my dads best buck

[Jackson Marsh]

Great idea Muddy!

[ Post made via Android ]

[MOBIGBUCKS]

That's awesome Muddy!!

I'd like to get into taxidermy as well, but I need more work space to do so.

That mount will be very special sitting on your wall.

[muddy]

Well, we're set to do the majority of the form roughing, clay setting, and placement of the cape NEXT Tuesday. If a mod could move this to the Taxidermy forum that'd make it a lot easier to keep tabs on for myself. Already a few pages back in the Deer forum. Thanks.

[Stanley]

Well, we're set to do the majority of the form roughing, clay setting, and placement of the cape NEXT Tuesday. If a mod could move this to the Taxidermy forum that'd make it a lot easier to keep tabs on for myself. Already a few pages back in the Deer forum. Thanks.

We'll see what we can do for you on moving the thread.

[muddy]

This may get long. I was pretty impressed by how fast a mount can go IF a taxidermist wants to crank them out. I went over to my buddies last night and we got everything prepped to get started. Bondo'd the skull cap so it would fit, drilled holes to screw it to the form, and bondo'd the nose piece. Got everything flushed up and looking good. Then we used a rasp type tool and roughed the entire form so the glue had something to grab hold of. Brian was pretty excited about the cape quality so he was keeping a really close eye on me because he may use this as a show piece next February/March. The coloring of the cape was excellent and there was no tick or drag damage for once. The cape is off the buck I shot last fall.

[muddy]

Next I roughed up the ear plugs and we marked where they would set on the form. I decided to put the left ear back and the right ear forward to try and even the head up due to a missing right browtine. Probably over thinking this process but I am REALLY picky on every aspect of my deer mounts and Brian also mentioned that this is pretty crucial to be so anal if a guy ever wants to get into taxidermy. Always think outside the box. MOST guys don't give a crap about the mount but the guys that will really keep coming back and feeding your name to other hunters are the ones you gotta really impress.

I took that raspy tool to the ear plugs and roughed them up as well so the glue would stick better.


Then we put the cape onto the form before we epoxied the ear buds on. The plastic bag over the mouth/nose parts is there because Brian was worried that the cape would dry out too much before we tucked it into the form.

[muddy]

We got out some epoxy and screws and permanently attached the skull cap... After this part and the placement of the cape I was told that this is the point of no return for the most part. Glue was smeared all over the form before we put it on and now that the horns were on removal of the cape would be extremely difficult and even worse to get cleaned back up.




After the horns we rotated the form around and marked out where we wanted the ear buds and then remarked where we wanted the epoxy line. Mixed the epoxy and set them both, this took about 15 minutes as we wanted to be sure to let it set up good.



After the glue we rolled pencil thin "worms" of clay to the circumference of the ear buds and started smoothing out the hard edges and filling in the cracks around the ears. This was a lot like 3rd grade art class clay day. We then did similar "worming" on the eye lids. The process of putting the eyes in was neat. We used reference pictures and Brian showed me how to level up the form so that you get the pupils centered the right way for whatever form you're using. He showed me where the highest point of the deers eyelid usually is, how to taper the clay the way the eyelid travels, and how to form up each eye together, rather than individually. He did the left eye and left ear, I did the right eye and right ear. In the pics they'll appear opposite because of how the pics were taken. I did pretty good for my first time and he let me do the majority of the critique and we eventually got it all evened out. The following pics were taken before it was evened out.

[muddy]

These pics were taken as we evened out the balance between each top eye area as well as the bottom. This took awhile because I was being pretty critical of myself, but we finally got it done.

[Jackson Marsh]

Cool!

[ Post made via Android ]

[muddy]

Once the eye area and ear areas got smoothed over to where Brian was happy we glued the head/face up and prepared to bring the cape up over the nose. Brian was pretty careful, yet not careful with the glue. Not enough and you get air pockets, too much and you get glue pockets. He also didn't want to get glue where he would do the stitching because sewing thru glue is HORRIBLE. Stretching that cape up and on was harder than I expected, but there are so many neat little tools and tricks of the trade that it went as smooth as can be.




Derrrr..

[muddy]

Then Brian showed me how easy it was to tuck the mouth. He said whitetails are the easiest to mount because everything on them lays a specific way and all you have to do is follow the body contours. Get the nose on straight, line if up the forehead, and start tucking. There was a reference point in the corner of the mouth that he put in right away after the nose tip and that was because most capes have more material than there is on the form and you need to tuck the excess in. It was pretty neat to see that excess skin get stuck in and tucked up. He did the top pretty quick then flipped that sucker and did the bottom.

[muddy]

Then we lined up the "rosetta" on the chest (the brisket muscle) and then lined up the arm pits and tacked them into place with a staple gun. The paper towels helped protect the hair from the staples, it worked really slick. Then we started to tack the cape around onto the back of the form and cut off excess cape with a scalpel.

[Southern Man]

Pretty cool Muddy

[muddy]

Next came basic tucking of the eyelids. He didn't let me near this part. He had a custom "tool" made from a pin and a glob of epoxy for this. It's a PITA to do this, but only because it's meticulous. I really wanted to try it but listened to the professional at this point. Brian explained that on the inside of a deer eye is a gland (the brown spot) and that was his reference point. He'd drill a hole in the corner of the eye area on the form and use a pin thru that gland to set the eye. He always starts there, works around the top, and then back along the bottom during eye tucking. When the form is dry enough he just pushes that pin into the form and you never see it. At this point the mount started to come "alive".

[muddy]

After basic mouth, ear, and eye setting we sewed the cape up on the top of the head. As it tightened up we had to tuck the glue, epoxy, and other materials under the cape and sew a little more. Tuck and sew, tuck and sew, and finally epoxy the last bit and finish the stitch. There was a special 2 part clay epoxy up around the antlers I forgot to mention, it was important to get it tucked in nicely. Then the stitching down the back took place and he showed me how to stitch so you'd never see or feel the stitchings. This isn't a big deal to most people but Brian was pretty anal about his work. As I stated before, he'd rather do 30 master work mounts over 100 good mounts. He doesn't do this for a living, he does it for a fun hobby and like any hobby he doesn't halfassed it. Once all the stitching was done we combed and smoothed stuff out. If there was a glue pocket we hand smoothed it around. If there was an air pocket we used a syringe to suck it out, while at the same time pushing excess glue into that area. It was pretty neat at this point because the mount all of a sudden "popped".