Troy Breeding wrote: Duncan has it about right.
I’ve dried hundreds of skins without problems.
I take the snake and unzip it right up the belly. Then I peel the skin off the body. After removing any fat that might be on the skin I turn it flesh side up and staple the skin to a piece of plywood. The plywood needs to be atleast 6″ all the way around bigger than the skin.
After stapling down to the wood apply Borax about a 1/4″ deep.
Wait 24 hours and remove any dry borax. The wet borax is now history. It’s full of body fluid and fat. Rake the wet stuff into the garbage and again apply 1/4″ of Borax.
Keep doing this until you no longer get any of the wet Borax. At that point you can now trim the belly skin away and you are left with the back and about half of the side skin.
When your ready to apply the skins to the bow you will need to rehydrate the skin in water and wash off any remaining Borax.
Once the skin is clean it will as soft and plyiable as the day you took it off the snake.
Blot any remaining water off with papertowels.
To apply skins with the best results use titebond II or III.
Apply a thin coat of glue to the bow as well as the flesh side of the skin.
Place the skin on the bow and work out any air pockets. Once you have that part done you can rough trim the skin to about 1/4″ bigger than the area to be covered.
I use Ace Bandages to wrap the bow and skin to prevent lifting of the skin until the glue dries. Allow two to three days to dry. Then remove the bandages and finish trimming the skin. Be sure and remove all scales. Masking tape does a great job to remove the scales.
After all the scales are gone apply a good UV resistant sealer like Helmmans Spar Urathane and let dry for three days before shooting.
Troy
Thanks! I’ll use your method. I assume it’s okay to leave the skin in the freezer for a few weeks right? I’ve seen some youtube videos where the skin was completely dessicated but still came out great in the end.
