Fleshing help.

I use an exacto knife for most of my detail fleshing. You need to flesh as much as you can, but you'll have better luck finishing your fleshing after soaking in the Krowtan or after the pickle bath if you use another tanning product. The pickle (or Krowtan solution) will plump the skin up a little and make shaving or fleshing easier. It gets easier with practice, but it is a lot of work. You don't want to take shortcuts here though. Flesh it all out and shave the hide as thin as you can with the tools you have.

 

Relax, if this is your first deer you're going to cut some holes in it. When you first went to school and learned to spell did you not misspell any words? In math did you not get any wrong answers? Taxidermy is a learning process and your not going to learn everything on your first deer. Hell, I been doing it for ten years and I'm still learning. If this cape your working on is special, keep it frozen and practice fleshing the eyes and noses on some doe capes. I myself prefer to flesh with razor blades like in Tazz's video, but to each his own. Keep watching the videos and keep practicing.

 

I cut holes in faces all the time, I just sew them up. Been doing it for ten years, the world still turns, and I do not lose any sleep over it. It takes practice, so don't freak out over the first one, or the second one, or the third one,,,,,,,,,

 

If you are going to use krowtan just remove fat and red meat and turn every thing wash off in cold water to get dirt/blood out then put in the tan . do you fleshing after it will be easyer to shave off . as far as the tear duct i put my finger in the there so i can tell how much to shave off .same with the nose . the fox you can remove the fat in the pad before or after the krowtan but its got to be removed. hope this helps you. I use a skiffknife to flesh the face . good luck......Tommy

 

You will do great Ken...just keep at it!

 

im with these guys, everybody makes mistakes, the true artist knows how to fix them so nobody else notices them. just keep at it. i too like using razor blades for shaving around the eyes,nose and lips.

 

Do yourself a favor and buy a box of 22 scalpel blades and a handle. Lay the skin over the pointer finger of your off hand as you flesh. Your finger will help you gauge depth, and if you do cut a hole you will know to stop immediately !. Wear latex gloves to give a little buffer. Good luck.

 

when you get back to the eye's, make sure you get these glands out from behind the eye lashes. If you don't they'll shrink up badly. I never had much luck using the knives, #22 blades work pretty well, try a skife around the ducts works great. good luck and keep at it.
Jim

 

Turkeyjim, thats a great pic of how far to go when splitting eye lids. Jared Greens advice about useing your finger to judge the pepth of your cut is also very good advice.Personaly i use a scalple myself(#22).

 

Low T said it well, you learn to not get frustrated or upset WHEN, you cut a hole. You need to just need to learn to work around the hole so you don't make it bigger and move on. They are easiy to fix and are by no means anything to blow up over. My neighbor wanted to skin and flesh and do a mount for himself. He brought it over and was all worked up. He just said well, I may as well through it in the garbage, I butcherd the ear so bad that it can't be fixed. I took it and looked at it, oh boy it was bad LOL, an said it can be fixed. I mounted it on the form gluing and sewing where needed and you can't even tell. Just don't get frustrated and push through. I don't mean you can just start wacking away at. LOL, try and be as carful as you can and don't worry about cutting it.

 

IMHO what makes you a pro is being able to fix anything that you screw up. So if you mess up look at it as a learning opportunity.

 

Run the wire wheel and benchgrinder.