Fleshing/Drying Board for Coyote

Figured I'd share a little bit of info with you fine folks that have shared so much with me. The weather is finally turning colder here, at least over night. Hoping for the fur to begin setting in on the grey song dogs out on the plains. I've got a fair bit invested on top of the sweet Savage 12 .223 to make this a good season. Hopefully the weather and all the other factors work to my favor.

I have been working on some fleshing/drying boards with some scrap lumber I picked up from my day job. It's not terribly straight or pretty, but I think it worked pretty well for what I got done. I've attached a link for anyone that might like to see board dimensions by specie for fur fleshing/drying/stretching.

https://www.mdwfp.com/media/4183/boa...structions.pdf

What I used was "2x6" which is of course 1.5x5.5 essentially. I slapped two of those side by side. I drilled out holes for dowel pegs, then counter sank 5 TimberLok 4" screws per board to help draw everything together good and tight. I used wood glue in abundance to help set the dowels. Then I marked out the dimensions per the link and sketched out the rough shape, then rough cut it with my Skil saw.

Mine were essentially exactly as the blueprint shows except that I only made mine 72" tall from nose to tail, and of course 11" happens to be my maximum width. I need to do a good bit of shaving/belt sanding to get all my edges rounded off and make it all smooth and ship shape. But, if I happen into one this weekend, I should be able to get my first pelt dried out and fluffed in good shape.

https://drive.google.com/drive/folde...YK?usp=sharing

Man, that brings back some memories. Back in the 70's when fur prices were good my dad and great uncle were trapping fools and had piles of drying boards piled up in the rafters of their skinning sheds. Around here most of the trapping was for fox , muskrat and raccoon. Between the two of them they probably had enough muskrat traps to fill three or four 8-foot pickup beds stacked as high as the cab roof. Of course by the end of the 70's the fur market had gone to pot and all those boards and traps weren't worth a plumb nickel.