I'm not wanting a record time, I just need to know how long it takes to flesh a coon after the initial learning curve.

Should be able to do it around 5 minutes with a little practice.
After a lot of practice it should be 2-3 min.

any suggestions on what equipement I need to buy. We have been catching around 200 coons a year but I think we are going to quadruple the amount of traps/spots to try for 500-1000. so I need equipement to do the job well.

to do a good job it take's at least 20 min.of fleshing time, i am a taxidermist so i take my time to do good work.

A good fleshing beam with a mounting bracket so its not moving around on you. A quality fleshing knife is what you want for doing that many coon. Something like a Dunn or Sheffield.

Might want to get a couple old washtubs to catch the fleshings and a good supply of newspapers or cardboard to line your floor.

Taxi work is different than normal fur market work, ie more fine detail work. Most of the fleshing for fur is done from the ears to the tail and that takes a few minutes to get it as clean as you can get it.

Takes 3 minutes to scrape a coon nice and clean.Smaller coon less.

You should consdier doing one of those quick educational videos and posting it on here. I recently got a knecker 600......still have a tough time on big boars getting the back of the neck clean. A small coon I can do in 5 minutes. Big boar over 20.

Takes me about 10 min, but I am slow. Tom

I would like to see the final product of 38" coon fleshed in 2 to 3 min.

heres one more , a really nice coon that i took about 10 minutes on. I use a Necker knife ,if you need to shave it down close use the sharp side.

Are there any videos out there that show the entire process of fleshing a coon or any other animal for that matter?

They will look just like or better than those pictured by Von. We don't have time to play tidly winks with coon.

Thats right....basily coon that become possession of the Fur Buyer are labled Production coon (for said fur buyer).
These buyers do this production work day in and day out.

I was fleshing coon and showing a guy that was interested in learning how to do it.....he says "what do you think of that coon your scraping with the holes in it from coon the coon hunter".
I said.....I consider it a production coon...and these I must do swiftly.

Other coon that are trapped, no damage, prime and of size get a little extra special care, but 90% are production and get put through the system quick.

Takes me a least 1/2 hour... I've not done many and still working out the bugs

I would challenge the 3-5 minutes to flesh a late-season NE coon. Good grief, I think it took me 40 minutes to flesh a 32" boar coon yesterday. That gristle on the back of the neck is some rugged stuff! Either I am really slow, too picky, or I just plain suck at it. I would go with the latter cause the coons I am doing are the first few in over 20 years that I have finished. Question: How picky are you folks about that area on the back of the neck to the top of the shoulders? Can yo leave any of that gristle on the pelt, or do you take it all off? I have been using the sharp side of my knife and taking it off the best I can. Sorry for the thread robbery...

12.4 hours

But I'm getting better.

The way some of them stretched coon look to me, somebody needs a lesson in skinning the the right way "Making the right cut's when you open them". If a person is going to go thru all the hard work of skinning, fleshing, and stretching them, they need to open them with the right cut first. What a way to gain inches and make that next size for the grade. You can take a 30"
coon and make a 34" coon very easy with the right cut's, and pinning them on the board to get the fullness of the fur. If you pin them right, there is no need to cut a window on the belly side. Look at the difference in these coon. No need to stretch the tail out, plete it in to give that window fur the heavy look. Speed is good for Production coon and wire if you do give a hoot. But wood is the best way to go and make more money for the work you do.

Under 5 minutes on all sizes. The tiny ones way less. Just a few simple swipes. Trapping time is to valuable to spend 10 minutes+ per coon....

You must get all the fat and gristle off of the kneck. If you don't, the coon wqill be graded a slt. damage at the auction houses. Ifin ya leave to much, it could be a damaged or low grade. I am rescraping coons at this time that had to much fat and gristle left on them,. these are coon that I bought from trappers and hunters. I see some every year that is either completly ruined or damaged by not scraping good enouigh.

Can you scrape them after they have been on the stretchers? If so, what's the process?

You would have to resoften the pelt I would imagine. From past experience if you scape fat off the pelt after its been dried, it leaves a white mark where the fat was .

So assuming a decent fletching and stretching job.....how much more do you get for a stretched/dried coon compared to selling green? This is also assuming that you didn't stretch it into the next size range. Don't know how often that would happen.

Check out Matt Jones after the catch video.That is the only one I have seen I am sure there are others out there. IF you have some in your area that does it ask them to show you.

dead coyote is right on, for you daniel the trapping is fun, but also i like to get the most out of my fur's, i would much rather have 50 coon that avg. $30 than 60 coon that avg.$25 it pay's to do a nice job and do it right.

When I said trapping time is valuable...I meant $$ not fun.

5 minutes is plenty to cleanly scrape any coon I have ever caught...if I take any longer than that I'm wasting too much time.

rescraping coon is a very common occurrence for the country fur buyer. the process is basically the same except most do not get restretched. but its by far better to simply do a proper fleshing job to start with. it will gain you $$$$

some of you guys that are good at fleshing coon if you would like it would be nice if you would post video of you doing so i never watched any one do it before i kinda just figured it out for my self. it would be nice to be able to compare and contrast.
thanks.

Get a good knife and keep it sharp, whatever kind of beam you are using make sure it is solidly braced and at a comfortable height. No reason to take more than 5 minutes on any coon except maybe a few tough old boars.

Just because your a speed demon dosen't mean you can't do a A1 job. I put up fur for other trappers and I'm fast, you have to be to make any money but I'll put those skins up against any ones. I just love to work up fur It gives me great satisfaction and I do It right. I put up 80 coon for a guy and he had them on the Jan sale he averaged $28.76 he had good coon but the put up took him over the top. 80 coon took two days and I didn't work at It all that hard. But just remember I have been doing this for 50 years.
Take your time learn from someone who knows what there doing and practice and practice and then practice some more.

So a good flesher in a regular work day on a regular work day week on a regular season can flesh 12thousand coon. Thas alot ofcoon. no wonder im behind most the season, imagine if the feller stayed late and went 7 days a week, plumb boggles the mind.

When groney was haveing his coon done by Manuel labor There were guys that could flesh 200 or more coon In a day He had to cut them off after that since they were getting wore down and making a few mistakes.

I also go along with what Gary said. You can put up top notch coon in 3 minutes. Like he said also, I would not be afraid to match my coon with anybodys coon in the country. It takes no longer to do it correct, than it does do it sloppy. It is all in the procedure you use.
Understand this fellas, the question was asked, how fast can a coon be scraped? We do the coon that fast if and when we want to. Probably get closer to 4 minutes when figuring in goof off time etc. I pay my scrapers 1.50 each to scrape coon and I board them all myself, with the help of my wife when needed. The fellas that scrape for me work on a piece work basis.ya don't work, ya don't make any cash.
One other thing you must look at here is this. The grader will spend less than 10-15 seconds or less looking at your coon. all the nit picking you do will not get you any more money. If you do it correct, that is all that need to be. there is such a thing as over working a product.

Why is wire not as good as wood? will there be a difference in price at the major auctions?

The price difference will be one of two ways. 1 st, coons retain their shape and don't cause wood to shrink in at the base or shoulder area, there fore you don't get docked for having to narrow of a steretch and 2nd, you will gain length on a board every time you use one.

I know this thread is about the time it takes to scrape a coon but there has also been a few questions on scraping technique.
Here is a quick video that I had put together and thought I would share.
Hope this works.

Greg

Thanks Greg....that was very helpful.

Good job!

Thanks Don and kfin.
I have been wanting to put some short videos together on pelt handling from skinning to boarding and this was a trial run so I thought I would throw it out there to evaluate.

Greg

Thanks Greg for sharing that video. You did a really good job with the video and the narration.

GregH - Good info right there. Thank you.

great video

Very helpful video. The old saying that a picture is worth a thousand words is even more accurate for a video!

A+ on the video!

Outstanding video. Can we archive it?

What brand of fleshing knife was that? I need a better one.

Thanks.

thank you very much you did a great job. that helped a lot.

very nice. awesome

great video thank you

great video

Very nice video!
You make it look easy!

Greg, That was great -- thanks for sharing! Looks like a Post fleshing knife. I have one and love it!

That is a very nice video!

thanks that helps alot

yup a very nice video!!! it looks so easy...is it as easy as it looks?

Thanks for posting, that's an awesome video. Do you have any pics of how your beam is set up and mounted?

Can one of you tech guys tell me why I can't view the video? I have a fairly new computer but all the photo bucket video does is blink extremely fast as if it's stuck?

ttt

I get the same thing. I assume that it's because I don't have the latest and greatest version of flashplayer - but I'm not sure.

Thank you Greg. Excellant video.

Huhman: One thing I find will help you alot is hard sawdust or corn stock grit. Sprinkle it on the coon as your fleshing and it will help keep the liquid fat off the fur, beam and floor etc.

Great video and thanks for posting! I learn something new every time I visit here. Great site with alot of helpful posters!

200 coon would of been a "warm up" for a couple guys that I used to scrape coon with. I got a 6'5" cousin that did over 350 coon a day many times. Hard to find anyone willing to do that now though.

There are many "tricks of the trade" on scraping coon that I wished I had the time to show guys here on the forum. One of those tricks is that you don't have to use the "backside" of a scraping knife to start the head. The fastest method of coon scraping that I've seen done is "side scraping." This is the method that I've used and taught others with great results. Once mastered, coon can be scraped incredably fast. My personal best time was 28 sec on a 28" coon.

I need to make a video.... LOL!

Getrz

Care to explain what you mean by sidescraping? My back side do you mean sharp side?

Gary I will back you up on the side scraping of coon. Since you and I talked about it a few yrs. ago, I have taught my scrapers how to side scrape coon. It is by far the best method I have seen to date. Once the sides arte scraped, you only have a very narrow strip left on the back and sometimes hardly anything on the belly besides a quick clean up scrape. It is also easier on the coon as far as pulling hair through the pelt. you get very little if any guard hairs comming through un prime pelts.

are you suppose to sharpen the fleshing tool

Can someone explain side scraping? I have not heard of this term before.

I thought that that was the only way LOL
groney did have guys that would do 400 a day but not many. And when they got to the last 100 or so there was some damage showing up.
Now It's pretty much machine done with more damage then before but less costly In labor.

It should take about 5 minutes with practice I can do them in about 5 minutes and do not catch that many.

Instead of starting the scraping proccess on the back of the neck. Start on the sid of the coon, do the other side, work your way around the belly and the last thing you will have left to scrape is a thin strip right down the middle of the back.

I too would like to see a demo on this side scraping. It sounds like a good method

Gregg from NAFA does a demonstration on putting up coon and other animals each year at the Fur Harvester Convention. He is the one that turned me onto the "doing the sides first" that is the method he used in the coon video he did also.

You just place the hide on the beam with the front leg hole centered up on the beam scrape it with the dull side of your knife except were the other side may be needed. Turn the hide so the other leg is up and repeat. Do the narrow strip down the back, then the belly...I like to leave the belly too last, end on an easy note....Tom

It also makes the gristle easier to get going. The reason for that is, you done have a good run started and it just is not that hard to come pick up a small spot of gristle in the middle of the back. Like Sdavis said, you lay the coon on the beam, with the front leg facing up, the other leg directly under it facing down. You then start your cut right around the cheek area,and while I am there ,I give the head a few hits with the knife also. Once you have the cheek area started you go right on down into the throat area and then right over the front leg facing you. Cut your front legs off to about 1/2 in long. Once ypu have scraped over the front legs you then proceed on down the coon, doing about but not quite half the back and half the belly. Once you have this goung you continue on down the coon untill you get to the skirt of the coon. When I get to the skirt I most usually go ahead and sctape all the way to the tail and around to the penis hole if it is a male. With this being done you just flip the coon to the opposite side and continue just as you did on the other side of the coon.

The point of cutting off the front legs to about a 1/2"long will make It a lot eaiser to flesh your coon with the side scraping method.

Yep, thats another TOTT...(Trick of the trade)

Beav, you surprise me with your info. I invisioned you scraping coon with a spoon and finishing the job with a pocket knife.... LOL! All kidding aside, great info!

Don Wolf, you did a great job of describing "how to" on the side scraping coon info.

Getrz

Getrz you are the one that explained it to me several yrs. ago. You can probably recall our discussion on the subject. Don't remember if it was durring the time that I bought my first doz. grizz traps from you or another meeting face to face.

Thanks for the explanation.
I am always looking to improve on fur handling techniques so this is very helpful to myself and other that I like to help along.
I scraped a few coon on the weekend and tried something similar by starting on the belly and thought it to be a little quicker.
I have some more coon to scrape this week and will give this a try.
Thanks Again

Greg