a friend of mine just got back from western oklahoma and he got a rattlesnake for me it has been frozen so i still have to shin it win i get through with that what is the next step DETAILS PLEASE  :confused:

skin

Air dry, no salt please.

jeff do you put the skin on something or just hang from something

tack or staple it to a board scale side down

for how long

I tack it down strecth out a little but allowing for it to draw some. Till it is completely dry with no moisture or slickness anywhere on the skin. If in doubt let it dry for several days. A lot depends on the humidity and how well it is scraped.

THANKS BOYS

Scrape any fat or meat that might still be on the skin. A tea spoon works well for this. Pat

Done a bunch lately so here goes.

Cut the skin from the vent to the head and pull it off the body of the snake. Use a staple gun if you have one and tack the skin to a board, flesh side up. Put a staple on one side at the outer edge of the belly scale, stretch the skin crosswise and put another on the other side. Continue up the skin in a zig-zag fashion with a staple every couple of inches on each side. You will be stretching both across and lengthwise as you put in more staples.

After you get the skin stretched and stapled use a teaspoon to scrape the meat from the skin. I scrape from the middle of the skin toward the belly scales and head to tail like the scales run.

You don't have to scrape any meat off the belly scale area, just up to them because you are going to cut off this part of the skin and discard it any way.

Let the skin dry for a couple of days and use scissors to cut the skin off the board. Make your cut right between the belly scale and first row of back scales. You don't want any belly scales on your dried skin.

I went to a friends house the other day looking for a skin to put on my wife's new bow. He said his nephew had given him two bags of skins but he didn't know what was in them.

I thawed them out and there were 14 huge timber rattlers in the bags, most over 50" long.

I have been stretching, fleshing and drying them for him. I picked a nice one for my wife's bow, cut it down the middle and used half on one limb a and half on the other.

     

Here are a few of the skins I have dried lately.

     

that is what i was looking for thanks Eric  

Eric, Looks really nice on your wife's bow, Can you tell us how you glue/attach the skins to the bow and what glue used and what prep. on the skin and bow?   Thanks, Ken