I am currently attempting my first fish mount (a largemouth).While I was trying to clean out the cheeks I tore out the eye sockets at the bottom. The tool seemed to be too big for the sockets and as I applied pressure they tore. How can I fix this and prevent it from happening again? I was using a fish skinning knife.
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What I do is use some kind of instrument which can be a scapel, membrane seperator(sold by Jim Hall) etc. and carefully seperate the skin from the meat till I get to the cheek bone.
Now to get the meat out I use a tool that clay sculptors use. It's a wooden tool that has metal on both ends. They are shaped like a closed horseshoe and the other end is triangle shaped. It comes in different sizes so it can be used on different size fish. This is a great toll for it will take all of the meat out without tearing the skin. But like with all tools you still need to be careful when you get near the cheek bone.
Thanks for the hint on the clay working tool. Now does anyone know how to fix the torn eye sockets?
You should be able to repair the torn area with epoxy, just like you would rebuild other shrunken or damaged areas. There are several brands of two-part epoxy that you can use, everyone seems to have there personal favorite. Just smooth over the cheek area to restore it's original shape.