bot a couple of capes off of ebay - when i got them they were skinned with the shortest y cut i have ever seen - not more than an inch behind the y - how is this done?
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rarely do any of my capes have a cut longer then about 2 inches. The animal is skinned all the way to the back of the head and then the head is cut of with a saw. Now you can do your y cut on the back of the head. It only needs to be as long as you need it to get the cape pulled over the back of the skull, about one to two inches depending on size of skull.
Remove the skull at the Spinal Process. The spinal Process is where the skull articulates with the last cervical vertebra. It can be found by making an incision into the muscles just above the larynx, and going back to the spine. Cutting a skull off in this manner takes a matter of seconds, and leaves no sharp edges to the bones.
This can also be accomplished by skinning through the mouth area, then cutting the whole muzzle off of the carcass. Then pull the nose skin forward over the cut off muzzle and skin backwards toward the neck!