I am done skinning my second squirrel head and i am having a problem. It is a medium sized gray squirrel and there are puffy spots of what looks like fat and meat on each side of the nose. I tryed to cut this stuff of but i went right to the wiskers? Then could somone please tell me how to split the lips? I tryed and i cut the lip back where the top lip meets the bottom one. Could someone please answere these and give me some more tips. O yeah i already new to stick a round thing in the head to make it easier. thanks for all of your help. -Sam
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Maybe I wont get flamed for helping you.
Those are whisker pads, you need to carefully cut to expose the whisker butts, dont cut them or the whisker will fallout.
Leave as much skin on those lips as you can. Using a scapel a very fine one, just push the skin back as its hard to cut between inner and outer lips skin. A single edged razor blade may help.
Once you get the head mounted up, put a small amount of injectable fast set in a syringe and inject just enough to evenly plump the whisker pad area. Watch and you will see the area plump up and the hair stand up, just like the live squirrel.
Hi Sam, If you want, you can remove all the whiskers from the squirrel, keep the whiskers organized in some clay, right side and left side, and reinstall after the squirrel is mounted and dried. I usually cut out a small piece of foam off the form where the whiskers would go and use clay to build up the muzzle area.Use a pin and some super glue to reinstall whiskers. You will be able to take your time and align up all the whiskers in a lifelike manner.
Buy yourself a magnafying headset and use when skinning tiny areas of a small mammal. You will find it easier with less chance of cutting through the skin where you don't want to.