Cleaning Fish & Repair

[laserred]

I have 2 mounted fish that were given to me, they are probably around 20 years old.  They are very dusty and grimy and some of the fins are broke on the ends.  I know nothing about fish (yet anyway) Is there a way I can fix the fins easily and is there a good way to clean the dust and grime off without doing any damage.

[Rick Krane]

Hey laserred!

That is always a tough one when it comes to cleaning and fixing old fish but not any thing that can't be done with a few steps.
I would be direct some info toward you if I could see the fish but lets go over the fish in general.
The first thing I typically do is blow the fish off with my aircompressor to remove most of the big dust.
Next I carefully wash the fish done in warm soapy water. You must be carefull with step as in some cases you can rehydrate the fins or even the skin. I once again take air to the fish to quickly dry it off.
The fish should be fairly clean at this point. Next I would assess the fins. If need be I would replace them. If they are fixable you can repair them in numerous ways. Rick Carter has a neat article in this issues of breakthrough.
Once you get the fins squared away you will want to regloss the fish. Because full again as you don't in most cases know what it was glossed with in the first place ( some glosses will not be compatible. ).

I would make sure that the comminaction is very upfront and throughly with your customer. Time is money and your talent has value as well or they would be cleaning and fixing the fish them self.

I hope this may help in some way.
My Best!
Rick Krane

[Fish Whisperer]

I will add to Rick's answer.

  If the paint job is really bad underneath the dirt and grime after it is cleaned up; the fish could be stripped with paint stripper and repainted.

Just another option.

Slick

[Bill4bass]

I don't mean to sound to simplistic but I had the same problem on some old fish that I had (17 years old) that I had done when I had a beginning business. All I used was Endust over the entire fish. I used a cotton swab to get down into the hard to reach places and then completely cleaned it off with a lint free cloth. I then coated it with my personal choice of wet look finish and it came back I thought even better than before. Endust is not a wax and I have not had any problems with the finish since I completed it last winter. Repainting may be necessary, but for those that don't need it, it works well for me. Bill