I got a pair of gorgeous timber rattler skins in a trade recently. I was eager to put them on the osage bow I finished last week at OJAM, so I broke out the TBIII and went to skinnin' a limb.
I did a good job lining them up on the limb (timber rattlers have a faint black line down the center of their hide), massaged out excess glue and air bubbles, and left it to dry overnite once the TBIII was tacky. Next day it still felt damp and I realized snakeskins should be sorta "crispy" and crinkly, not soft and pliable. Sure enough, these hides had been dressed with glycerin or some such. Dagnab it all to heck!
So I went online and searched on "how to remove glycerin from snake skins". The Number One Answer: a post on Primitive Archer from about 10 years ago!!! Yeah, I should come here first, LOL! Turns out that the best solvents for glycerin are water and alcohol. With my newfound knowledge I ran a sink full of warm water, added a small squirt of Dawn dishwashing detergent to make the water wetter, and I proceeded to wash that remaining skin thoroughly. Once it drip dried some I hung it from the clothesline and spent a moment wondering why girlie girls don't like me.
About an hour later I checked the snakeskin and it was no longer soft and pliable, but crinkly and crispy! I went to the garage and applied skin #2 to the bow and again proceeded to allow the glue to dry overnite.
Well, ladies and germs, that left me with one properly applied hide and one....well, who knows? Will the glue remain as a bonding agent between wood and glycerin treated hide? I can tell you that I am not going to rip up the skin in question, but I am pretty dad-gum sure that no finish is really going to work on the glycerin. Back to the kitchen, another sink full of warm soapy water and I began to sponge the affected skin repeatedly. It dried overnite and felt a bit less oily/supple/??? Nothing exceeds like excess, so a second sinkful of Dawn infused warm water and another long sponge bath in the morning before going to work. Come evening, I was home from work and figured two was good, a third would be better. Maybe the folks at Dawn will give me a sponsorship and come film me washing the glycerin out of snake skins like the folks down in the Gulf of Mexico clean up birds affected by oil spills? Anyway, the upshot is that the limb with the glycerin tanned hide feels just like the one that had the glycerin removed prior to installation of the skin to the limb.
I'm going to secure a second set of skins and set them aside with a note explaining why. That's so if this bow starts to peel off the finish over one limb I will be able to make it right for the guy that gets it.
That's a longwinded way to say that if you are considering trading or buying snake skins for a bow and they've been preserved with glycerin you have options. Yes, they can be de-glycerined just by taking a good ten minutes to gently wash them well in warm soapy dishwater.
