Mounting an African Blesbok Sh Mt by John Griffith

[Big John]

I will now secure that skin up by using paneling nails.  I drive several of these all around the horn once sewing is completed.  When sewing this type of skin I use just a simple baseball stitch.  This will work but you got to make sure each stitch in done correctly.  Like entering from underneath and keeping the distance 1/4 in or less apart and keeping each stitch very tight.

[Big John]

Well, we are just about finished.  Once you sew up the back and adjust your brisket and secure the skin to the back side with a staple gun you are finished with the mounting process.  As you can see this was a very simple mount to do.  Hope you enjoyed the process.  Many Thanks.

John Griffith
www.griffithtaxidermy.com
Stearns, Kentucky

[wtd]

John , very informative thank you for your time and talent
Tom

[Russ of V.O.W.T]

what, no finish work    see ya in a few weeks John.  now i dont know whether to bring my blesbok or not LOL

[Jerry Huffaker]

Great Tutorial John, but you used the wrong color eyes. I know the McKenzie book say red Brown, but Blesbok have a much lighter eye than that. I've shot several of these guys and their eyes are more yellow.

[Big John]

Jerry,

                            Yeah these eyes are rather controversial when you look at them.  I looked at one of my photo reference and when I looked at it it appeared to be reddish brown and looked like what I had in stock so I used it.  I value your expertise on these since you have killed so many and I will try to use that last one you postedwhen I mount another one.  Thanks a million for that input.  Who knows I might be color blind.....  ha.. hope not....


John Griffith

[Jerry Huffaker]

One of the problems I have is , the yellow brown eyes are sometimes too bright yellow. To me, they actually land some where in between the eye colors that are available.

[ed150]

nice job

[michael p.]

John, that was GREAT!   Thank you!

[outdoors man]

Very nice job thanks for that!

[murph]

John,
          AWESOME mount....... we will be talking....LOL

            Thanks Buddy!
                               Lance!

[John Bellucci]

The eye color actually varies from individual to individual in both species.

This is a dark-eyed Blesbok;


This is a dark-eyed Bontebok.


So to me, both eye colors are correct.  The same is true in the Wildebeest.  Now there's a mammal with several subspecies, and a range of eye color for them all!

John.