WING"TIPS" # 23 Lamellae ''transfer''

[wingman]

Hello! Wow it's been a while since I have had an opportunity to put up another wingtips, I have  a couple ready and  just need the time to put them up BUT there is just to much going on this summer to have much ''free'' time to sit in front of the computer. The next tip is on curling feathers and I will try to post that in the next week or so, ANYWAY this Wingtip is on ''transferring'' duck teeth  or lamellae onto an artificial head, I am going to rely on the pictures to best describe the process but the short and sweet of it is to remove the ''teeth'' , dremel a slot for them in the artificial head superglue them in postion and paint. Do not let them dry out, I keep them moist right up until they get glued in place the whole process takes about ten to fifteen minutes and works great on Gads,Shovelers,Barrows ETC. any duck with large lamellae. The following pics should show the process adequately! GOOD LUCK!!

[wingman]

MORE 

[wingman]

And the last ones 

[James Parrish]

AWESOME...can't wait to try this technique.   

[Tereza Revis]

That's great wingman.  I could do this especially on shovelers.  They are the hardest one for me to mold and cast.  I could also, take the lamellae out of the shoveler first, then mold it, so I don't need to dremel out that area. Meanwhile, I keep the lamellae in the freezer with water.  I have extra shovler bills to try out.  Thanks.

[Rick RR GBirds]

Very Nice Eugene...I will be using that one over the weekend!  Good to hear from you man!

Rick

[Jeff Sonner]

Great tip. Thanks.

[hambone]

Good to see you back keep up the good work hows the foot? Hambone

[Versa Max]

Thanks for the great tip Wingman!

It's a pretty cool idea and at the same time I have to ask myself WHY?

I do not want to start a big debate or sound like a kill joy.  I am just looking at this from the other side of the coin.  There is so much discussion in the forum about how to make things simpler and faster to increase profitability.  This just adds more steps to the finished product.  I can see this being a huge benefit for competition work, I just don't see it being a profitable venture for customer work.  There are very few customers that would even know to appreciate this effort.  The only thing that is left is to drop in some nasal posts.

This is just my 2 cents worth, that's all.

Keep up the great tips!

[RWTaxidermy]

Wingman

 I have never mounted any waterfowl as yet, but I do have a fairly large Canadian in the freezer that I will be mounting in the near future for a Competition piece, will this process also work for Canadian Geese?

[wingman]

Skip, I wholeheartedly agree with you BUT for some it can be a way to ''step up'' or perhaps for personal pieces. I only do this on my own pieces and customer mounts with birds which ''require'' it because of the type of lamellae they have. RW , a GOOD Canada cast should NOT require this process as the ''teeth'' mold in quite well.

[taxos]

excellent wingman!

[BigSwede]

Great idea wich I definitley willl try. Very instructive pictures, thank you for sharing.

B S

[taxos]

SKIP: I think this should be done in every bird that needs the lamelles to show. As does every mounted bird needs artificial eyerings. Otherwise you'd better make a study skin.

[jeremy]

Thanks for the tip, I like having options like this. I think as taxidermist we always have to be ready to over come any obstacles that stand in the way of putting out a good mount { ie: the recent post on the wigeon that was dropped and had a broken neck }. I think this type of information is just one more tool in the tool belt to get the job done in needed. say you had a shoveler that you tried to cast and botched the lamella its not a lost cause if you know this trick instead of losing a day to cast another or 3 days waiting to order it. Great Job keep em coming.