# General > General Knives & Blades >  Caping, skinning, fleshing tools & whats the difference.

## Sourdough

Most, hell the preponderance of the knives people make or buy fall into the general "Utility" outdoor knife classification.

But lets talk (assuming you know what your talking about) knives for skinning, caping, and fleshing. And what is fleshing, caping, & skinning. What is turning the lips and ears......????

Clue: A general "Utility" outdoors knife will kind'of work for skinning, but not really for fleshing, and caping requires a very special tool......... So what say you....???

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## your_comforting_company

I say lots of things about all these different things because they are all very different and all require different kinds of blades. First lets assume I understand the specifics of the question. As I've demonstrated, one simple sharp knife can be used for skinning and butchering your game. Sometimes I use my pocketknife. It only needs to be sharp enough to cut through the skin and the rest of the animal will pretty much fall apart in your hands while processing with that same blade. Any general knife will work for this, but I prefer a clip or drop point blade, finger length so I can use it in my hand to seperate the skin from the meat while making my initial cuts. I do not use a knife to pull the skin off the critter. For that I use fisting.

I don't do much in the way of "caping" because I don't do mounts. I like for my skins to lay pretty-much flat (as flat as any 3d object can be lain). I do know that you need a fairly small and very sharp blade like an exacto or dermasafe with razors in it. For precise and exact cuts the blade needs to be very sharp. Turning of the lips, eyelids, ears, etc, involves finding the "seam" where the outer skin and inner skin meet, seperating them at that "seam" and removing all the attached tissues. Lips have fatty-like spongy-ish tissues that cling to the skin with lots of veins and nerve endings to its imperative to remove all that stuff as close to the skin as possible. Eyelids have a very thin membrane that needs removed, and often the tendons that connect the muscles to the skin on the face are tight-knit. In order to get in there and get it all out, you need a very sharp knife and a lot of patience. Caping is a method of preserving the 3D shape of an animal for placement on a form for mounting. Something I have no experience and little interest in, personally. A pocket knife isn't going to be the optimal tool for this sort of job. 

Fleshing is a whole other ball game depeding on your end goal. If you are doing mounts, then it's really best to get that electric knife. It vibrates and appears to only go "so-deep". I don't own one so I really don't know much about those tools, but there are lots of nice tools to do neat fleshing jobs for caped mounts. Again.. Out of the scope of my knowledge. Fleshing, by definition, is the removal of everything from the skin, including tendons, bits of meat and fat, veins, etc. My fleshing tool is simply a dulled draw-knife that I inherited from my great grandad who was a carpenter before they had "dimensional lumber". Some folks use a "fleshing post" which has a general 3d shape that mimicks the animal so that it can be worked all over. I use a "beam" which is just a piece of PVC pipe in a tripod stand and I use my drawknife to very literally plow all the meat, fat, tendons, etc. from the skin. For more delicate work where I want to keep the fur on, I just lay a towel over the beam and get to work. A pocketknife isn't going to get you through this part effectively or efficiently. I prefer the large curved dull blade of my home-made plow-tool for fleshing. A very sharp blade will cut through the skin before you can say "oh no!"

Now that all that's out of the way, a pocketknife will do a great job of skinning and processing, and will even get you started on the cape, but is not the right tool at all for fleshing or turning eyes, lips, ears or tails. Since most of my projects only involve primitive productions (furs, and buckskins, and rawhides) I can't say a whole lot about the fancy electric tools used in modern taxidermy, but I do know that an exacto or dermasafe is an excellent tool for working faces of critters so as to preserve the whiskers. Anyone getting into this sort of hobby field should research what others use and make their own decisions. Dull tools that won't cut through the skin are preferred for fleshing, so won't work at all for skinning or turning caped skins. Just for kicks I have used single-strike flakes from knapping to do a little fleshing.

Initial processing: any blade you have at your disposal
Caping & turning: very sharp blade, usually small enough for detailed work
Fleshing: a dull tool that won't cut the skin you are working

Very contrasting differences in the tools

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## jake abraham

the caping, fleshing I have not got into but I like the info just in case I decide to thanks guys

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## kyratshooter

Knowledge of these actions was once mandatory for guides and packers out west.  In the east we have little use for the knowledge or tools to accomplish it due to the close proximity of the local taxidermist.  His reccomendation is to pack the beast in ice and bring it to him so he can do the job he is trained and we pay him to do and will not have to repair our damage.  I only have one full head mount and it overwhelms the house.  It is now on loan to the LGS where the ceilings are tall and the $#^t deep.

I do flesh hides for tanning but that is done with the same item previously mentioned, an exceedingly dull draw knife and it usually takes place after the hide has soaked and dehaired.

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## Rick

SD - Let me turn this question back to you. You spent a lot of years as a guide so why not share some of that experience and answer the questions you posed for the rest of us?

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