You might want to skim through this entire thread and glean what you can. It seems to me that working with bulbs that are already into active growth may not work well because the bulb is feeding the new stem/growth. I've never tried it at that stage so can't say for sure. Potted lilies in the stores now are well into the season's growth.
Get some new bareroot bulbs in the fall since they will have gone through the season's growth already.
When you pull scales off you want to get as much basal plate along the lower edge as you can.
