Vice grips, made me laugh. My high school buddy would pull the beaver pelts w/vice grips and I would nail the pelt. I gave him the name of pull pliers! I never had a beaver down graded for over stretching.

Size matters Mike.

I know! The fur buyer was the person that told me to use vice grips.

I hope Boco doesn't read this LOL

Loving this post. Has inspired me to put up a case skinned beaver and one split up the back. One question though.... What board to put up the cased one on? Size will dictate somewhat any suggestions?

I would use your grandmother's wooden ironing board

My buddy did the ironing board thing. Used It as a pattern to make more forms. I think he had 26 cased beaver he bought green form some one In Mn.
I wouldn't do to many that way since i don't know if It will meet industry standards if you plan on selling them. He Is getting them tanned and using them for his own personal use.

Sounds good thanks mason and beav I just happen to have one of those old ironing board in the barn. I'll make one board using it as a pattern and give it a try. I'll try tanning it myself. Be a little unique and who knows, may be a head of the curve doin it someday

You might open up a new trend for beaver and jump start the fur price!

Some of the nicest fur on a beaver Is that belly fur. The thing Is It doesn't need plucking or shearing and that makes It more economical to use. And by splitting the beaver down the back you don't have to sew that belly fur back together to make a larger piece. But I guess It just depends on how your going to use that fur.

I half to agree with Beave, I just last week finished up 25 cased beaver and pulled everyone with a Klein lineman pliers. They perfectly fine. To the OP I don't know how to post pics on T-
man but I can text them. If you want me to, send me a pm and phone number I would be happy to send some pics to you. You will definitely see how light the bellys are as opposed to the darker backs. There is no way your going to over stretch these spring beaver, as the leather is to heavy unless you were to use a come along.

I half to agree with Beave, I just last week finished up 25 cased beaver and pulled everyone with a Klein lineman pliers. They perfectly fine. To the OP I don't know how to post pics on T-
man but I can text them. If you want me to, send me a pm and phone number I would be happy to send some pics to you. You will definitely see how light the bellys are as opposed to the darker backs. There is no way your going to over stretch these spring beaver, as the leather is to heavy unless you were to use a come along.

Ironing board is what I made my first cardboard pattern with. After some tweaking I made 2 different size boards out of plywood, sanded down edges and then used those as patterns. For the bigger beaver I ended up with the base of board at 13.5 inches and 4 inch nose. For smaller beaver I have 12 inches at base and 3 inches at nose. Some of the bigger ones come out 46 to 48 inches long.

Mendota did you catch any eyes?

Yep, need a few fillets. Fishing most every morning.

Yea beav,I read it.
I will continue to agree with the beaver graders at FHA.
Do not overstretch your beaver for size unless they are bad damaged.
HVY and SEMI grade in one smaller size will get you a lot better avg than one larger size with a LT grade.
Overstretching thins the fur in the exact place the grader weighs the underfur with his hand-the back of the neck.

Well Boco your saying the change In color on the edges of the hide Is caused by over stretching right. So If a beaver Is split up the back Instead of the belly and stretched that way why would that same color change be apparent when stretched that way. We did we did some that way and the color change was the same. It's even the same when a beaver Is put up cased.
When you frost scrap does the whole beaver hide change to a lighter color?

Hopefully I make it to the beaver skinning demo at this Fall's FTA annual convention. I want to see how they do it.

Boco you haven't addressed the frost scraping question.

Sorry,I missed it.
No frost scraping a hide does not cause it to turn white.
If you frost dry it it will turn white from the ice crystals expanding between the individual skin fibres,then evaporating.This will happen over the entire skin.It is totally different than stress points turning white from overstretching.
It takes very specific climatic conditions which are only found in the far north to properly frost dry skins.
That is why we dont frost dry our frost scraped skins here.