I have a whitetail ear that was completely cut from the middle of the ear to the outer edge. Do I turn the ear completely opening the cut up; or do I stay a 1/8in. away from the cut leaving the skin attached in that area. Also what would work best with this ear: an ear liner or the bonded method. Thanks in advance, Alan.
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You always need to turn the ear completly. This will help keep shrinkage to a minimum. You have to charge extra for work your gonna need to do. This is because you will either need to sew up cut or you can do the super glue trick. I prefer to sew ear cuts simply because I feel that the super glue makes the repair area rigid and not very flexable.
When I sew I use very fine mono-filament fly tying line. Then once the mount is dry I take a soidering iron and just touch it to the treads to make them disappear. I don't worry about the backside of the ear because the hair should be covering those stiches up.
For the superglue method I have used pieces of dryer sheets. You can even use very thin strips of hide if you have a skife knife or some way of cutting a thin slice of the cape. Then spead some glue around the cut on the side that will touch the earliner and, after aligning the cut together, press the pre-cut piece of dryer sheet to that area. This method is most likly faster but like I said it makes the skin around repair area a little to rigid for my taste. Hope this helps.
Both methods will work in this case if repair the work was done soundly. Which method you use is up to you. Both methods have pros and cons, but I prefer to use the earliner method myself. My low-end mounts do have the bondo method in them though, but I use TigerHair for that because it has the fiber glass already in it.