Abstract

Skin boards are a pair of wooden boards used during skin harvesting to flatten the surface and ease the passage of the oncoming skin knife. The skin board is used to tense the skin by pressing the board against the skin and then pulling the two boards apart therefore creating a tension on the skin and flattening the surface. For the easy passage of the knife a lubricant is used on the skin (example Vaseline). The conventional skin boards scrape away most of this lubricant while stretching the skin. A modification has been made to the conventional skin boards by adding small channels on the surface of the board which lets lubricant slide through it and thus the lubricant remains on the skin to be harvested. This modification does not reduce the capacity of the skin board to tense the skin and provides a flat well lubricated surface for the skin knife to pass.

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