I was wondering if anyone had any pointers on a problem I am having fleshing coon. This is my first year trying to flesh anything and I have done a couple of coon so far. I am using a Post two hand flesher on a freedom brand fleshing beam, and when I try and push the fat off with the dull side of the blade (after the fat has cooled and hardened up) there are pockets of fat left behind so I start pressing harder, but then I notice the hair poking through from the other side and I see the black hair follicles.

I have not found much online regarding this specific problem so I am confident I am doing something wrong with my technique. Here is a picture of a coon I did NOT press 'too' hard but with little patches of fat left behind. Maybe this amount of fat is ok? I assume not. Any advice you can give will be greatly appreciated.



Thanks,
Conibear330

Sadly the best advice is practice, try different angles and pressure till you find YOUR groove ,s the best advice I can give online. If in person I could show you more - sorry

I understand not seeing what I'm doing makes it hard to give advice. I guess I didn't know if this might be a somewhat common problem with an obvious solution, or if its just me. Do most other people really put muscle into this or is it supposed to be all technique without a lot of force?

With my Necker I can just about do a whole coon with the dull side. What you need to do is take a file and square up the dull side of your knife. If you look at the dull side and feel it, you will see it's pretty much rounded off. You can't push fat like that. So just file it square and keep your knife flat when you push. From the ears down about 6" you should be using the sharp side of your knife. Start out with your knife at a slight angle and once you make that initial slice flatten out your knife so it's just about flat with the hide. And don't just push straight ahead just use a slicing motion. And if your knife has a beveled edge make sure the bevel is up. The bevel will help you move fat and gristle away from the hide.

Practice is what you need.

Thank you. The dull side of my knife is very rounded. I will file it square and give that a shot. I appreciate it.

What The Beav said.
Till you get the technique perfected just lightly use the sharp side to clean things up

I don't like to let fat harden up completely.

I like it cool and set. Not half froze or warm. I'll put them in the barn fridge overnight.

I love that fat to be wet and slippery.

Get one of those old timey paint scrappers. The wooden handled ones with the curved blade. You can take that scrapper and clean up the left-over fat spots. Let that hide dry a bit before going after those fatty spots.

The thing about hair follicles showing Is your fleshing knife blade is too vertical and you're getting too deep into the leather. You need to have that knife just about flat. It will do the job with the knife edge in the flat position.

If you are any where near Sheboygan County, I'd be willing to offer hands on help with coon fleshing.

Beav's got you on the right track for sure.

Yes. My knife was perpendicular to the beam..... for some reason I thought this was the correct way. Does this mean you don't put a lot of pressure down on the beam itself, but rather any force is applied forward to just push the fat off?

Yes.
Any aplied pressuer would be with the flat of the knife and that wouldn't be an issue with exposing the hair roots.

But like said before you need to square up the dull side of your knife so you're getting under the fat and gristle. And the bevel needs to be up.

You will get the hang of it, just takes practice. Pretty much it has all been said. If you are pushing down into the beam you are pushing the wrong direction .... LOL
You can also get a one handed muskrat fleshing tool to clean up those missed spots until your technique improves to where you don't need it anymore. You can even let it dry for a day and then hit those fatty spots with that muskrat tool.

Coon are good to learn on. I to like the fat a bit on the chilled side also, seems to be less messy. Yep the back of the neck is the only place I use the sharp side. I use a knife steel on both the sharp side and the dull side to keep the edges like they should be.

I’ve been told the exposed hair roots were because the coon weren’t quite prime enough. I like your explanations better!

Newt Sterling uses a piece of thin carpet between his beam and the hide. His coon in New Jersey are pretty small compared to those in Wisconsin. I’ll bet the leather is thinner than Wisconsin coon too.

I assume a piece of carpet allows him to put a little more pressure on the hide while fleshing.

Beav knows Newt and the conditions where he traps. He might be able to shed more light on this.

I've always liked a Swedish hoof knife to clean up any way ward spots of grissle or fat when the hide is on a stretcher .
This also works very well on the back of the neck on the big boar raccoons .