How skin coon square

I see back in the day some coons were skinned square. Would like to know how it was done. Like to tan one that way.

Skin it cased like normal,then split it straight up the middle of the belly,cut straight out from the front leg holes and tack it out.
I block tanned coon the same way.

That's pretty cool, I like that! Might have to try that!

very nicely done! I like your reference lines on the board.

I’m not sure I own enough pins.....

Boco, what’s the stamp on the leather above the tail?

And It would take a least to weeks for your thumb to get back to normal. LOL

Boco - that Raccoon is open but I certainly wouldn't call it square.

Back in the 70s, there was a trapper in western Washington who put Raccoon up,open AND they were square. Perfect 90 degree corners. Now that is square!!

I suppose you can make them any shape you want once they are opened up.
The stamp is from the dressers.
You need a lot of staples\pins when blocking tanned fur to get rid of any puckers that would have to be cut out and sewn otherwise.
I wouldn't use pins at all on an open boarded raw skin like a coon as they would likely pull out.I would nail it like a beaver with nails about 1-2 inches apart.
Bears are done open also,so do a raw coon the same as a bear.

To help get a little more squared off, I cut along the front of the front legs instead of coming straight in to the middle of the chest. I do my deer hide the same way for braintanning and the result is the small flap of skin between the front leg and the neck is moved down under the arm and fills in that gap.

The perimeter of the coon has no useable fur,those flaps are discarded after patterning.
No need to do anything with them when blocking.They do serve to move puckers to the perimeter of the skin and have more useable good skin that is uniform for patterning.
Guys that cut too big a window are limiting good useable fur in the lower flanks.

Here's an image of a buckskin I did years ago following the cuts I mentioned.

Hey Boco, I completely understand what you're saying, I know it doesn't matter for your blocking of the hides to use in garment making. I was simply making the suggestion for the OP to offer suggestions on what they could do with theirs based on their initial inquiry.

Is that pattern layed out for a coonskin hat?

Yes it is wambli.
I have seen old pictures of the square coon pelts.maybe they left legholes on the front like a beaver.

My grandfather used to put them up square. Don't remember how he opened them up, but they were square.
I found a pic on a book in the trap shed. I hope Nittany don't mind.

I know it's not a great pic, but this is what my grandfather's looked like
I know he didn't case skin them

Thank you all for replying and Boco thank you for sharing the pictures every nice thank you

I hope that Don Wolfe sees this post. I think he knows how to do the square stretch. When I was a kid, coon were sold any of 3 ways,,,, cased, open like Boco showed and the really good ones were put up square. We sold all ours skinned open and nailed out on the side of the barn. I never could quite figure out how to do the square stretch. I would like to have one or two tanned in that square shape.

Rickey

The pics I seen had the nose split up between the eyes so the top would stretch straighter and not pointy.

Wow that brings back some old memories. In 1964 and 65 I skinned about 15-20 coons friends shot hunting and did them open and fleshed them very poorly with a paint scraper and then froze them in burlap bags in a snow bank. They went with some bounty fox trappers to a fur buyer and I got 75 cents each for those. They were not even close to how well done those are. I wish I would have just froze them skinned and saved a lot of work and still have a poor job done.

Bryce

I just got an idea for my plain looking, blocky gun safe.
How about completely covering it up with square stretched coon pelts? You could have the tails hang down over the pelts below.

How about a parka made of those.Tails et al.

Nice! Is that smoked and if so how did you do it?

We laid them on their backs to open them. The stretch was more rectangular than square. Used lots of 5d nails. Stopped that in '65. I don't recall how they measured or graded them.

tjm,did you cut out the front leg holes or leave them like a beaver leghole?

Did a few that way back in the late 1950s. Shipped either to Sears or F C Taylor.

Jim

Yeah that was the recommended put up selling to Sears in the late 50’s. Good times.

Makes sense to be square. Think how much easier it'd be to sew a blanket or etc.

The way I remember seeing it done down here was cut up the middle from vent to chin then out to the feet. When skint and scrapped we would take cane and cut slits along the edges of the hide.
We would then lace the cane through the slits on the side and take a piece and run through the slits on the top and bottom and jam them against the side pieces to keep them open and tight and to keep them
square. I wish I had one picture of Uncle Dob's big cedar tree in the front yard with a bunch of square coon hides up there swaying in the breeze...d2