Was listening to a podcast the other day and the guest mentioned using a safety razor with the safety portion broke off to flesh otter tails. Anybody ever do this? I'm not really certain what the safety portion he breaks off is.

sounds extremely tedious. the few that i've fleshed, the griz getter/ulu knife worked great.

An article in FFG years ago showed a trapper using a safety razor as you stated on otter. It did a great job.

Am I the only one that doesn't see fleshing otter tails as a big deal? Take off one edge at a time then take off the middle.

That's the way I do it but still struggle a bit. I use a Dexter beaver knife. Not my favorite to flesh.

I use the criss cross cut method and it works great

This is the way I've done it lately, using a straight Zeph flesher.
Whatever does a good job and works for you, keep doing it.

I used one many years ago. It worked pretty well. There is a guard on the front that prevents the blade from digging into your face. The guy who demonstrated it at one of the WSTA rendezvous ground that guard off and adjusted the cut by the angle at which he drew it across the hide. He demonstrated it on beaver but I immediately saw where it would work on otter.

I’ve gone back to a fleshing knive and prefer it. Especially with a good fleshing knife. I used a couple of draw shaves in the past, one sharp and one slightly dull. When I finally got a good fleshing knife I could have kick myself for not doing it sooner.

I clean skin otter, but usually have some left on the tail edges to flesh off. Sounded like it would work well and apparently I'm not good with a Fleshing knife, I always use a knife to skin off anything I left on. I've never found otter to flesh well on a beam.

Agree, I use my filleting knife

I agree also! I do a version of this method you see on the video. If you jump ahead to 3.30 timeline of the video you will see the difference.
https://youtu.be/r7mEM4NxOoI?si=zQgFyQZxxAizQyiu

Mr. Seldom, good to see you post.

Welcome back Seldom.

Thanks Bob, we’’ll see.

I just finished an otter this afternoon and scored the tail like I’ve been doing but I haven’t enjoyed fleshing the tail on my regular beam because the tail moves around more than I’m comfortable and it’s awkward securing the rest of the otter pelt. So I thought I’d try using my beaver fleshing drum, nice and wide plus I could hold the pelt far easier against the bottom of the drum. Fleshing the tail on the drum worked super well so it’s just another little adaptation to my process.

Stuff like this is why we missed you. Thanks Seldom, good tip.

Pics of beaver fleshing drum?

Sure, this “beaver fleshing drum” was an accident actually. I was looking to build an extra wide fleshing beam so to get an idea of the size I slid a HDPH drum/garbage can over the beam to check out the dimensions. Well, the lightbulb came on to why not just clamp the drum on the beam. I love it! The pelts lay wide on it and allow for an 8”+ swath with the before spinning it and DO NOT slide off onto the floor!!! Never did build a new beam!!
https://youtu.be/OCZ4Jy3yJfo?si=L6fHNpG_ilsOB_sK