Finished Tanning My Gator Hide

[BellR]

I finally finished up tanning the hide of my 6'5" gator from last fall.  Its only a quick cell phone pic, but I thought you might enjoy!

 

 

[Skillet]

Very cool. Where did you kill it?

[BellR]

The Peace River in Arcadia FL.

[Dom]

That look's good.From the picture it look;s to me you had to cut the back out ?How do you skin gators?

[BellR]

Here is a link to a time lapse video I made of processing a gator.

We cut the back of separate because it makes processing easier, but you can skin them a couple different ways if you want the scutes in the hide. We didn't mind taking them off because they don't make the best leather. Really hard because of the bone in them.

We are going to use the back plate to make some gun slings. Not sure about the rest of the leather yet, but I'm thinking of making a few wallets and knife sheathes.