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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...

stephanbakir
05-19-11, 03:04 AM
If this guide is something against the rules I didn't see it and I apologize.
If its against the rules you are free to remove it.

Max713
05-19-11, 03:08 AM
Awesome write-up!

There is absolutely ZERO difference between skinning/tanning a reptile and a deer, or any other animal for that matter.
I've skinned out 2 rattlers, the "road-kill" one was a pretty terrible task...

I'm sure you'll have no problems with negativity.
Only thing that stood out to me, who in the hell would want to skin/tan the hide of one of their own pets!? Haha, that is just gruesome to me, but then again I develope intimate relationships with my animals and almost always get far too attached.

Side note- I know its rather cruel, but I've always wanted to go on a rodent forum and post a Scarlett feeding pic progression, just to see what reactions I would stir... man I'm a bastaard.

Reptile_Reptile
05-19-11, 03:42 AM
interesting stuff and good to know for survival purposes.

stephanbakir
05-19-11, 03:47 AM
who in the hell would want to skin/tan the hide of one of their own pets!?

I had a friend who skinned a patch of skin from her snake when it died and put it on a wallet, then embedded a picture of the snake in its prime onto the skin.

ding ding
05-19-11, 04:18 AM
very cool write up mate, would love to have a go but not gona find much roadkill to practice on where i live!

stephanbakir
05-19-11, 04:27 AM
It's more the grammar and format that I was worried about, those are my 2 biggest problems.

whoaxmary
05-19-11, 06:09 AM
Interesting post.
I have a friend who is super fascinated by snakes, and has been taking sheds from me to hang up, and he always asks if I know the proper way to preserve them, which I didn't know. I'll send him the link to this page for sure.
Thanks Stephan.

ding ding
05-19-11, 06:53 AM
well mate i thouhgt it was set out spot on mate, and didnt really notice any spelling or grammar issues.

nicely done sir.

serpentshideawa
05-19-11, 06:56 AM
Very interesting read

RandyRhoads
05-19-11, 09:20 AM
Sorry but your glycerine alchohol water mixture is not tanning the skin in any sort of way just softening it. Tanning is a proccess where chemicals and compounds that deteriorate are replaced by ones that fill them in and don't degrade.

RandyRhoads
05-19-11, 09:43 AM
This is a video I made for my wilderness survival class. I don't go into tanning much because he wanted it brain tanned and after I skinned the head it became clear that wasn't going to happen.

Rattlesnake.mp4 video by randy666rhoads - Photobucket (http://s33.photobucket.com/albums/d86/randy666rhoads/?action=view&current=Rattlesnake.mp4)

After this video I washed the hide in cool water, suspended it in a pickling solution of pickling crystals and cannins salt for a few hours. I then took it out rinsed it let it dry for a few hours. Then tacked it up, and began coating in a reptile spcific tanning solution, letting it dry a couple hours between coats untill it wouldn't take any more. After that I wiped it down with isopryl, and applyed glycerine, let it set in for a few hours, wiped with isopryl again... and done.

stephanbakir
05-19-11, 10:57 AM
It's pretty hard to brain tan a snake, considering the size of its brain.
That bring said If you are in a remote location and want to waterproof it the easiest method is probably to create tallow considering the amount of fat larger snakes have.

Creating tallow is easy, you boil some water and put all of the fat you have removed from the snake into the water and boil it for like 30 minutes (stir it every few minutes). Then remove the fat and place it into a shirt with a stick or stone. Remove the tallow from the fat by ringing it out and capturing all of the tallow that drips down in a cup or anything really and then paint it onto one side of the snake skin then let it dry and repeat on the opposite side. (do this after everything i previously stated)

stephanbakir
07-20-11, 05:56 PM
Bumping by request.

marionsclan
07-20-11, 06:46 PM
Bumping by request.

Bumping who?

stephanbakir
07-20-11, 06:56 PM
The post. :)

marionsclan
07-20-11, 07:03 PM
The post. :)

So we never would have known that you bumped a post if you hadn't said anything?

stephanbakir
07-20-11, 07:40 PM
Can't bump posts to my knowledge without posting.

vendettaseve
07-20-11, 07:51 PM
Leave it to the french to be so interesting.


And not post any pictures.

stephanbakir
07-20-11, 07:54 PM
And not post any pictures.
There are going to be plenty of pictures of my sexy mug next week :P

vendettaseve
07-20-11, 07:56 PM
There are going to be plenty of pictures of my sexy mug next week :P


Im not talking ceramics here mate :P

I demand snake skinning pictures.

stephanbakir
07-20-11, 08:10 PM
If I find roadkill I'll do it, I never kill an animal unless its for food.

Kayla90
07-20-11, 11:30 PM
So basically , everything I learned in butchery class... well for phase 1 and 2 anyways.
I've got maaad butchering skills... XD Lies... but whatever.
I'd still probably be more skilled at done this then most other people lmao

It's more the grammar and format that I was worried about, those are my 2 biggest problems.
The only problem I had were the un-capitalized 'I's, I only noticed a few though ... lmao but that is just more of a pet peeve, so whatever.. lmao

I never kill an animal unless its for food.

Yaaaay, that makes you a good person :D

KD35WIN.AS.ONE
07-21-11, 12:28 AM
Im not talking ceramics here mate :P

I demand snake skinning pictures.


hahahah, thats a weird thing to demand!!!:)