If you are not happy with the fleshing and boarding that you did, and also notice a hole that you would like to sew up, can you take the hide off the board, soak for a day or so in water, scrape a bit more, sew a hole and stick back on the board?

caseyboy

yepper. I have gotten a bath towel wet and have wrapped the hide in this and let set overnight. Works good.

Thanks madtrapper50,

I put up a coon last Sunday, and every time I look at it I get depressed. I rushed the work and am not happy with the end results. Good too know that I can rework the pelt after some soaking. Not cost effective, but it will make me happier.

caseyboy

"Re-fleshing (?) doesn't sound good to me!
Proceed with Caution!"

While I would certainly heed TexA's "proceed with caution" advice, based on personal experience, particularily with male fisher, some refleshing can be done. However my experience has been to do this within a day or two of boarding the pelt.

TTT

You will never soak the hide good enogh to re scrape ot or sew holes shut.
When I want to rescrape a hide that is not dry all the way, I put the hide in the freezer on a flat surface. I have three coons in the freezer at this time waiting for me to rescrape. Once the meat has frozen, it will scrape pretty good . You must use caution when you are doing this as you can rip the leather quite easy. Once I have the coon rescraped I then get a good pan of hot water . After I have the pelt back on the stretcher, I take a good rag and get it soaking wet in the hot water. I then take the hot rag and start wipeing the newly scraped area down real good with the hot rag. The hot rag will kinda cause the grease on the coon to get a little soft and you can kinda just wipe it till it blends your old scraping area in with the leather. The coon will look quite nice after this if you execute it correctly. I do 2-3 hundred coon a season like this. Not because I like doing it but sometimes when you buy stuff and it don't look good , you must make it better to get a decent price out of the pelt.

I have certainly learned something here. Thanks Don.

OK, I took the pelt off the board and wrapped it in a soaking wet towel last nite. This morning, I poured more water on it to keep it wet (not damp).It was nice and soft this evening. I scraped the areas that needed it, sewed up two small holes, trimmed some ragged edges around the back legs, trimmed the front legs shorter and boarded it nice and straight this time. I am happier now with how it looks. Lets see how it dries.

caseyboy

unfortunately that trick won't help me. i had a brainfart, waited too long to turn a nice red, and wouldn't you know it i forced it and.... rip, right down the belly almost up to the front legs. well i'm just going to tan it up, sew and keep for myself. so the lesson, turn when still somewhat pliable.

Glad to hear my old trick worked Casey.

This is only the second coon I have put up. Is it usual to get oodles of a white cream the consistency of hand cream off a coon when scraping? This one was particularly fat.

caseyboy

It's called grease and yes it's normal. when you flesh you want to try and sscrap all that off if possible, but don't scrap to much so the hair roots start to show. After fleshing, try washing the coon in a mild detergent and WARM water. This will help get the "creamy" stuff off the pelt.

Madtrapper,

Do you soak the whole hide in mild detergent, or do you just wipe down the skin side. If you soak the whole hide, then you would have to dry the fur before boarding it. Right?

This is the coon that I reworked. It has been on the board for about 48 hours. It is drying much better than last time. Thanks all for comments.

caseyboy

wow! Good luck