe uses leather or strips; they are distinct materials.
- Do not expect the tanning rack to create metal ingots; it only processes hides into leather products.
- Do not overhunt for materials you do not currently need; keep inventory room for quest and dungeon rewards.
When to stop or switch
Stop collecting when you have enough leather strips for the target recipes, then resume gathering only if a later forge requirement creates a shortfall.
Sources & fact checks
What you can get here
Open a guide to find other locations and see what the item is used for.