I am going to mount my first wild hog in a few weeks and I have a few questions. It is a fairly large Boar. I think it was 350 lbs. I am going to use Dry Preservitive and I need to know:
What to use to degreese the hide with?
Also do any of you have problems when it comes to removing the sheild and cuting through the bristle roots? I've noticed that some of the bristles are grown into the shield? Thanks for the help.
MichelleW
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what u could use is kemal-4. it has the directions on the bottle. it also requires coleman fuel. the only thing i dont know is if it would be compatible to dp because i had never used it. hope things turn out o.k. email me back when you get done!
There are a lot of decent degreasing products on the market, my issue would be with using a dry preservative! Iv'e mounted some russians, but pickled and tanned them, as I do with any hairy critter. Many of the de-greasing products can be used in the pickel. I have NEVER had ANY hair slippage on hogs, I fleash down to good skin, no fat. Most dry preservs dont "tan" the hide, and can lead to decomposition down the line. I know my customers are happy! Hope this helped
You REALLY ought to TAN that hide. Hog skin especially, dries out (as they will with dry preserve) real brittle like. You most surely will end up with a compromised result going the DP way. As far as degreasing, man oh man, that Kemsol degreaser kicks butt. It wipes out heavy duty grease. Then you follow with the Kemal-4, as this product instructs you to. Now, as far as the thinning of the armor. I watched a video once where I believe it was Rick Carter who described the best way to know you've thinned the armor on a hog well enough is when you see the skin start to look like the surface of a golf ball. That means in some places it will be thinner than in others, but all in all you'll avoid chopping hair folicles. Personally though, I don't think I've ever done a hog without chopping off a few folicles. They're just too tough to handle with kit gloves. And I've found that you can get away with this on a hog far better than you could with most critters in that even cut folicles, where the hide is thick, will remain unless you give them a good tug. A drop of glue there will re-secure them. The way I remove the bulk of the armor is by cutting into it a checkerboard pattern, as deep as I can go without cutting through. I use a box cutter for this. Then I push on the hair side and this seperates the checkerboard blocks. Then I cut out individual blocks with a scalple. Be real careful if you're using big knives. Cutting the armor is like cutting a rubber tire and you could get real cut up if you slip. Once the bulk is removed then I go to the fleshing machine and thin it further. Bondo ears work good on hogs too ya know.
I've used dp on several hogs without any problems. Flesh it all the way down 'til it looks like a golf ball. That shield will be a -itch. I triple (at least) washed it with Dawn. I rinsed it well after washing and if it needs another washing, wash it again. Drip dry, dp, tumble, bondo ears and mount with good (Epo-Grip) hide paste. You can e-mail me if you need more details (fishon869ATaol.com). Good luck. BP