What supplier do you guys buy your wooden stretching boards from. I want to get coon rats mink fox coyote bobcat and otter and maybe fisher. I would like to buy them all from one place so I can save a little on shipping. Thanks.

I get my boards at the lumberyard.

There are lots of good board makers on this forum but Top Lot Stretcher Company is by far my favorite.

Hands down Top Lot Stretcher Company! Outstanding quality, great prices, and they ship extremely fast!

I bought some from Okie cable and Trap a few years ago and like them.

Top Lot makes a quality product! Really fast shipping also.

Call Feebinger archery and trapping supplies. Jason is in PA.

With the way the fur market is now,and trappers having to watch the bottom line,why would anyone buy pre-made fur forms when they can be made so easily(even with hand tools) way cheap from lumber.

Who in their right mind traps for profit anymore. Lighten up boco.

Just Dirt.lol.
Why lighten up,It was solid advice.
Guess I'm old school when we had to rely on doing stuff for ourselves.
Times they are a changin.

You dont sell forming boards by any chance do you?

Quality products are an investment.

I buy mine at a convention, but you might be too late for that this year. The ones I got seemed very similar to the top lot ones, but were like 1/3 the price.

You are correct 160,why I dont buy stuff I can quality control myself.

Good tools are always a great investment and having a good assortment of quality wood fur stretchers is money well spent... sure you can catch fur in cobbled old traps and use old fence wire etc etc but the fur you lose will overcome the cost of cheap and in the end saved you nothing and still have garbage traps or crap home made stretchers. unless you have a lumber mill and access to basswood, a power planer, band saw and a router table and sander buy the stretchers unless you plan to catch thousands of rats or over hundreds of others

I made all my own forming boards out of cedar by hand from weasel to wolf and everything in between,and still have a few originals.Mine are better than yours(for me) because mine are made to fit my section of fur. When I entered competition regularly and kept winning,the graders at FHA wanted the dimensions of my wolf board,which I did not divulge(because of the competition),
So dont assume that someone mass producing something that can easily be made by anyone with a pulse either with hand tools or power planer,has a better product.
In my opinion it is the mass production that is the junk.

I could make my own underwear if I wanted to. But I find it much more convenient to buy them at walmart.

OK,lol,
Trappers always made our own boards thats why board sizes were suggested by the auction houses so they could be adjusted by the trappers operating in different sections when they made them. Never heard of them making underwear,unless back in the day when they needed a new loincloth.
It is todays sad world unfortunately self reliance is long gone even for easy stuff.I see people living here in the middle of the worlds largest contiguous boreal forest buying firewood,for crying out loud,lol.
I encourage younger people to do stuff for themselves-it builds self confidence.

I can see you wanting to deal with one seller on all your items as there is value in uniformity and yes shipping etc. Another option would be to post on the Trap shed what you are looking for and see what may be offered as I am sure there are thousands of boards not being used the last few years.

Also if you know who you want to buy from and time is not critical you could agree on what you want and meet them at a convention and thus save shipping costs as well. Shipping a reasonable number of bulky wood stretchers will run up costs for sure.

Bryce

PS weasel boards can easily be made from stiff cardboard... and as far as wood to be used basswood is by far the best as is has the ability to suck moisture from a hide it will save you some slippage on occasion from that iffy pelt... I made thousands of boards but had access to free basswood trees, big clean saw logs don't waste time on crooked hollow rotted thinking you can save a few pieces will cost you money to the saw man. In N. Minnesota it was considered garbage wood ha ha one mans garbage my gold. I hired a portable mill operator to cut the rough lumber and stacked w/ lathe spacers to dry several months, then had a industrial planer at a local ma pa saw mill he let me use the thing all day for $50 me and a buddy processed an entire trailer load PS I sold the wood chips for animal bedding Ha Ha I used NAFA bags to transport the chips, made the $50 back and then some! I had a shop with band saw and router table I made 600 rat boards for myself XL and Large and some med use the small rats for predator bait the smalls ain't worth .25, because fall run and spring run are different size rats and needed to put up 300 skins a day and by the way you don't need belly wedges on rats just ensure the edges of the board are fine sanded they'll pop right off 99% 1 pop on the nose against the table they'll slip right off if the pelt wasn't wet, never board wet fur!...50 coon, 25 fox, 25 coyote/cat, 6 otter boards ps always use wedges on otter don't forget!!! and few misc fisher small gray fox etc, mink boards I got from a defunct mink ranch and sized them... the profiles are stated in the nafa manual make a few jig boards and scribe... It was actually kind of fun and had kindling forever tons of scrap, I'd box it and give to friends for their stoves and mine as well... In all it was slightly profitable ha funny after the fur market dumped in 2014 I sold more boards to artists than trappers... Here in Oregon there is no basswood so I'm glad I did what I did back then... So any of you guys that have access to that sort of thing might be a side venture for you?

I can lend a few to get you going. I'm right up the road.
Generally the conventions are best.
Like said Feeb is in range for you.
He and others may deliver to a meeting.
Shipping cost on then is no fun.