Hi, I used Barge. I made a couple of belts and a hat band out of Copperhead skins. A lady I work with raises hunting dogs so she kills quite a few every year. Buy a decent bottle of tanning solution for reptile skins and be gentle. The skins are pretty fragile. You'll need a cheap board to pin the skins on while tanning them. I used stick pins to stretch the skins a little bit.
What ever snake you off to get the skin, freeze it solid before you start cutting it up. Copperheads give birth to live kids, but at least there's are big enough to see. Rattlesnakes I believe have smaller ones but they still have potent poison.
This is the hatband on a hat modeled after Wayne's in the Shootist. The black stitches are where the hoe went through the snake.
Later