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Re: How sharp does my fleshing knife need to be? [Re: bearcat2] #7240246
04/10/21 06:20 PM
04/10/21 06:20 PM
Joined: Aug 2011
Posts: 45,271
james bay frontierOnt.
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Boco Offline
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Boco  Offline
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james bay frontierOnt.
Originally Posted by bearcat2
Find what works for you and then stick with it. Grabbing a fleshing tool you aren't used to or someone else's is a good way to get in a lot of sewing practice. I grew up using an axe to flesh with, it's what my dad and grandpa always used. I switched over to a fleshing knife a few years ago and it was a bit of a learning curve. Mine is fairly sharp but not a razor by any means, I prefer to push the flesh and fat off with it rather than cut. I don't flesh beaver per se, I clean skin with a razor sharp knife and then scrape them with an ice cream spoon to pull the milky fat out. on a big beaver I may have a little bit left around the tail I need to skin off after I put it on the board, if I am in a hurry skinning. I just use a skinning knife for that after it is tacked out partway so it is snug. A small beaver you can get away with not skinning as clean because it will scrape, a bigger beaver won't scrape on the back or around the tail. I've rough skinned beaver when I had to pack them a long ways or had a lot stacked up to skin, but I certainly don't like to. Personally I find it easier to tack out a rough skinned beaver and skin off the flesh with a very sharp skinning knife than to flesh it on a beam. Of course if I did them on a beam regularly I'm sure I would get better and faster at it.

There are a good number of trappers in central Ontario that handle beaver like you said-rough skinned and re-skinned when on the board using a scraper around the edges and a sharp knife for the rest.


Forget that fear of gravity-get a little savagery in your life.
Re: How sharp does my fleshing knife need to be? [Re: Yukon John] #7240326
04/10/21 08:08 PM
04/10/21 08:08 PM
Joined: Oct 2011
Posts: 2,421
Idaho
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bearcat2 Offline
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If I was as good as you on a beam Beav, I might consider switching. It takes me 30-35 minutes to clean skin a blanket beaver where there isn't much touchup, unless he is scarred up. A nasty scarred up beaver takes longer, you need to be more careful around the scars. A few minutes longer than yours, but I would be considerably slower doing it the way you do. Of course I don't have near the experience you do either. wink I've probably done close to a thousand beaver, and of those probably 100 or 150 were rough skinned, either in the woods or when I had a pile to do and simply didn't have time to clean skin them so I rough skinned some and tossed in the freezer to take care of later.

Boco, I know a lot of guys don't any more, but I learned the old school way, to scrape that hide until you got the "milk" out of it, that milky fat that is in the leather itself. Makes a much whiter dried hide which the fur buyers used to really look for, anymore most furbuyers don't care what color the hide is as long as it isn't greasy. On small beaver I will often only semi-clean, kind of in between a true rough skin and a clean skin, I can do it almost as fast as rough skinning and they scrape/peel off the back fairly easy. But on a true rough skinned beaver that was the way I was taught and by the time I tried using a beam I was much better and faster at doing it on the board with a sharp knife. Takes me longer than clean skinning though, so if I have time I clean skin them the first go around.

I remember the first beaver I ever rough skinned, I had six beaver, probably two hundred pounds in a backpack and when I swung my leg over a log my pack frame snapped in half. Probably between a quarter mile down in a canyon full of blowdowns between me and the pickup. I was just a teenager at the time and thought I was tough, but packing six beaver out in my hands wasn't happening wink

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