Tanned snake skins

[Mad Max]

I've heard you can't glue tanned snake skins on a bow.
I think it's the chemicals used to tan?
There has to be a way?
What about smooth-on epoxy?

[superdav95]

Ya I’m sure there’s a way to do it.  I’ve never done it but I’m sure someone on here has.  The one concern would be added weight with being tanned and with having to use ea40 perhaps.  Horn bow guys use to cover their bows with leather sometimes so there must be a way to do it. 

[Mad Max]

The add for the skins say 0.4 mm thick so .0157 thin .
Not really worry about the extra mass

[Pat B]

Mark, you can glue tanned snake skins on bows. The main problem using them is the leather is like a sponge which will absorb more glue than an untanned skin.  I remember working on a Community sinew backed bow many years ago that had a tanned skin on it that I thought slowed the bow quite a bit because of the extra excess weight of the tanned skin.

[gutpile]

my best looking set of skins were originally tanned.. all I did was soak them in hot water with dawn dishwashing liquid.. wring them out a few times and tack to a board unstretched and let air dry.. make sure you wring them out in clean water before you tack them to dry.. once dry I just soaked them in luke warm water to rehydrate and put them on a bow like any other skin.. turned out incredible.. gut

[gutpile]

I used titebond 3 to glue , however if I did it again I would use hide glue to set skins.. no need for epoxy with hide glue you can remove them if ever need to be.. the thickness will shrink after you let them dry too.. should be zero loss in speed too.. gut

[gutpile]

wished I could post a pic of that bow.. its a kodiak magnum.. the skins are incredible.. the tanning really brought out the colors and all that stayed even after de greasing the skin.. gut

[Mad Max]

Thanks for the info guy's 

[hoosierf]

Scrub the skins with dawn multiple times. Use hide glue. No problem.