I just took this beaver off the board,how does it look?I think it wrinkled a bit,maybe I took it off too early?

Looks like you took it out if the oven too early

Top Lot??

Ok what’s going on here?

I'll see if I can fix it up.

Its a beaver pelt he has obtained from a green horn would be trapper which he will attempt to rework into a marketable product.

Can't wait to see the finished product. If any one can work miracles, it would be Boco (or Beav).

Probably be easier to throw it straight into the pickle then tan it.

Lol.

Freezer burnt x 1000, should make xxxl. Even beav wouldn't touch that one LOL.. Good luck Boco where pullin for ya..

Dang - and I thought I was bad at finishing fur!!

I thought it was a pizza

It'll buff right out.

Slap some ammonia on that and loosen it up...no kidding.

nothin a gallon of gas and a match can't fix.bad part is i would be doing the same thing.

So I got the beaver scraped and boarded.
Did a quick frostscrape this morning,but it was only minus 5 c so it was a bit rough.
Beav told me that's all the nails I need,but I had to put a few extras.

Amazing the work you do sir! Some day I hope I can do half what you do with fur.

interesting scar on the right side,nice job as usual.

Was the pelt in the first picture dried? If so, did you rehydrate it to scrape it?

froze i think,kinda freeze dried.but who knows with the miracle man.got my few out to thaw and put up cause you made me jealous.don't tell anyone but i love puttin up beaver.

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.

Maybe the staples would work better if I had them sissy lines drawn on my boards, lol.

Them line kind of destroy my freehand style of beaver put up. I have way too big of an ego too rely on those lines.

i'm dyslexic and must use the lines.have done enough that i don't pick the wrong line much anymore though.

It's hard to change once you get used to something. I borrowed a few boards from a guy that had all the lines drawn on them, and he said things like as how I would do a better job, and like them boards better. All is did was screw me up. I couldn't get used to it.

i could never flesh case skinned beaver.we'd get them in once and a while and i swear i always ended up splitting them first.

Boco! there's a couple extra holes in that last one!

You are human! I salute you sir!

( I know theyre bites but still<lol)

I knick a hide once in a while.The worst is the small dry spot on the skin from the trap mark behind a beavers head.Very easy to knick that when clean skinning with a sharp knife.
I was doing a demo once at FHA on removing ear cartilage.I popped my thumb thru the ear and told the audience,Now I will show you how to do a repair,lol.

Les,those lines aren't only for the shape.They are the size lines,and will get you a better avg on a bunch of beaver when you ship to auction.Especially if you trap fall beaver.

I hear you, just joshing you on them lines.

I love to put up beaver.i use the sissy lines les.

I never know what size a beaver is going to be until I board it, even though, a certain year class is a general size for that class .

If you use the size lines and your pelt is just under one line you can pull it a bit to the next size line and you wont miss the size tarrif.
If the pelt is just over a line you can drop it a bit to the line and gain density by boarding a bit loose,it will still make the same size tarrif than if stretched between the lines.This is important on fall beaver and will get you more shearable grades in your avg.
Odd shaped beaver are often dropped a size by the graders.This costs you also on a good size collection.

length of the beaver hanging,after fleshing,+ half the lengh +2" is real close,with or without the lines,keep track it works.

My Grandma used to have the same magnet except hers was blue. Used it for bingo chips before dabbers caught on. I remember the chips were plastic with metal inside. Oh the fun we had with that magnet!

Boco, one of these days I'm going to come up there and learn (more like get in your way) how to handle beaver.

Mike

Mike,I like handling fur,I try to spread it out so I don't get swamped trying to meet deadlines.I really like to take advantage of the cold weather to frost scrape,as it means I can do a good number in a short time with little physical effort and no mess.Frost scraped beaver also dry at least twice as fast as conventionally handled pelts so it frees up the boards for another bunch.
Ryan,I swiped that magnet from the wife,it was her bingo magnet,lol.I use that magnet for lots of things in the fur shed,Picking up nails and pushpins before sweeping up,and elsewhere,also for holding the pins when boarding fur,and for retrieving nails and pins from the containers.I have also used it for retrieving tools dropped in inaccessible places(tied to a string).

I use a magnet as well, and it has a handle and a release, and fits right in a coffee can of nails. Very handy .

Heres one just off the board.

Nice!