Best way to stretch out a molt?

[Nismo75]

My P. ornata recently molted, just to ask the best way to stretch out the molt for pics so i can find out sex.

Ta

[george dobson]

im getting pretty good at this now, i had to do my subfusca yesterday, and by the looks of it its female , i get tweezers and start rught at the top of the abdomen then scrape downwards towards the spinneretes, then it suddenly will open up, its kind of hard to explain, but if you understand my drift you should be able to sex it fine, how big is the molt by the way ?, they have to be a certain size before you can do it easily

[Willenium]

When the spider is a decent size it is quite easy to spread the abdominal skin out but for juveniles I personally find it very tricky and usually end up wrecking the skin. You need a very sharp tipped tool to carefully separate the folds and then you can slowly unravel it.

[Poxicator]

Put your moult into a cricket tub with some kitchen towel damped with some warm water. 5-10 mins will be fine and rehydrate the moult making it less brittle.
You can take the moult and peel it over your finger with the inside facing you, positioning the area around the book lungs at the top of your finger. Or you can carefully open the abdomen on a surface. You may need a magnifying glass if the sex isnt obvious but you need to find the slit between the four book lungs (white areas). Its this slit (the epigastric furrow) and the spermathecea above it that indicates male or female. You're looking for 2 protrudents to indicate a female on a leaflike shape above the slit.