I just finished skinning and fleshing two eastern gray squirrels. Currently, they're soaking in 50/50 turpentine/alcohol. What I'm wondering is, for the future, should I split and remove flesh from the squirrels lips? Also, what happens if I miss a little piece of flesh somewhere? Will it just dry out or will it cause smells/slippage, other problems? (the hides are being soaked about 8 days in the acl/turp, then boraxed and mounted). Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks
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Never heard of doing that, can you enlighten us?
You probably will not have a problem with those lips or meat..The borax will dry em out. Kinda like using dp
This is a pretty handy data base.
http://webbook.nist.gov/chemistry/
In search options choose:
formula
enter:
C10H16
You will notice that is what looks like a simple chemical formula. If I remember right, all the compounds brought back by that search are all pine derivatives.
Out of that group I think you will find three molecular structures that are of the flat carbon ring nature. These are the ones that can cleave a protein structure, and could POSSIBLY be found in turpentine. But they are also very unstable, and in more their "purest" forms available, have only a six month shelf life from date of retrieval or manufacture.
Turpentine is a really good solvent for fats and oils. In fact, I use turpentine for the thinner for linseed oil based artist's oils for my finish work. I can thin them down to the point that they are of a water color consistency, and then use layered washes to finish with.
You have probably read in here in the past about a number of people reporting turpentine allergies. This info might help to shed a little light on that as to the How's Comes?
In case you're wondering, I did dabble with pine oil derivatives some time in the past, BUT all the dangers involved, plus the hazardous shipping costs, did not add up to make good sense. However, I did get some good results off of what I did.
John, once you've done that, come back in and tell everyone as to how many different chemical structures that the C10H16 can make.
Technology is racing ahead in all industries.
Well, I dont really know much about turpentine/alcohol, Glen seems to know much more than me. All my info about it, i found here, if you search something like "alcohol turpentine" you should find pretty much all there is on this site.