Earbutts tutorial

[Hoss.]

Just to start thing off I learned this from Gene Smith.
Though I would post this to help anyone who was having trouble ear butt. It helped me.

first off take your earliners and score them with a knife so the adhesive can stick to them.

Add a little clay to were ears are going to be.

stick some clay around the butt of the earliners and stick earliners to the form.

slowly add clay to the ear butts. use your reference to learn the muscle detail.



Take a Knife and cut the clay work off.



Take the ears and place them in the freezer.


When you are ready to mount the deer just pull the ears out of the freezer add adhesive and place inside of the ears, and mount.
by the time you are done tucking and sewing the clay has thawed and you can take you modeling tool and add the creases.

hope this helps,
Hoss.

thank you Gene Smith.

[D. Price]

David, I'm curious as to why you cut the form at the back of the head like that, instead of cutting the skull plate?

Also, I think Gene would have a cow if he saw you just score the liners with a knife.  He would sand every inch of that liner with sandpaper and wipe down with acetone.

[Hoss.]

I couldn't maneuver the skull plate to to cut it on my band saw so I just cut the form. I need to buy a bigger band saw. It's OK I can I can fix it

I did the scoring verses sanding and I like scoring. The sanded one pull the hide pulled away on the inside. I am going to sand the edges thin.

I could go back to bondo ears...lol

[HOCKEYMAN]

i thank that is a grate idle.that is going to help people. i used bondo when i learned.  i have problems getting the earliners to fit in the ear.i feel like i am going to rip the ear out.if i can fix my problem i will give this a try.thanks for the post.

[Hoss.]

take measurement from your ears and cut to fit.

[Kittrell Hill (Tuggy)]

I do my ears this way also but I take a dremal tool and sand the edges of the ear and keep test fitting until it fits then I sand the whole liner down  before I doing the clay work. I use acetone on the liner and the cape before using any paste

[D. Price]

Well, I use this method also, as far as the clay work and freezing, anyway.  I know Gene frowns on this, but I dip my earliner in lacquer thinner for about 30 seconds. Then as soon as I take it out I sprinkle fresh clean sawdust all over it and hang it to dry.   after the liner has dried I take a small wire brush and brush the liner removing all loose sawdust, when done you will have a thin layer of dust/powder stuck to the surface or the liner. The thinner softens the outer layer and allows the sawdust to stick and give it a rough surface for the hide paste to adhere to.

Works for me, give it a try, it may work for you also.  I use this method on Eppley 360 ears. I'm not sure if it will work on all earliners.

Oh yeah, I will add I do wipe my ear skin down with acetone before inserting the liner.

[Hoss.]

thanks D I will try the saw dust.

[George Roof]

The tutorial is nice Hoss, but IN MY OPINION, it's wrong.  That ear butt is way too big and sets too far away from the manikin.  The inner ear bulb should be INSIDE the manikin.  Also the muscle line on top of the ear butt is a continuation of the form and should be more pronounced than the lower one.

[D. Price]

Hoss, I think these pic from Becky P. will show what George is trying tho explain.

http://www.taxidermy.net/forum/index.php/topic,50748.msg306867.html#msg306867

[Hoss.]

Thanks George.

these earliners were the 360 Eppley earliners that did have the ball on the end of them and the little ball would normally set and lock inside of a ear base, not the butt of the earliner.  

I was just doing what the Eppley ears were designed for minus the ear base and the ear butts

[George Roof]

Still a good tutorial Hoss.  That's the way I learned years ago when we started using clay instead of papier mache for the ear butts.

[Bill Yox]

Take those liners and simply scuff them with a scotch brite pad, smear some glue on, and apply. Some solvents actually leave behind a worse residue than what you are looking to remove. The biggest mistake with that type of liner is over texturing, as in sanding too deeply.

[Glen Conley]

I'll be Zee Azz Hoe and point out how certain critical measurements can be determined.  You will need calipers, ruler, or equivalent, some one that can read a ruler would be helpful, and an accumulation of deer heads to be measured.

What you will want to establish is how WIDE are the average deer's head from one side to the other.  That hole in the skull where the ear once was is the fixed focal point.  And don't forget, the nose to eye is another stable point that becomes a permanant part of that deer's record.  These ear liner makers have put a handy reference point on the artificial ear, that's the V in the ear, or the conch if you're into proper names.  Those measurements and a little math will give you the thickness of the ear muscles at this point, all you have to do is shape them properly.

The tutorial is nice Hoss, but IN MY OPINION, it's wrong.  That ear butt is way too big and sets too far away from the manikin.  The inner ear bulb should be INSIDE the manikin.  Also the muscle line on top of the ear butt is a continuation of the form and should be more pronounced than the lower one.

 Are you trying to say the scuto-auricularis is missing?

[George Roof]

Hell Glen, I didn't even know it was afflicted.