When I got the elk/moose hide for my coracle this autumn I was lucky enough to come in time to also secure two legs and two ears as well. To prepare the hide for stretching it on the coracle I decided to make a cannon bone flesher. After skinning the leg and taking off sinew and cartilage with a sharp flint flake the bone was scored on the inside of the depression where the main tendons are placed.
After scoring about half way through I gave it an indirect blow, with my antler hammer on a chisel. Predictability wasn't of the essence here so the rather rough edges didn't bother me.
The marrow and bone splinters was fished out of the bonecavity with sticks and the edges smoothed and sharpened with a flake.
The hide was skinned very poorly and lots of big chunks of meat was stuck on the hide. To remove them, the only possible way was using a sharp flake to make a starting cut and rip the chunks off. This tool comes in to use when removing the small pieces of flesh and the membrane, something that wasn't neccesary on the hide for the coracle. So this tool remains largely unused.
I got to test it on removing the inner bark of the fleshing beam of pine. It is probably excellent for taking of alder bark for tanning. Is likely to shred it at the same time!
