faded snake skins

[Eric Krewson]

I have a couple of very old copperhead skins a guy gave me. They are starting to loose color and are pretty faded. They are short and not long enough to cover a bow limb but I have thought up a way to use them for a partial limb covering with some decorative thread and stain.

I need to either dye my glue or the skins to bring the color out. Has anyone mixed leather dye with wood glue to attach skins?

I also thought about staining the osage dark below the skins so it would show through but didn't know if the wood glue under the skins would let the stain show through.

Anyone enhance their skins with dye or tinted glue?

[John Scifres]

I have dyed skins after putting them on.  It works really nice.  Try reds and yellows and play around with it.  They take dye well.

[inrut]

You can dye Cooperhead skins with orange food coloring from the back, This is before they are applied of course.

[artvin]

Snake skin like any other skin it has natural oils in it. When you see fading it is usually due to to much sun exposure or all the oils have leeched out of the skin.

You can get any leather oil...or Canola oil will work.(Same stuff you cook with) Stretch the skin by laying something heavy on both ends.  In a coke bottle or some container put some Canola oil in it and drop in some stain.  Make sure it is compatible with oil. Keep blending until you get the color you want. Then lightly apply to the snake skin. Do not apply the oil to the back of the skin. You will have problems getting it to glue down well.  Like John said play around with it until you get the color you want. You can test on a piece of scrap or a piece of clear wood. It is always better to put on a "light" coat and then a second if you need it.  Consider just rubbing in the oil with your finger tips..do not use a rage (rages take to much oil to the skin)
P.S. this is the same for boots or any other leather.

If it were me I would first apply a light coating of plan oil with no stain in it. You can always add the stain if you don't get the color you want.  the oil by itself my bring the skin back to life (color).

Good luck.
Art

[BryanB]

Dye the back of your bow whatever color you want and use hide glue.  The color will come through realy well.
Bryan

[Eric Krewson]

The skins are on. What I did was stain the back of the bow with medium brown leather dye. It has a lot of red and yellow tints in it. The stain really showed through the skins and made the almost white skins pretty dark. The tan elmers glue I used dried clear and let the color through.

The skins are short and only go about 2/3 the way up the limb. One litterly fell apart when I put it on the bow. It was just like wet toilet paper, so I pushed the pieces together gently and spliced in some pieces from the slightly longer other skin. There are still some small holes in the damaged skin but the underlying leather dye makes them invisible.  After the skins dried on the bow I blended the repairs with more leather dye.

From the ends of the skins to the tip overlays I stained the back of the bow with more leather dye and sanded it back with a scotch bright pad to match the darker pattern of the skins. I was going to wrap the bow at ends of the skins with a copper colored thread but the invisible transition to the dyed limb made this unnecessary. This is coming out much better than I had hoped.

Of course my wife took off with my digital camera so I it may be awhile before I can post pics.

[Chad Sivertsen]

I dyed the back of a BBO with red Rit dye and alcohol and put a prarie rattler skin on it. The red shows through the snakeskin and looks great and I dubbed it "Red Rattler"

[Osagetree]

Has it been a while yet?  

[Eric Krewson]

Here is the end result, these skins were almost white but the stain on the limb really came through, so much that I wish I had stained a little lighter.

 

This is the skin that was like wet tissue paper. Every place I touched it on this end it came apart, the other end was solid. I pushed the pieces together and spliced in a piece. I think when the finish is on this won't be very noticeable.

 

[Bjorn]

Great looking bow!

[Osagetree]

Looks good!

[madness522]

Are the scales still on the skins?  If they are remove them and more color will come thur.  A guy in my club back two self bows with rattler skins.  The first one he left the scales on and it looked nice and the second he removed the scales and the color really popped out.

[Eric Krewson]

The scales are off in the pictures. I put a coat of tru-oil on the skins yesterday and the color really intensified.  

I made this bow from an osage sprout stave. Had to fill one punky knot with an osage dowel, filled a wind shake with superglue. It has punky pins on the edge of the limb and several other flaws. I wouldn't make a bow out of this wood for anyone but myself. It is one more fine shooter in spite of it's cosmetic and possible structural flaws.

[brettlandon]

It's great Eric!      I'm gonna have to get past the beauty of the wood and do some skin backs too.  .....Hmmm, maybe I can shoot some grass carp and.....

-Brett