View Full Version : Best sandpaper around
If you fish by the sea and are lucky enough to catch a dogfish (member of the shark family) Don't throw the skin away. Dry it in a frame and you'll have an excellent sandpaper substitute that virtually lasts forever :-D
Lucky enough?
You ever eaten one.. Bleghhh!!
Caught a few when I was a kid, we ate em too, not bad from memory.
We were fishing off the cornwall coast in a rented boat, the skipper had a dustbin lashed to the deck for the catch and a big wooden table on the deck for prepping the bait, gutting or whatever. Anyway, we started to reel em in thick and fast, there were 6 of us on the boat and I think we caught about12 dogfish, 1 conga and a young blue shark. nWe let the shark go, but kept the dogfish and eel. Having never caught em before, the skipper took em off the hook and demonstrated the abrasive ability of their skin. He rasped a fish on the edge of the table, and damn, if it didn't cut through the wood like a plane.
The dogfish and eel went into the bin. When we got to shore, the conga had eaten big chunks out of some of the dogfish.
Lucky enough?
You ever eaten one.. Bleghhh!!
Inever said EAT the bugger lol :-D Taste of ammonia they do and the flesh needs cutting up and soaking for about 30 hours in multiple changes of water. They still taste cack after that :shock:
I came across a sort of rural / medieval crafts event by the major oak in Sherwood Forest a couple of years ago. There was an interesting chap there (didn't get his name) demonstrating medieval woodworking. He had lots of files made from dogfish skin glued to sticks. Very effective.
FJS90-91
19-02-2004, 15:03
This is a bit of topic, but anyway.. Is clearing skin a thing that we only use in Scandinavia or u guys use it to?
(clearing skin: dried fish skin that we drop in coffee to clear it from chunks of "coffee".. this is an old technique and is not used today when using coffee machines, still some of us use it in the outdoors)
:-? Not something I've heard of before!
FJS90-91
19-02-2004, 15:27
then, how do you get rid of of the "chunks"?
:?:
What chunks? :-)
If I have instant none appear, and proper cofee I use a percowhatsit.