[KegRiver]

Looking good TFNG. That's a very very good first attempt.

For you guys learning to flesh on your knee, a couple of things that I learned.

First, there will be a color difference just at the leather as you are cutting.
Watch for it and use it as your guide for how aggressive to cut.

I start fleshing along one edge, usually close to a front leg hole, then work my way round the perimeter working in towards the center.

Once fleshed, I sew the pelt into a hoop or nail it onto a board and then scrape it with a dull knife to remove any remaining fat, or as much as I can without too much effort.

Back in the sixties we used to also soap the hide and scrape it three of four times to get every last bit of fat. The results was a very nice looking hide, almost white, without a trace of oil, but we got no more for those hides then we did for hides that had simply been fleshed and scraped, so we quit doing the soaping thing.

Another thing I used to do, that I think is still worth doing. Once dried, I would stack the pelts leather to leather with a double layer of paper towel between the leather faces, to absorb any remaining oil. Id could use the towels two or three times before the became too saturated to use again.

One last thought. watch as you are cutting. You should see a color difference and or a consistency difference when you get the depth of cut right. Learn to recognize these and it will help immensely.
I wish there was more I could tell you about this but it's one of those things you have to see to understand. It can not be properly described.