Fish skulls??

[matt dockstader]

Hey guys, have any of you done any fish skulls I have a guy that wants a few done and I dont really know if I would do it like I would do any other skull or is there any special tricks I should know... Any help would be greatly appretiated! Thanks!
Matt

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[Damon]

I do fish skulls. This is how i do them  and is not the only way or the right way but just what works for me. I remove as much meat from the head as i can and then put it in a dehydrator before giving it to beetles. They are less likely to disarticulate it when dried out or so it seems to me. place it on a piece of cloth or on something to catch the teeth/small bones and watch it closely. Take good reference photos as it is cleaned. once it is cleaned of most meat I degrease with acetone or ammonia. acetone will cause less to disarticulate. Most fish are very greasy and it might take a bit to come out. When it is grease free whiten it and then use your photos to rebuild it. Some of it Will fall disarticulate (if not all of it) but if you have good reference photos it is not too difficult to re articulate and replace teeth with c.a. glue and accelerator to speed things up.
Of course fish are all very different but that's how I do them. I have not found any process that keeps a fish skull "100% intact" through degreasing and whitening.
Hope that helps a little.

[Guus]

I've done only a couple of fish, but I follow the same method as Damon described. Sometimes it works good when you dry the fish in alcohol, it gives more strength to the ligaments. The beetles don't bother the meat afterwards if you only dry it thoroughly before you give it to them. Jean-Christophe and Vkvz have a lot more experience than what I have, hopefully they have time to add some of their knowledge. If you search in their topics you'll find quite some that dealt with fish as well.

Damon, do you have any pictures to post? The previous with the frogs and lizards were quite impressive, would like to see more if you have!

[matt dockstader]

Thanks guys for the advice I will have to give it a try before I do one for a customer...

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[Vkvz]

Jean-Christophe is probably one of the best around when it comes to fish Do a search for fish skulls in this section of the forum and you should get some interesting results.

[Damon]

Damon, do you have any pictures to post? The previous with the frogs and lizards were quite impressive, would like to see more if you have!

I will take progress pictures of a couple of fish I am working on right now and post them when I am done.

[matt dockstader]

Great! Thanks a lot!

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