Fleshing Help (with Pics)

WasteLand

WasteLand

New member
Pulled my bobcat out of the freezer yesterday and let it thaw out all night and started trying to flesh it but I'm kinda lost.

In these pic you can see where I've fleshed a lot of it off, but I have no idea what its suppose to look like when I'm done. I'm dragging my blade across what I think is membrane but I'm not getting anything off.

What part of this is good enough, clearly not the meat chuncked parts im still working on but I'm just confused

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Jesse, just pull and trim off any of the meat and fat. The rest should be good to go. Meat will spoil and fat will not allow hide to dry and get hair loss. It helps if you rub it down with sawdust or Borax, while fleshing.

Tony
 
I started using Borax around the faces, in the tails, and under the armpit areas for the first time this year on my foxes. Man that is some cool stuff and dirt cheap. I used it on a few turkey tail fans too. It sucks the moisture right out of the meat and sinew making it easy to scrape and drys the skin out quick in those hard to get to spots while they are stretched. It doesn't seem to weep or crust like salt does either from my what I've been seeing.
 
Alum dries even faster. Just be careful that carpet moths aren't getting into anything, I lost all of my bird mounts to the little bastards a few years ago.
 
Do you need to wash or remove the Borax after fleshing the hide? Or just put it back on the stretcher to dry. I am not planning on tanning any hides myself, just want to cut out the middle man fur buyer and be able to send hides to the auction. Thanks for any help.
 
orion94us,
Remember, Bobcat is sold fur out like Coyote. Place on foarming board for 24 hrs. fur in then turn fur out, board and comb again.
 
I dont know if you seen my topic on boarding a cat but that was my first cat i skinned fleshed and boarded- i think i took of more than i needed to in the fleshing process but it came out really clean. It took 2 hours but i am happy with it. I found it difficult and risky to use my fleshing knife so i used the back of a steak knife to flesh it. I also used Borax to help dry out the slimy membrane and give the knife some grip on the membrane. I also started by making a lightlight cut across the membrane for a starting point where i would start each section of hide i was fleshing.
 
Gethuntin,

Looks like you did a good job. Keep it up. Like I said before, it takes practice, practice, practice. I know its not easy to start out on a higher valued bobcat. You want it to be right and well done, so you take your time. It beats sitting on a couch. Good luck with the sale.

Porkchop
 
Thanks for the comments guys. Hide is not for sale is the only reason I'm not scared to start it myself. I'm going to tan it myself and then take it to a tail to make a beanie
 
For hard to scrape or fatty hides like otters or others especially tough to scrape cased furs I have a 1.2" paint scraper that I cut shorter to stiffen it up and grinded the corners round and tip square...(not sharp)

With the cased hide on a stretcher, you take your knife and CAREFULLY slice a cut from the mouth to the bottom of the hide , right down to the leather...very carefully...not to cut hide...making sure to get under the bottom skin membrane.
Then you start scraping with the corner of the scraper.
keep working in the same direction round and a round and don't remove the membrane until it gets in the way ensuring that you do not lose your flap of skin....stay under and don't come out until you are complete!!
The idea is to try to stay under that skin layer that holds the meat and fat.
By doing so you will not struggle with small gristle that seem to be impossible to remove......GETTING UNDER IS THE TRICK.
I used this trick on coons, otters especially and wolverines.
Ever since I was shown this trick my otter skins went from grade 111 to
Super hides select grade!!! and I consistently get top prices for all my otters.
 
Forgot to mention that you scrape from bottom to top til complete and rotate the skin on the stretcher to facilitate scraping.....pin down skin when completed.
IMPORTANT: to really get outstanding results you must not try to clean skin the animal....by doing so you will not be able to stay under the skin membrane while scraping.

For otters I literally try to pull the hide off with the least amount of skinning.
 
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