snake skins

[wolfshadow]

OK, friends, I got a nice copperhead to finish on an osage. He's in the back of my suv waiting on me to skin him. Road kill, and some skin not usable, but enough to accent this bow I'm finishing. I'll skin him, scrape the flesh, and nail him to a board. But, then what? What do I do to treat it and make it pliable for gluing? What glue - TiteBond 3, or an epoxy? I've always had great suggestions from the Gang on other techniques, so I appreciate any advice you can fire my way.

[KellyG]

Well wolf nothing else should be done to the skin just kept up and dry. I roll mine and put them in a zip lok bag but keep it unzipped.

TB3 I what I use for my skins. You soak the skins in warm water until they fell like they did green.

Then pat them dry lay down glue to cover the the area then put the skin on. work out the air bubbles with your fingers. If you keep working them until the glue stiffens you will not need to wrap them. (DVS taught me that this summer) I did wrap them but not need. Then us a file to trim and tape to get the scales off. Hope this helps.

[Eric Krewson]

Here you go, leave out the super glue step as it is unnecessary.

http://tradgang.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=1;t=045038;p=1