hi all,
Beginner and lurker for a while here. I managed to get 8 beaver over this past season, not bad considering that I had pretty limited time to commit and have no real experience. Anyhow, I skinned and froze the pelts over the winter, and recently thawed them for further processing. I fleshed and boarded them, they are drying now. An observation and a few questions;

Observation:
- the guy who did the demo at the trapper ed class (and the guy in the DVD I got) sure made fleshing look easier that it was when I did it! I know it is my lack of experience, but it sure is an upper-body workout.

(probably dumb) Questions:
- Two of the pelts were pretty large. When I fleshed them, I never seemed to be able to get it down to that smooth white look to the leather. It has a somewhat darker slightly reddish look to it. Attempts to go further resulted in cutting too deep onto the pelt. Am I missing something? Comment or suggestions?

- They are in my garage drying, they were mostly dry to the touch after a day, not greasy or wet. How exactly do i know when they are properly dried?

I have more questions, but that will do for now.
Thanks for any input!
-Al

The skins will be a different color depending on how early or late in the season they were taken. The earlier ones will be darker. Yes it is an upper body workout but it will get easier as you do more of it or learn to clean skin. You'll know when they are dry because the will start popping the nails. 4 or 5 days should do it if you have decent temperatures and air movement. Others will give you better information I'm sure.

There are no stupid questions.

I dry them till the ears are hard. Bigger beaver are tough in the back area. Use a good sharp shaving knife and it's not to bad.

Everyones advise look good so far, I will add my $0.02

Fleshing is a workout. A sharp knife and experience is the only way to learn proper fleshing.

That red look is fine, just make sure there is no excess meat or fat still attached. It should dry smooth, if it is thats a good sign you did a good job fleshing.
A tip...right away you should be able to get right to the layer between the leather and the fat/gristle with a sharp fleshing knife. Once your to that layer, stay there. If you ride up, its harder to get down to the layer again. If you keep going above that layer, and try to go back and reflesh it is almost impossible to do a good job of it.
On larger beaver it is harder to flesh because you need a sharp knife to cut through the gristle.

For when they are dry, check the tail and face areas. If they are crisp to the touch, the beavers should be good to take off. For me its usualy take 3-5 days, longer on larger beaver.

Ask away at any more questions, there are many experience fur handlers on here.

Here is a good link. http://www.furharvesters.com/PDF/pelthandling.pdfa

Look around the earlobes. If you see the edge of the lobes not quite dry, then the pelt is probably not completly dry. If you have any areas that are not scraped enough, it will be easy to tell after the second day. These areas will look like little damp clouds on the other dry surface. If you have not taken enough gristle off of the pelt, you may want to very carefully take a good sharp knife and cut the remaining gristle or fat from the pelt. If this needs to be done, be sure and have your knife as flat on the pelt as possible. to much angle into the pelt and you will cut a hole. Usually the ear lobes and the nose area is some of the last area to dry. If you leave the pelts on the board 4-5 days, you should be safe in removing the pelt from the board.
Also the reddish color of the skin could indicate that they were late caught beaver. a darker color is earlier. A white or cream color is usually the prime time on the pelt.

If you trim off the ear butts and the nose and lips after fleshing these areas won't be a problem.

Thanks to all for the replies. I checked them today and they are indeed pulling the nails in. The leather sides are smooth and mostly dry to the touch, except at the base of the ears on the two large ones, so things seem to be working OK. I did find a couple of very small "damp cloud" areas (great description!) that i trimmed off.

I do think I need to sharpen my fleshing knife some, it is pretty sharp, but not SHARP! It was not an expensive one, and was sort of dull when I got it. Get-what-ya-pay-for, I suppose. I made the "too much angle" mistake more than once, and did indeed make some extra holes. Perhaps I can convince somebody that these pelts are from rare 7 legged beaver.

When these are dried, just how stiff will they be? Can you bend/fold them? not that I want to, necessarily, but I would just like to know what final condition i should be aiming for.

Thanks for the link to the Fur Harvesters site, I got that link lurking here early on, it is very helpful. Thanks again for all of the informative input.

They'll be pretty stiff. If you were to roll one up in a 10" roll, it will unroll to flat on it's own. You could roll or fold them, but you don't want to. Best stored and shipped flat.

For drying, if you use the ears as a judge, the rest of the pelt should be long since dry by the time the ears are hard...unless you had a severe "clouds". LOL.

Again, Thanks for all of the great info. I'm likely to be back with more.

-AL

Daniel I see you read my post. Could not think of any other way to splain it.

Sounds good to me Don.

LOL

That explained it perfectly. Even with my lack of experience, I knew exactly what you were describing when I saw it!

Like Beav sez...cut off the nose, lips and ears to hurry the drying time. Leather color has to do with primeness and also the individual health of the animal.

I clean skin and just use a paint scraper to take off whatever the knife didn't get. Doesn't tax the upper body too much. lol