Okay....since I am fairly new to this and I tend to be a perfectionist, my last deer head mounting process took 16 hours from the time I pulled the cape from the fridge until it was complete on the form. I was so tired towards the end and I made a couple of mistakes. So, my next one is going to be a competetion piece and I thought about doing this in two stages. Of course I would prep the form beforehand, set eyes, antlers. But, I thought about rehydrating the cape and then I would thin it the next morning and remove the ear cartilage (this took me about 5 hours the first time). After I did this, I would measure the cape to order the correct form (I purchased the cape). Finally, I would freeze it until I was ready to mount it by putting it in the refridgerator the night before. See any problems with my thought process? Thank you.
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I do it if I need to measure a cape after it's tanned. Pull it out of the freezer the night before you're going to mount it and it should be ready to go
I can only go by the information that you gave, so I might be wrongly assuming part of this. But from what you said, you are basically a beginner.I don't want to discourage you, but Please consider my suggestion and my reasons----Wait a while before you do this mount. you need to get more experience before you do a competition mount, if it took you 16 hours to do the last one, it might take you twice that long to do a deer suitable for a competition, and I can assure you that the judges will be perfectionists also. why dont you do a few more deer first---I promise you that you will get faster with experience(my first Bass took 12 hours, now it takes less than 1). then you wont feel so hurried and you can spend more time making your deer perfect.
Good luck,
Dave
The thought process sounds good and you could even break it down further by setting the ear butts including all the muscle structure with epoxy sculpt or other two part epoxy and then cutting them off at the form.
I would encourage the competition thing as you never can do this at the wrong time. Just remember to use as much reference as possible and don't do anything that requires extreme difficulty.(radical form alterations, specialty poses where the eyes have extreme rotation, etc.) Try to keep it simple at first. There is so much knowledge to be gained at one of these comventions that could take years of trial and error to obtain. And there is no sense in going just to go, because once you get there you will be asking yourself, "Why didn't I bring a piece or two myself". But whatever you do use this as a tool of learning ... not for an ego trip.
I appreciate all of the suggestions. I was going to set the ear butts in Apoxie Sculpt this time and cut them off before they fully harden. I have some refernce and I'm adding more as I go. I plan on entering the competition for the learning experience. The only other thing I may try is Epo Grip instead of Buckeye Supreme. I just hope I have enough time to taxi everything exactly where I want it.