I was going to wait till I had this one all done before I posted the whole process, but there has been some discussion about elk recently so I decided to just
start posting the process as I go along. Might take a while between steps because I have a lot going on in my life at this time but I'd like to have it
all done in a couple of weeks because this one is going to be a gift.
This hide was frozen fresh off the animal. Not salted, it hasn't been soaked in anything, not even water. I thawed it out and fleshed it today. I used a drawknife and my 4" plastic beam. The connecting tissue between the meat and the skin is much tougher on an elk than on a deer. So I used a drawknife that is fairly sharp for fleshing. For deer I use one that is so dull you couldn't cut yourself if you tried, but for this elk I used a sharper one, so I had to be careful.
Fleshing took me an hour. Not real vigorous work because I had to be careful with the sharper knife. A deer usually takes me 15 - 20 minutes to flesh, so for elk it's 3 times as long. Partly because of the sq. footage and partly because they are more difficult than deer.
After fleshing I flipped it over and started graining. For graining I went back to using my dull drawknife. The sharp one would have tendency to gouge the hide, which would be "no bueno". This hide is like it's fresh off the animal. No soaking in anything at all. I like to handle elk and moose this way because they are so flippin' heavy when they are soaking wet and still have the hair. They scrape really well when they are fresh and once you get them scraped then you never have to drag 150lbs. of sopping wet elk hide around. After about an hour of graining I had it all done except for the neck and front shoulders. I had somewhere I had to be so I put it in a tub of cold water. I'll try to get back and finish the graining in the next couple of days.
So now I have two hours into this hide. It's fleshed and 3/4 grained. I'll get back to you in a few days.
Billy
This hide was frozen fresh off the animal. Not salted, it hasn't been soaked in anything, not even water. I thawed it out and fleshed it today. I used a drawknife and my 4" plastic beam. The connecting tissue between the meat and the skin is much tougher on an elk than on a deer. So I used a drawknife that is fairly sharp for fleshing. For deer I use one that is so dull you couldn't cut yourself if you tried, but for this elk I used a sharper one, so I had to be careful.
Fleshing took me an hour. Not real vigorous work because I had to be careful with the sharper knife. A deer usually takes me 15 - 20 minutes to flesh, so for elk it's 3 times as long. Partly because of the sq. footage and partly because they are more difficult than deer.
After fleshing I flipped it over and started graining. For graining I went back to using my dull drawknife. The sharp one would have tendency to gouge the hide, which would be "no bueno". This hide is like it's fresh off the animal. No soaking in anything at all. I like to handle elk and moose this way because they are so flippin' heavy when they are soaking wet and still have the hair. They scrape really well when they are fresh and once you get them scraped then you never have to drag 150lbs. of sopping wet elk hide around. After about an hour of graining I had it all done except for the neck and front shoulders. I had somewhere I had to be so I put it in a tub of cold water. I'll try to get back and finish the graining in the next couple of days.
So now I have two hours into this hide. It's fleshed and 3/4 grained. I'll get back to you in a few days.
Billy
<<<<------------ Billy
