Finer points of fleshing

[studabaka]

Can you give me some tips / advice on some of the details like;

Fleshing around those whisker pimples. How do you get all the flesh off? Does it take a long time or is it just me?

How much of the nose cartilage do you remove?

How far down do you trim the foot pads?

[FinsnFur]

Whisker pimples... I like that. I run em through the round knife until the pimple itself is showing. That's actually good enough unless your going to mount the skin, and still then it will be fine is my opinion. You can go further down and lessen the risk of severing a whisker by using a wire brush if you want to.

Nose Cartilage...I dont remove much at all. I turn the nose inside out, make a couple passes through the round knife and move on to the next area. As long as there's no big wads of meat hanging from it, you'll be fine. The nose is going to dry hard regardless. Now if your mounting the skin. the nose needs to be completely turned inside out. In the very center of the nose wad you'll find a piece of cartilage dividing off the two nasal passages. You need to split that down the middle..freeing the two nasal passages. Then flesh around them and where they meet the nose skin.
The nose skin is extremely thin so fleshing with your fingers on the outside of the nose so you can feel how close your getting is the best method.

Foot Pads...Each digit pad and the main pad will have fat directly behind them. If you scrape that down exposing the inside of the black pad skin, your good to go. For simply tanning no mount, you dont even need to go that far, just get off the big stuff.
Digits themselves, I like to skin down to the LAST knuckle. The last pivot point. Anything close or beyond and you'll lose the claw.

[studabaka]

Thank you sir.

Speaking of round knifes..... I'm now ready to take the plunge. I'm thing the dakota IV as it sounds best suited for shoulder/head work, which is to me the hardest part and I'm not doing much other than small mamals. What is your opinion of the Dakota and going with the smaller vs larger version? Any others you would recomend I consider?

[FinsnFur]

You'll love it. I own one and do everything with it.
There are a few times I wish I had a bigger one, but not many.

One word of advice. Pay very close attention to how they tell you to sharpen the blade. They are $60 bucks a piece and you can ruin one in the bat of an eye.
Double check your skins for buckshot a little closer too. Your blade will let you know if you miss one piece.