I just got a reproduction bluecat and the fins look horribly fake. I saved the real fins and tail and was wondering what would be a good way to attach and blend them onto the repo body? Also what is a good material to make barbels out of? I was thinking about wire with epoxy but something flexible might be nice.
Thanks,
Jason
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Well, lets see. I would drill small holes in the position where the fin roots will adhere and drill and pin the authentic fins in place. Then I would use sculpall to blend them in, and texture the jucture. As bor the barbels, you could get some 50# test fishing line, and give it a good coating of Fish fin cream you can actually stick the line into the tube end and withdraw it. It should give you a nice tapered look. When painted, it will also give a nice fleshy appearance. Hope this helps
Tom
On a personal note those fins you have are loaded with grease. I would rather say don't use the real ones. They will bleed in time. I did a little experiment on some cat fins and after a year of drying they still bled grease when I poked a hole in them. You may be better off and sand them down a bit to get them to look more natural.
As for the wiskers I use sculp-all.
Frank is right about those fins. If you have the fins then you must have also had the entire fish. I would have done my own repro and guaranteed a quality mount. If you have not dried the fins why not go ahead and mold/cast them yourself. Check the archives there is alot of info on molding there.
Too late for the whole fish. The big bugger fed my family for about 10 meals. But I do stil the fins in tact in the freezer so I could mold them. I'll look into molding them, or sanding down and shaping the edges to make the repro fins look more real.
Thanks,
Jason
In one of the latest trade mags there was an article on cats(repos) and the taxidermist used goose quills blended them into the head with a scuplting epoxy and painted them.A lamp was used to heat them slightly and bend to the desired "waving in the water "look
Do you remember the magazine? And which issue. I'd like to see a copy of that article.
Jason
The cat repro article was in the "Breakthrough" summer issue. It has a stringer of smallmouth bass on the cover.