Primitive Archer
Main Discussion Area => Bows => Topic started by: Allyn T on May 25, 2021, 02:21:53 pm
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I found 2 road killed snakes today and plan on skinning them when I get home tonight. What is the best way to store snake skin? Do I freeze it or tack it like raw hide until it drys or some other method?
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I just use a pair of scissors to center cut belly...when you skin make sure you cut around anus or skin will tear when pulling it off.. get a spoon or butter knife and scrape all fatty tissue off skin.. lay on board or cardboard belly up.. thumb tack or staple tack skin flat.. DO NOT STRETCH skin at all..let air dry a couple of days.. at that point you can roll them up or leave flat.. keep away from dogs they will eat them.. I have skins laid out for over 6 years still as good as day I skinned them.. do not salt... no need ..skin is so thin it will be dry in a day or two.. salting will just be a royal pain to clean and is completely unnecessary... also you don't need to freeze or anything like that, they won't rot after they have dried ...gut
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I stretch them when I tack them up to dry, makes them easier to flesh although I only flesh timber rattlers.
I stretch copperheads when I tack them up. I have used a lot of western diamond backs but I bought them, they came trimmed, dried and rolled up.
I have frozen timber rattlers in a zip loc bag full of water for years and years. A friend gave me 14 at one time, I fleshed and dried half of them and gave them back to him for his bows. It took me a while to work through them and put them on a bow because I used more copperheads and western diamond backs on the bows I sold.
There was once a guy on eBay that sold perfectly matched sets of western diamondback skins for $25 a pair. Those days are long gone.
I just checked eBay, same guy, not too bad but these skins are tanned, he often has air dried ones. Look up "bsktcas", the seller.
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reason why I don't stretch them is they dont look as sharp when you can see in between scales.. when you wet them to apply to a bow they wont shrink back completely to cover that up either.. up to you I guess but I never stretch mine ...you can freeze them whole till ready to skin..no need to water either.. my buddy had a pet store had some baby eastern diamond backs... and timber rattlers... he had them in freezer for years in a ziploc baggie.. they were fine.. gut
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they were fine
Exempt that the poor things where frozen hard as rock. (lol)
Good to know though.
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Ok I'll dry and not freeze and see how it goes. Another question, one of them is kind of stinky should I wash it after I skin or will drying clear that up and halt the degredation
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I usually wash snake skins, either after skinning or at least before adding it to a bow. I use Dawn and warm water then roll up in a paper towel a then add to the bow or staple to a board to dry. The stink in decomposition so you probably wash before drying. I have used stinky skins on bows and they hadn't deteriorated but did still have a slight "fragrance".
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I never noticed a scale gap in stretched skins, perhaps I didn't look close enough, I have skinned over 50 bows. I learned not to use TB 1 or 2 for skins as the yellow shows through and changes the whole color of the skin and not for the better. I like Elmer's stainable wood glue or TB3 which are both tan.
On of the pics of my wife's bow, I reached for the TB1 by mistake and had the skin on and setting before I realized my error, yellow as can be.
These others look Ok to me.
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Tb3 and wash it, got it, thanks guys. These are black snack skins just fyi, and one has a beautiful belly, it's all pink and coral colored with black splotches, really neat
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You can cut the belly scales off and use them to back a bow too. Clint did this and it looked quite good.
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Cut the head off/skin em/flesh em/and tack em out......Done!!!They'll keep dry for years.If your worried about bugs.Put them in a zip lock bag and spray a little deep woods off in there.
PS....If your worried about color showing through on thin skinned snake skins dye the bow for better contrast.
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Eric those look nice.. I have skinned quite a few bows myself..maybe 20 not 50, I stretched a skin once and it did not turn out as nice as not being stretched.. so from my experience I do not stretch skins at all I leave them in their natural shape.. my favorite skinned bow believe it or not was from two tanned canebreaks skins I got a a hunting show.. wasn't sure they would work but I soaked them in hot water and dawn dishwashing liquid.. rinsed in hot water ,wrung them out good and let air dry as if just skinned .. soaked before applying ,it came out incredible.. the colors were amplified by tanning process and the scales laid down as flat as non tanned.. wish I could post a pic.. never works for me anymore..I always used TB for skins.. however... one of my skinned bows finally developed frets , a mulberry recurve I didn't build wide enough.. it eventually failed.. if I had used hide glue I might be able to soak it or heat it and get my skins back.. not with TB.. they are never coming off...BTW one of my copperhead skin bows I left belly scales on and run them of the side of limbs to belly.. where I rasped off the left over.. looks pretty cool too...gut
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People once gave me skins all the time, they would be in a Walmart bag leaned against my garage door, sometimes I never knew who dropped them off and never heard from anyone, people just knew I needed skins.
Once I found two gigantic canebrake skins left at my door, they were a little old, faded and boraxed to the hilt. I put one on the Trad Gang St Jude auction giving in detail its condition, it went for around $50
I decided to use the other one on a bow my nephew was making in the shop, I washed it and scrubbed for at least a half hour to get the borax out. Once wet I found that it needed fleshing, I bet I took a half pound of meat off it before I was done.
Like you I found that this old neglected skin handled properly made a really nice backing.
Here is my nephew and his bow, I have posted this picture recently.
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Don't you scrape the scales off after the glue drys?
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Don't scrape, you can damage the skin. Some will come off during the process, and most others can be removed with gentle use of masking tape, then closely inspect for any that were missed. You can usually pick the leftovers off with a fingernail or the tip or your pocket knife... carefully. Don't leave a single one behind.
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on the tanned skins the scales were gone but very proud almost sticking out .. but after soaking and wringing they laid flat like a fresh skin.. on fresh skins I just glue them up with scales on.. after it dries and I rasp edges I take masking tape and just lay it on the skins and pull off the scales that way.. scraping can damage skins but every now and them I'll have a scale that clings to life... I'll pick it off .. you can see the scales holding on pretty easy once the majority come off.. the skins pop more with scales off more brilliant.. gut
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Now I just have to make a bow worthy of some skins
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Duct tape has more stickum and will really remove the scales well.
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I use the blue painters tape masking tape to remove the scales; I always worry the duct tape will stick to the skin where scales have already been removed and damage the skin somehow. I want to add the "lazy-man's/procrastinator's method" that I find myself using more and more often...because sometimes folks are pressed for time. I skin, scrape the fat, and tack about 1/2 the snakes I get as soon as I get them. Sometimes, especially when I'm trying to catch up on a lot of work around the house, I'll thaw out any snakes I've been given that are frozen or that I didn't have time to mess with and just threw in the freezer and when they are thawed, I'll cut them with scissors up the belly center, skin them, and then wrap the skin onto a stick that's about 5" longer than the skin is wide. I will stretch the skin out flat as I roll it as tightly as possible onto the stick and onto itself. Once on the stick, I wrap it with a paper towel and use a sharpie to lable the type and length and make any notes about the condition of the skin. Take that and stick it in a ziplock and throw it back in the freezer. I'll do this with fresh snakes too...any snakes if I do not have time to properly take them from snake to skin to tacked to dry in one go. When I need a skin, I just thaw one out, wash it with dawn, scrape the fat off, tack it up, let it dry out, then rehydrate with water and dawn again and rinse. I can't tell any difference between ones I take care of immediately and the ones I deal with after thawing back out.
As far as the one with odor...yup, you have to pick up a roadkill really soon after it's demise for it not to get to stinking pretty bad. I picked up a fairly fresh, super long, incredibly beautiful bull snake two summers ago...and it was RIPE! I had to give it a go, though, and it was all I could do to get it skinned, scraped, and tacked up without puking. I swallowed at least one fly and had others crawling on my face and trying to go up my nostrils as I worked. I gave it a good washing in dawn and warm water and actually poured some dead downwind detergent and scent killer into the mix. I then tacked it up and dried it. It still had some funkiness to it once it dried, so I washed it in dawn again, tacked it back up, and left it out in the sun for several days. It eventually did not smell anymore, and it backed a bow I made for my dad just fine and dandy. Unfortunately, my dad was showing it off to my uncle (probably had a couple of drinks together, as they don't see each other but once or twice a year) and he strung it backwards with a stringer and snapped the upper limb. While he destroyed the limb, the snakeskin stayed perfectly intact, so you can definitely get a great backing skin off a stinky snake if its not too far gone and you can stomach the process.
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Here's a pic of the putrid bull snake skinned bow.
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I have used duct tape for years, it has never damaged a skin or even stuck any tighter than painters tape. I put it on, force it down with my thumb over the area I am removing scales from and pull it right back up, a 10 second operation. It won't get all the scales so I use a small piece of it like blotter and pick up the random scales the first pass missed.
I gave duct tape a try one day when I ran out of painters tape, it was so superior at removing scales I never went back to blue tape.
Very effective;
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I've used duct tape before too... as long as skin has thoroughly dried works great too.. I mainly use the blue painters tape.. it does take a lot more tape though.. gut
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Going to switch to the duct tape then.