Has anyone tanned a snake skin?

Porkbrick

Porkbrick

TreeHouser
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Location
santa cruz, Ca
I’m looking for advice on tanning a large snake skin. So far it looks like a 50/50 mix of glycerin and rubbing alcohol is pretty popular.
mon my first day of junior high school I bought myself a Colombian red tail boa. I ended up keeping her alive for 24 years by some miracle. She finally died a few years ago and I’ve had the skin in my freezer ever since. I really want to make a flat mount of it on a nice piece of walnut, but I just haven’t worked up to doing the tanning. Anyone use the glycerin/alcohol recipe before? Any pitfalls with it? I’ve tanned other animal hides before but never reptiles. Cheers
 
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i looked around and didn’t have much luck finding one in the area. I’m sure they are out there, but the only one I found local never returned my call
 
This is the only snake skin I have ever cured....did this one about 25 years ago. These pictures are from last Summer. It is a canebrake rattler from our farm, approx 1996. It had just eaten a large rat or squirrel and was stretched across the dam where the kids were playing. It was a one eyed rattler. I killed it and tossed it in the woods behind the cabin. When Alex (who was about 10 then) got back from his cousin's house he wanted to see the snake...so I showed him. Then he wanted to skin it...uuhhhh...so I did. I salted the skin, rolled it up, took it home and went to see the local taxidermist for what to do next. As I recall, once I fleshed it out good I mixed some kind of concoction of borax and diesel fuel and treated it. I will see if I can find my notes...apparently, it worked because the skin is still nice.
 

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:^D

It would be interesting to read the thought process behind that. If I were looking over all the potential stuff in my house I could use, I don't think diesel and borax would have made the list.
 
And yet Gary is the only one here that has tanned a snake that had more than one eye :/:.............. lol I'm sorry, i had to.
 
I guess I'm the only one that has heard that joke..... it's the same as a trouser snake, i probably should have just went with that :lol: now my lame joke is ruined because of timing..... again.
 
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