I've read alot of bull#&%^ post on here about fleshing times and I've read enough! I went to the top 3 taxis' and 1 of the worst in my area and timed them all! the results are this.(complete fleshing with lips, eyes ,nose, ears all done)
1'st one, man 55 yrs old taxi for 24 yrs,does everything except face detail on fleshing machine, said it takes him about 45 min. to flesh completely. after I timed him he was surprised to see that it took a little over 2 hrs! never timed himself he said !just didnt seem like it took all that long. charges 375 per shoulder mount.
2'nd one, man 46 yrs old,taxi about 15 yrs, does everything by hand said it takes him about 1 hr 30 min to flesh comp. I timed him and it took him almost 3 hrs 45 min.same here ,never timed ,just figured
charges 350 per mount
3'rd one, man 50 yrs old,taxi since he was 17 yrs old, considered the best around here! I've seen his ribbons and his work! does it by hand and with a flesher, said it takes him about 4 to 5 hrs to flesh completely. I timed him and he was right on the money! says thats part of the reason he charges 550 per mount
4'th one, man 38 yrs old, does everything by hand and he said it takes him about 30 min. I timed him and he was right!BUT I couldnt believe what i seen, I've never seen anyone leave so much meat and fat on a skin in all my time! totally sick. he says you dont need to get it all off doesnt hurt anything he says itll dry.
he charges 275 per shoulder.
Now for everyone else that claims they can do it all in record time this is all i can say to you "BULL#$%@" get out the stop watch and time yourself. it may not seem like it takes that long while your doing it but let me tell ya its more than you think!
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If I'm in a speed contest, I can finish start to end in about one hour and 15 minutes complete. BUT, during a normal work day, it usually takes about 6 hours. With all the phone calls, break times, shooting the breeze with customers and the UPS guy, eating lunch and checking this site every couple hours, it just wears me out fleshing a deer cape. It must be I'm getting slower. I used to be able to do 5 or 6 every day, now I'm down to one. I'm just gonna have to stop talking to the UPS guy.
"Time's fun when you're having flies.".....er, something like that. Nice to see we have a time and distance study man on board.....How's your Trebligs? How much work did you miss when you were timing folks?
My friend said he had sex all night long but I don't believe him either, nor do I care.
To go out and time someone serves no purpose
I know a guy that said he can mount a quail in 45 min, I could time a 100 people; only person that counts is him. Get it?
Having sex all night long is like the little kid in our neighborhood that put up a lemonade stand last summer. The sign read, "LEMONADE" all you can drink for $1.00. I walked up and handed her a buck and in return got a glass of lemonade. It was good and I gulped it down. I handed it back to her and said fill it up. She did, and said, "that will be one dollar". I pointed to her sign, and she said, "One glass is ALL you can drink for $1.00.."
Tell your friend that you figured it out. Dinner and dancing...three hours.......boring talk.....two hours......sex five minutes.......explaining why......six hours......ALL NITE, Wilson.
sex in 5 min., I can do it quicker than that ;;;;wants time me?
haha
Did Wolf, bring her bucket of stinky skulls with her?
But she brought stinky buckets to fill up here. She is down stairs right now making the dust fly on a life-sized aoudad form. She put the form back together today and used enough dowels to build a ladder. She knocked a hole in my bondo supply. Hide is sweating and cur approved....well, except for the burned place on the rump, and the missing hooves....but that is another story...LOL
We are going to mount it tomorrow if we can lift the form when she is finished.
Speaking of skulls, she wanted the skeleton from that aoudad.....(see missing hooves).....and wanted to leave the cores on the skeleton. We built a mold of the skull cap and lower six inches of the cores. I am sure I will have a lot of use for that in the future....LOL. anyway, we cast the skullcap and the cores for the mount.
She did good, except she ventral cut it and then tubed out the legs. I asked how she planned to get the hide on the form.......took her a while to figure out that she couldn't.......she has a lot more sewing to do than she had planned on....LOL
She's a great kid, and really going to be something in this field someday.
I'm just venting a little because I've been reading alot post on here about times on fleshing wt capes completely start to finish in 30 min, and I've done hundreds of them and theres just no way its getting done in that short of time unless its half assed.So my point being is that I just thought i sucked at it but then I came up with timing these guys just to see. turns out I dont suck, I do it just as well as these guys that have been doing it for 15 plus yrs. So any newbies looking at how long it should take shouldnt get discouraged about taking 3 or 4 hrs to get it all done, its the way it is.
by the way George, thanks for sending me the pic, thats a great mount! got any WT's I could see?
If you are talking about rough fleshing before salting (i.e. turning the lips, ears, eyes, nose, and removing fat/meat) I do it frequently in about 30-45 minutes per whitetail with a fleshing machine, draw knife and scalpel. The major thing is the ears and whether or not I can go rough with the ear openers. 3 hours to flesh a cape is a long time unless you are just getting started.
Then you salt, re-hydrate, acid, shave, re-acid, neutralize, tan, oil, tumble and then you do final thinning/shaving/detail work.
But then again I cannot skin a fish in 5 minutes like some folks claim?
DaveT
Lyle , there must be something wrong with those other guys if they cant completely flesh a deer in 1 1/2 hours . I do it by hand on a fleshing beam and thats about as long as it takes me and I " do " watch the clock and I'm 51 and been doing it for 37 years . I use a knife on the skin as far as I can go and then a plain razor blade to finish off with . Rick
While caping I knock off all meat from the shoulders and neck, give or take a tidbit, if its fresh enough, and I caped it. Rough split all parts of the face. After the pickle, its shaving the skin including ears and everything except the lips and nostrils and lids, thats by hand. I KNOW you wont be at my shop over an hour for any of those procedures. Thats not bragging, as I figured I WAS slow! You send me a video camera and a blank tape, and Ill have somebody tape it!
The results were : It took just as long as needed to do the job right ! wow !
Times are always going to be different for everyone reguardless . It even varies on the same person . Truthfully , I don't understand why people think there is some set standard for fleshing a cape . It is better to do it right than to rush through and end up with a stinky mess for your efforts . Just my thoughts .
Bradlee
I quite often do 3 in a day,but like George it depends on the phone,folks in the door and the ups guy,lol.Hour and a half to completely flesh the face on each and an additional 5 minutes each with the pressure washer for each hide.So I guess I'm somewhere in the middle.Im not slow or fast just half fast,lol
time for a quick lesson on tanning and bacteria.(Bruce jump in here). If you are spending 3 hours, in a normal temp shop, rough fleshing a raw cape you are INVITING slippage. The quicker you get a hide salting the better off you will be.
The trick is to get the big chunks of meat off, split everything so the salt can penetrate. It is hard for salt to penetrate fat, it easily absorbs into meat (ever hear of a salt cured ham?) Even with a drawknife and scalpel I can get all the big stuff off in 10 minutes. I get all the brisket, back, neck and dang near all the face with it. I then hit the cape with a fleshing machine and go 95% of the face and all the neck. I then take a scalpel and (like Bill said) rough split the lips, nose, eyes and then turn the ears. This will take me about 15 minutes max. I then salt it and proceed with tanning. I do not have a problem with slippage.
Get your cape fleshed and get it salted to set the hair and to stop bacteria growth. You can fine-tune everything after the acid bath when it is so much easier to do. Once you learn to use a fleshing wheel properly, you can thin 95% of the cape with it leaving a little handwork around the lips, eye, nose. Sometimes I even thin those on my wheel with a finger and gentle pressure.
DaveT
you are right , the quicker the better but if a guy spends 6 hr on a fresh cape it's ok, hell sometimes i leave them laying around all day before i even start.
Not me, but two of guys I work with, do all the fleshing. They work about a 8 to 9 hour day. When they flesh, they usually take out 10 capes each, from the freezer for fleshing. Beam the main bodies, use a razor blade to turn everything, then a regular knife to flesh the eyes, nose and lips. Then salt. Then ship to tannery. These capes are very clean, because sometimes we tan in house.
So Lyle, that's what I think.
A person can really increase speed if they work at it.
Big difference in a cape laying around and one in someone hands (98%). when you are working a cape that long you are generating heat which in turn genrates bacteria growth.
DaveT