I finally harvest a buck and planning on having it mounted
by myself. My problem is after 3 videos, I still am not 100%
comfortable fleshing a deer cape and since I don't have
draw knife, I'll be using a scalpe and it will take me a
long time to flesh the cape. Anyway my question is should I
take it and have it fleshed & tanned by a taxidermists and
than try to mount it myself or should I go for it from the
start? Trying to keep to many problems (fleshing,tanning,
mounting) fom happening on my 1st project.
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Tanning is something that everyone in the taxi. indusrty should be fimiliar with, so try it now or later but get an understanding of it.
Fleshing should take you no time at all with a scapel or knife. When you fleshing your just geting all the meat and fat off the skin, your not thinning!
If this is a deer that you realy want to keep as a nice mount, I would do a ton of mounts before this one or send it to a taxidermist. No mater how good of an artist or what ever you think you are your first mount won't come out looking good. I collect small bucks to practice on, 4 and 6 pointers.
And A box of single edged razoer blades. droop cape over solidly attched pvc pipe, hold the blade at a 90 degree angle amd pull the blade to you with light pressure.
With a bit of practice on the back part of the deer hide. you will find its a bit hard but workable. Just keep scraping
how thin should the hide be on average , I hope you say 1/8 inch or so. THANKS
Scroll down about 12inches to (My first mount help please)submitted on 12-13-03 on beginners and check out the advise given by John C it helped me alot. DP
Scroll down about 12inches to (My first mount help please)submitted on 12-13-03 on beginners and check out the advise given by John C it helped me alot. DP
I would seriously consider prepping the hide(splitting lips,eyes,and nose and opening and turning ears) and sending it to a reputible tannery. Of coarse, salting first. Twice actually and waiting for cape to stiffen. That way you'll get a feel for the basics and have a good cape to attempt your first buck. Thinning a deer hide with a draw knife or a blade are ancient practices that will burn you out before you even get to the fun stuff! And thats not even mentioning the slice holes you'll be fixing.(LOL) You can learn tanning on other specimens that don't have the sentimentals of your "first". Good Luck-Jeff F.
Give it a shot on on the bench grinder. or wire wheel, you can shave that hide down fairly nice to mount .I've been useing the benchgrinder for fleshing for a little while and am now ready to advance bigtime to a fleshingmachine,but the benchgrinder will work fine for starting out. drop me an email. and i can help you out more on the procedure. .Best of luck ray.