Skin Along

[fujimo]

for the limited amount of skinning that i have done- this is what i do to eliminate the "wrap" marks.
glue the skin on- work it as much as i can with my fingers- cover with a single layer/strip of saran, then lay down a strip of camping pad foam( closed cell foam)- about 3/8" thick and just slightly wider than the bow- the softer the better- as it conforms to all the shapes. if there is a real bad hollow i use a small chunk of appropriatly shaped foam- and fill the hollow under the foam strip- and then bandage, carefully- making sure i dont twist it. i do one clockwise wrap and 1 counter clockwise wrap, helps with reducing twist. then i still kinda work it a little through the bandage with my fingers- seems to work the best for me.
on. one might even try a very hi density open cell foam(bed mattress foam).
dont forget to tape the sides- saves a lot of work.

that sure is a whole schwack of skins you have there- lotsa snakes in your area?
reminds me of south africa!!

[Eric Krewson]

Like I said, I have skinned a bunch of bows. If you spend about 20 minutes doing this on each limb wrapping is unnecessary.

 

I have never had a skin shrink as it dries and pull away from the limb no matter how many humps and bumps I have on a bows back. When I get done with my thumbs, the skin is in place, the glue is starting to cure and the skin isn't going anywhere.

The only time I had a problem with a skin not adhering to a bow limb was when I put a set of skins on a bow that had been salted. The friend that gave them to me didn't know they only needed to be air dried, the salt wasn't visible. It took me a few minutes to figure out why the process wasn't going as planned.

I pulled the skins back off, took them to my laundry sink and washed them for about 30 minutes.

My next attempt at sticking them to my bows back went perfectly.

[fujimo]

Eric, do you wrap when you do thicker "skins" like rawhide or heavier fish skins.
the only skins i have done are heavier fish skins- and i have treated them like rawhide- and wrapped. but maybe that was unneccesary to wrap??
thanks