How to prepare Snakeskin?

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mdburn_em

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There's a lot of information about casting snakeskin blanks as well as turning but how about preparing the snakeskin before you glue it to the brass tube?
I live in an area where I could collect collect rattlesnakes if I was so inclined. I've got friends that farm and ranch and snakes get killed from time to time.
Anybody have any tips on skinning and tanning/curing/drying/preparing the snakeskins?
Don, if you happen to read this, how many pens can you get from one "average" rattlesnake skin.
Wasn't sure what the best forum was to pose this question.
 
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Mark,
I don't prepare my own skins. I have done a few but now purchase. The guy from whom I purchase skins is no longer selling them so I may go back to preparing them myself. For the rattlesnake skins pens I was using Montana Prairie Rattler skin because of the smaller blotches and skins themselves. I have used several diamondback skins but they are so large and the pattern is so big that when small pieces are cut the pattern is lost. They look like snake skin but not much pattern is shown.

How many pens from a skin...well for a Gent about 5" of skin is needed. Less for the smaller pens and only 2.5 inches for the sierra. Do division and calculate....30" skin will yield about 6 gents or 12 sierras....I'm not trying to be a wiseacre but the question of how many pens from a skin is relative...

I have directions for preparing skins. I don't have permission to post them but I can share it. Shoot me an email and I will send it to you.

Do a good turn daily!
Don
Originally posted by mdburn_em
<br />There's a lot of information about casting snakeskin blanks as well as turning but how about preparing the snakeskin before you glue it to the brass tube?
I live in an area where I could collect collect rattlesnakes if I was so inclined. I've got friends that farm and ranch and snakes get killed from time to time.
Anybody have any tips on skinning and tanning/curing/drying/preparing the snakeskins?
Don, if you happen to read this, how many pens can you get from one "average" rattlesnake skin.
Wasn't sure what the best forum was to pose this question.
Click to expand...
 
You might try this thread, too:
http://www.penturners.org/forum/topic.asp?ARCHIVE=true&TOPIC_ID=14974&SearchTerms=salt,dry,snake
 
Be sure to check local laws before collecting specimens. Pennsylvania protects rattlesnakes, and prohibits the sale of the snake and/or any parts.

No one ever accused Yankees of being smart! [;)]
 
I skin the snake and scrape the meat and slime from the skin and
tack the skin to a board and brush with antifreeze about every
three days. I do this for three weeks and then let the skins dry
about a week.

Alan
 
Alan, do you cast your own snakeskin blanks?
I appreciate everyone's input on this subject.
JimGo, thanks for the link. I really did do a search of both the active and archived links. [B)]
Don, in no way do I think you were being a smart-alec. I think you very succinctly gave everyone an idea of how many pens could be made from a skin. Thanks again.
For those who care to hear a little story, read on.
Years ago, I threw out a perfectly good snake, skin, rattles, everthing...from my house.
It was a cold day in August...about 55 degrees (F). (Take that you southerners...brrrrr) I was home from work eating lunch and reading a book. I got up to put away the sandwich fixins and heard this sound. Kind of a tttthhthhthhhthhthhthhhzhzzhhzhzhhthht. I think to myself, that's odd. It must be the electric heater I've got running making the noise. I reached down and shut it off. Straightened up and stepped back to the table. There was that noise again...what's this? My eyes zero in on a rattlesnake in front of my kitchen sink (about 6 feet from where I'm standing.) Quicker than you could yell "SNAKE!!!" I was past the table and down the hall in one of my bedrooms with the door shut. Panic-city. I realized this isn't going to work, one of us has to go. I grab my trustee (under-utilized) vacuum on a stick (remember those things?) and advance to slay the dragon er snake. He hadn't chased me to my surprise and was still coiled up in front of the sink. He was warm and didn't want me messing up his good thing. I jabbed at him with the vacuum and succeeded in making him mad and causing him to crawl away...under my cupboards. Groan. I ended up prying up the cupboard bottom and killed it with an ice scraper. I loaded the snake on the end of my lance er ice scraper and heaved it out the door. Didn't even keep the rattles. Guess I was rattled enough. Now that would have been a sentimental pen.
 
Mark, that is a great story!! Given my total agreement with Jim Stafford in the song "I don't like spiders or snakes," I likely would have given the snake the house as well as my soiled clothes!!

That is one reason why I made my earlier post. Call me anti-ecology or what you must, but I simply cannot understand protecting a reptile that can potentially kill you with its venom. Yes, I know God made all creatures great and small, but Adam and Eve must have distracted him during the creation process for him to come up with snakes!! Although it likely is reasonable, I wonder why my adoptive home state of PA protects them. Since I am married to a PA native, I feel I have earned the right to say these PA Yankees are kooky to protect a poisonous pit viper!!

For those with sensitive Yankee skin, I have two things to say: Oops, I did it again (with apologies to Mrs. K Fed) and Saints 27, Eagles 24, not once but twice!!!! [:D]
 
Having found two snakes in my new home after it was built and we had moved in I can relate to your story...even though my two were emory's milk snakes. A snake doesn't belong in a house...unless it is a snake's house. Good luck with the casting.

If any one wants the instructions on how to tan snake skins I will need you to email me because we can't do attachments to emails from the forum.

Do a good turn daily!
Don
 
Thats a good story Mark which l can relate to being a farmers son and growing up in the outback' back in the sixties we had a lot off black/brown snakes and tiger snakes which liked our house as well, we had a few dogs one was a small foxterrier.his name was Rusty' he was a real life saver' thinking about it now, in one very hot summer he killed 33 snakes that year on his own his luck did run out in the finish and died from a snakebite. sorry l got off the thread a bit.[:)]
 
Originally posted by laspringer
<br />I skin the snake and scrape the meat and slime from the skin and
tack the skin to a board and brush with antifreeze about every
three days. I do this for three weeks and then let the skins dry
about a week.

Alan
Click to expand...

Anitfreeze? I have heard of a lot of tanning techniques but never with antifreeze. What's the deal or chemical effect that makes it work? Thanks.
 
Anitfreeze? I have heard of a lot of tanning techniques but never with antifreeze. What's the deal or chemical effect that makes it work? Thanks.
[/quote]

Frank
If you haven't already, check out the link Jim provided and I missed in my search. It provides some small detail about the properties of antifreeze and how it would work.

One of my friends has several snakes he said he would give me. (They're frozen). I'm going to try a number of different methods. There were several methods in the link Jim posted and I also have a book on natural tanning techniques. (I thought I might try tanning deer/fox/coyote hides sometime) I'll look at some of those techniques and do some experimentation. If and when I get this accomplished, I'll post the results, both successful and not successful.
 
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