Best way to clean up a poorly preserved skin?

[RDL 0]

 

Not sure on where to put this, or a good topic name, but here goes..

 

Just picked up a wood duck skin, looks like it was a recent kill, it was not taken care of properly It was treated with something, not sure what, but it appears to have turned into small globules of grease, and the worse part is, it have stained much of the feathers yellow :wallbash: . I've tried a mild bath of dish soap, and it did remove some of it.

 

Any thoughts on removing more staining without further damage? anyone have an idea of what was used so i can avoid ever using it? the flesh side is still pretty greasy, but preserved sort of ok... I'm going to pick up some 20 mule team tomorrow, and try to save it as best as possible..

[Sagittarius62 0]

Scott Seymour in his book From Field To Fly, recommends white gasoline AKA camp fuel, as a degreaser. I have only used it on fresh skins, but maybe if you soaked this skin in soapy water a bit to soften it, then scraped it a bit after it softens to get rid of the larger grease globs. Next submerge it in the camp fuel for no more than 5 minutes, squeeze out the excess, and rinse in cool soapy water and redry it. Might work.

[riffleriversteelheadslayer 0]

sounds to me like it wasn't fleshed very well(aka scrapped) as far as staining is concerned try the camp fuel it works wonders

[RDL 0]

 

 

missed the replies, didn't consider white gas, I'll have to rob some lantern fuel from somewhere and give it a shot, I've got it in fair shape now except the stains, about 60% of the yellow stains came out.

 

Thanks for the suggestions.