Sorry it took so long guys. I dabbled in taxidermy for awhile and they use a tool to thin capes and such to open up the skin especially around the nose and mouth areas. On bird skin they use a flesher which is a wire wheel to defat the skin and open the pores...this is messy and takes some touch or you'll burn thru the skin. The tool they use around the delicate areas on capes is called a skife knife. You'll see in the pic below how it works, it is basically a single edge razor on a curve and takes a very small bite of flesh. I used it on 12 thighs and not a single hole, you basically start to scrape the skin pulling the knife towards you and just keep making passes til all the fat is removed. They run about $10.00 and I did all the skins on one blade in about 20 mintues.
It may be kind of hard to see in the pic, but do a google search for skife knife and a better pic and info is available. Mine is a C.S. Osborne & Co. #925
