Greetings Matty,
Your post has been out there for a while and I had hoped someone else would have answered the question, but it is fairly complex. The basic problem was that Akeley didn't really write down any real details of what became the "Akeley technique". There is more than likely a few reasons for this, the first of which is that the technique was a conglomeration of techniques used by many taxidermists at the time. The second basic reason is that there isn't really a detailed technique that stayed the same - what I mean by this is that if you took apart an Akeley mount from 1902 and then took apart another mount from 1908, and one from 1918, they are all different. The materials used would vary from Plaster and burlap, to papier mache, paper strips, pure plaster, hardware cloth, sisal and plaster, and other materials. There were sculptors working on both sides of the Atlantic by 1900 creating works of art that animal hides were placed on, and the sculpted pieces were as good as Akeley was at the time. Akeley got better as he did more sculpting, as would anyone with great talent. People were in communication more than you might figure back then, and hints of a new technique here or there would spread, and multiple people work to improve the methods used. Akeley ultimately got credit for it, but many taxidermists, in truth, had a part in it, and even now there are ways to improve the way it is done.
This post has pictures that can give you a rough idea of the way the mounts were done by a sculpted piece than being broken down into respective pieces and reassembled.
Zebra post
http://www.taxidermy.net/forum/index.php?topic=220184.0This summer I hope to look into the subject a little bit. If you really did a lot of research into the Akeley story, you undoubtedly saw pictures of the doe that was mounted by James L. Clark at the Field Museum when he visited there to learn the methods Akeley used in mounting large mammals. That mount still exists, though it is not at the AMNH which sent Clark to the Field Museum. The hide is in pieces from what I understand - Akeley and Clark may not have had the best hide handling technique at the time, as tanning and skin care is as important to preserving a taxidermy piece as the underlying manikin. If you look at the taxidermy pieces created at the large museums from 1905 to 1915, some pieces hold up very well, while others are showing a lot of wear and tear. Some of the differences are the prevailing weather systems in the various museums, but none had climate control for the following 60 years, so the ultimate skill and measurement of a great taxidermist is how these pieces held up over time. A taxidermy piece may look great for the first few months, but how it looks 100 years later is the true test.
John Janelli wrote a bit about Clarke here:
http://www.taxidermy.net/forums/IndustryArticles/04/b/0427987AD9.htmlAside from the few articles mentioned in these posts, there are others that attempt to summarize the Akeley method - for example Rowley's 1925 book which mentions most of the techniques available at the time.
Contact me offline should you wish.
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