Boco worked magic! I would have cut in squares and used em for flat sets. Amazing

HA,the beaver in the first pic was just a frozen pelt that I unfolded while still frozen.Thought it looked like an old dried up hide,so I thought I'd have a bit of fun,lol.
I knew I wouldn't fool you guys for long.

What's the big deal that's a common acurance in my feild of taxidermy, kill deer haul it around for a week freeze without bag for 5 yrs take to taxidermist yeah it's in good shape! I don't know how it could be freezer burnt?
Colt

I won't tell if you don't...I like putting them up too. Wouldn't want to do a thousand, but 50 or less each year is fine.

ya just rubbed some coon fat all over it didn't ya??

I used to cringe when I would go pick up my deer at the taxi and I would look at some of them waiting to be picked up. It looked like many had been dragged 5 miles behind a quad or worse. My taxi would just shake his head and not believe they wouldn't want to spend a little extra on a cape that wasn't trashed or take care of them better in the 1st place.

You dog you LOL

Well you had me fooled!

Btomline
Well I always say you get what you pay for!
Colt

What did you scrape it with? I'm curious because I'm just learning.

I frost scraped it with this.

everytime you show that tool i flash back to the first dozen or so i did with a paint scraper with the end bent over.an inch at a time if you were lucky.i know your tool is much nicer than that but its the instant memory i get.heck it was the seventies.

The first beavers I did,I rough skinned and boarded them,then re-skinned them on the board with a sharp knife.Some guys still handle beaver this way.Then I watched a guy clean skin one and after I tried that It saved quite a bit of time,so I kept doing that.

then when you finaly did get a bunch cleaned off it,you had to pull the nails and move them out to tighten the hide back up to start working again.ah,the good ole days.never clean skinned a beaver.fleshing for my buyer for 30 yrs most of the beaver where already skun.also picked up that bad habit of the electric stapler instead of nails.have 8 to flesh and stretch today and bet i do them all in half the time them first ones took.

It is funny when you start out,beaver handling seems so time consuming and laborious,but now it is the easiest and fastest large animal to process for me.And much cleaner animal than the others.

To heck with the beavs, I need one of those "cats" to make this muddy mess into a bigger muddy mess. Sixty degrees thaw plus the New Holland equals insta-ruts lol.

Edit. I dealt with some skins that were frozen skin side out.
I threw some away, some are worse I have finished in my life.

NEWBIES,, do not, freeze skins with the skin side out.

That beaver looks good from here Boco.

That beaver wasn't frozen skin side out,it was folded skin to skin and rolled up.I just unrolled it and unfolded it while it was still frozen.I do that all the time,they thaw out faster when you open them up.

hey Boco,stretching them 6 beaver today with nails instead of my staplegun just for nostalgia if nothing else.little slower but not to bad.enjoying it.

I don't think I could use a staple gun. I'll want to change the line a little and pull a few nails once in a while, fairly often. Cant do that with staples, as easily.

I tried staples a couple times.Need more practice I guess.Hard to get the nice shape.Any time saver putting them in was lost twofold taking them out.