Nice pics!
You were saying when boarding beaver you don’t stretch the neck area too much if you want it to feel thicker. Do you nail a half ring smaller for the whole thing or just cheat the ring you’re on by not nailing to the line around the front legs & head?
I just dont pull it tight.
For example,if it is on the line when I put the first 8 nails or so without it being tight,I continue to board on that size line.
If it is between lines I will drop it back to the smaller line.This is for early beaver that are just coming on to prime.
If I have badly damaged beaver or fully prime Feb/March beaver that fall between sizelines I will pull those up to the bigger line.
You cannot overstretch fully prime beaver with 3/4 to 1 inch underfur.
As a sidenote,I mark all my marten boards with sizes and stretch them between the size lines so as not to overstretch and to account for shrinkage.Basically similar to beaver,except the beaver oval lines are already oversized by a couple of inches to account for shrinkage,so no reason at all to board beaver between the lines.
Pulling marten skins to meet a size line marked on your board results in overstretching(thinning the flanks where the grader weighs the fur) and it will not stay in that size after shrinkage.
It wont make much difference if you are only shipping a few pelts but it adds up over time.A lot of money can be made or lost on a hundred marten by improper boarding.