stephanbakir
05-19-11, 03:02 AM
Some people are going to have issues with this and i urge you to be polite about it.
I'm not posting this so everyone will run around killing reptiles and tanning hides, its more so that if you ever need to kill a snake, one of yours die and you want to know how to preserve it's skin, or you find a dead one and you want to do the same.
A few things are going to make the fourth phase (tanning) east or hard, if your knife is crap your lines wont be crisp and your job will be hell, a dull knife will also increase the risk of tears to try to use a good sharp fileting knife.
The second thing that will break you is not taking the time to skin it properly, and taking the time to properly flesh the hide once its skinned.
Phase one: Skinning
I cant stress enough that you take your time and use a sharp knife and scissors.
You use your filleting knife to start the cut at the anal vent, going towards the head. Once the cut is started switch to your scissors and make the straightest line possible along the center of the stomach towards the head, stopping just shy of where the head would start(at this point you make a choice. Do you keep the head or no? (ill get back to this)
Starting at the tail, use your knife to separate the skin from the body (you do this by holding the skin taught away from the body. Once 5+ inches of skin has been removed from the body you firmly hold the skin and pull towards the head (Don't tear it!) Now comes the choice you made earlier.
Option 1: Keeping the facial skin
Carefully skin the head the same way you did the body (I don't generally keep the skin on the bottom jaw), keeping in mind that the skin will hold on close to the eyes/heat pits/mouth so use your knife to free it.
Option 2: Rejecting the facial skin
Simply cut off the head, making sure to keep as clean a line as possible.
Phase two: Fleshing
Fleshing is something that some people have an easy time with and some have a hard time with, it's more about angle then anything else. Some people use serrated knives, I personally use a beaver skinning knife (it's a really sharp knife with a rounded tip so you cant puncture the skin. All you need to know is, it needs to be reasonably sharp and you need to be careful not to CUT.
It's all about scraping with the top (unsharpened) side of the knife pointing towards you and just pulling the knife towards you.
Lay the hide scale side down on a counter-top (nothing abrasive) and carefully scrape away any remaining flesh clinging onto the skin, most of it will be on the back, and the crease where the back meets the belly.
DON'T WRINKLE THE SCALES
Next you wipe the skin on both sides from HEAD to TAIL with paper towels.
Phase three: Tacking (I'm referring to thumb tacks)
Don't stretch or salt the hide for any reason, and don't wash it unless you know what you are doing, you can easily ruin it.
Lay the skin scale side DOWN and don't stretch it at any point from now on.
Place a tack at the base of the neck in the center of the pattern and do the same at the tail end in the general area of the anal vent in the center of the pattern. Once that's done place a tack in the center of the facial skin, and the tip of the tail.
Run a string from the first and second tack you put in just above the skin, make sure it never touches the skin at any point, this string is purely to help you visualize the pattern and make sure you tan the skin straight.
Once this is done get more pins and start at the center of the snakes body and start placing tacks about 2cm apart along the crawler scales, do one of the left then one on the right etc slowly moving towards the head and then the tail. (you don't need to start moving towards the head, either order works)
Now that that's done you can remove the first four tacks you put in and the string, and quickly pin down any holes or tears in the skin. Then sigh because the hard part is done.
Let the skin dry out now, this takes between 5 and 24 hours depending on the ambient temperature/humidity and thickness of the hide.
Phase four: Tanning
Lots of people have different mixtures for tanning oil, all I use is a mixture of glycerin, rubbing alcohol and water, I don't know the mixture off hand but its about 8:1:1 glycerin:water:alcohol, ill measure next time.
Once its dry get a clean paint brush and paint a generous amount of tanning oil onto the hide, don't wipe off any extra oil just let it soak in.
Give it another 5-24 hours to dry depending on ambient temperature/humidity and thickness of the hide.
Once it all dry remove all tacks (you won't need these tacks anymore) and flip the skin over flesh side down and repeat the last step.
Some people only do this once per side but I prefer doing it twice per side, I get a much more pliable hide and it lasts forever.
Phase five: Pressing
The reason for pressing is to remove any excess oil in the hide.
There are two ways to do this, ill explain both.
Method 1: High weight, short duration
Pros: Shorter time required to finish the job, much more efficient when working with a large number of hides
Cons: Much easier to wrinkle the hide(these can't be worked out without restarting the whole tanning process and hours of prior soaking)
Lay 10-15 layers of paper towel on each side of the hide and place it on a solid surface then place a board on it with heavy weight on top and let it sit for a few hours untill you feel no more oil can be reasonably removed.
This should only take 30-40 minutes.
Method 2: Low weight, multiple reps high duration (my preferred method)
Pros: Much harder to wrinkle the hide or damage it
Cons: Takes longer
Lay 5-10 layers of paper towel on each side of the hide and place it on a solid surface then place a board with weight on top and let it sit for a few hours, then replace any soiled towel and repeat 2-3 times.
Grats your hide is ready to do pretty much anything.
This is my first attempt at a guide and I have dyslexia so its probably not going to be the best grammatically but I tried...
I'm not posting this so everyone will run around killing reptiles and tanning hides, its more so that if you ever need to kill a snake, one of yours die and you want to know how to preserve it's skin, or you find a dead one and you want to do the same.
A few things are going to make the fourth phase (tanning) east or hard, if your knife is crap your lines wont be crisp and your job will be hell, a dull knife will also increase the risk of tears to try to use a good sharp fileting knife.
The second thing that will break you is not taking the time to skin it properly, and taking the time to properly flesh the hide once its skinned.
Phase one: Skinning
I cant stress enough that you take your time and use a sharp knife and scissors.
You use your filleting knife to start the cut at the anal vent, going towards the head. Once the cut is started switch to your scissors and make the straightest line possible along the center of the stomach towards the head, stopping just shy of where the head would start(at this point you make a choice. Do you keep the head or no? (ill get back to this)
Starting at the tail, use your knife to separate the skin from the body (you do this by holding the skin taught away from the body. Once 5+ inches of skin has been removed from the body you firmly hold the skin and pull towards the head (Don't tear it!) Now comes the choice you made earlier.
Option 1: Keeping the facial skin
Carefully skin the head the same way you did the body (I don't generally keep the skin on the bottom jaw), keeping in mind that the skin will hold on close to the eyes/heat pits/mouth so use your knife to free it.
Option 2: Rejecting the facial skin
Simply cut off the head, making sure to keep as clean a line as possible.
Phase two: Fleshing
Fleshing is something that some people have an easy time with and some have a hard time with, it's more about angle then anything else. Some people use serrated knives, I personally use a beaver skinning knife (it's a really sharp knife with a rounded tip so you cant puncture the skin. All you need to know is, it needs to be reasonably sharp and you need to be careful not to CUT.
It's all about scraping with the top (unsharpened) side of the knife pointing towards you and just pulling the knife towards you.
Lay the hide scale side down on a counter-top (nothing abrasive) and carefully scrape away any remaining flesh clinging onto the skin, most of it will be on the back, and the crease where the back meets the belly.
DON'T WRINKLE THE SCALES
Next you wipe the skin on both sides from HEAD to TAIL with paper towels.
Phase three: Tacking (I'm referring to thumb tacks)
Don't stretch or salt the hide for any reason, and don't wash it unless you know what you are doing, you can easily ruin it.
Lay the skin scale side DOWN and don't stretch it at any point from now on.
Place a tack at the base of the neck in the center of the pattern and do the same at the tail end in the general area of the anal vent in the center of the pattern. Once that's done place a tack in the center of the facial skin, and the tip of the tail.
Run a string from the first and second tack you put in just above the skin, make sure it never touches the skin at any point, this string is purely to help you visualize the pattern and make sure you tan the skin straight.
Once this is done get more pins and start at the center of the snakes body and start placing tacks about 2cm apart along the crawler scales, do one of the left then one on the right etc slowly moving towards the head and then the tail. (you don't need to start moving towards the head, either order works)
Now that that's done you can remove the first four tacks you put in and the string, and quickly pin down any holes or tears in the skin. Then sigh because the hard part is done.
Let the skin dry out now, this takes between 5 and 24 hours depending on the ambient temperature/humidity and thickness of the hide.
Phase four: Tanning
Lots of people have different mixtures for tanning oil, all I use is a mixture of glycerin, rubbing alcohol and water, I don't know the mixture off hand but its about 8:1:1 glycerin:water:alcohol, ill measure next time.
Once its dry get a clean paint brush and paint a generous amount of tanning oil onto the hide, don't wipe off any extra oil just let it soak in.
Give it another 5-24 hours to dry depending on ambient temperature/humidity and thickness of the hide.
Once it all dry remove all tacks (you won't need these tacks anymore) and flip the skin over flesh side down and repeat the last step.
Some people only do this once per side but I prefer doing it twice per side, I get a much more pliable hide and it lasts forever.
Phase five: Pressing
The reason for pressing is to remove any excess oil in the hide.
There are two ways to do this, ill explain both.
Method 1: High weight, short duration
Pros: Shorter time required to finish the job, much more efficient when working with a large number of hides
Cons: Much easier to wrinkle the hide(these can't be worked out without restarting the whole tanning process and hours of prior soaking)
Lay 10-15 layers of paper towel on each side of the hide and place it on a solid surface then place a board on it with heavy weight on top and let it sit for a few hours untill you feel no more oil can be reasonably removed.
This should only take 30-40 minutes.
Method 2: Low weight, multiple reps high duration (my preferred method)
Pros: Much harder to wrinkle the hide or damage it
Cons: Takes longer
Lay 5-10 layers of paper towel on each side of the hide and place it on a solid surface then place a board with weight on top and let it sit for a few hours, then replace any soiled towel and repeat 2-3 times.
Grats your hide is ready to do pretty much anything.
This is my first attempt at a guide and I have dyslexia so its probably not going to be the best grammatically but I tried...