Snake Skin Prep

[Warden609]

Looking for some advice on two freshly acquired timber rattler skins. They are already skinned and I want to prepare them to ship. Do I just need to stretch, flesh and dry? What’s the best fleshing technique? These are nice skins and I don’t want to mess them up. Thanks

[Mad Max]

soak them and rub or pull the flesh if any off
tack them to cardboard (outside of skin against the cardboard ) all the way down and wait for them to dry. the tacks will be in the belly part.
after they are dry trim the edges with the tack holes off with a razor blade all the way down.
now they will roll up.

[Warden609]

Thanks brother.
They are frozen now. I assume I can soak them to thaw and follow your suggestions from there?

[Mad Max]

Yea

[scrub-buster]

You can take a knife or spoon and carefully remove any meat that is stuck to the inside of the skin.  Make sure they are good and dry before storing them away.

[Eric Krewson]

I use a staple gun to stretch and tack a green skin to a board. For fleshing I use a teaspoon, there is a lot of meat on a timber rattle skin that needs to be removed.

A skin will dry quickly at which point I trim off the belly part and roll the skin up for storage.

[Mad Max]

Mice ate my copper head skins but did not eat my Timber rattler next to it.

What colors are the skins?

[Roy from Pa]

Pink, right up your alley..  

[Mad Max]

Originally posted by Roy from Pa:
Pink, right up your alley..      

Yep
I do like pink skin

[Warden609]

Pink!! LOL

I still haven’t thawed them. I’m gonna start on them next Monday. Looking forward to the project and learning something new.  Got a Silvertip that’s begging for a pretty set. Thanks