I'm wanting to mount my first trout. I've done a couple repoductions and the painting I am getting good at. But I see alot of people selling reproduction heads and saying to use reprocution fins because of the grease. How does it affect the mount. It seems to me that people have been mounting trout and salmon forever. Everytime I mention doing something fish related on this board people tell me to cast the fish because of grease. Well I like to use the real thing if possible. Ordering a reproduction trout head and blending it onto my manikin just seems like a lot of trouble and is less desirable to me. So far none of the bass and bluegill have started to degrade on me. Will they? What is this grease and how do degreasing solvents work.
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Repos are fine as you get better and look for higher quality! For a beginner real fins are just fine, I dont care what anyones says, they work well even for experienced Taxidermsit. Just degrease remove as much fin but material as you can, now get more out. Degrease in any good water based degreaser> Volital degresers are not needed for most trout.
Here is a easy way to make repo fins, practice on bass fins from the back side of fish.
with a bed of paper pulp or HI-FIB, bed the fin after a dip in aliminum sulfate to kill the slime, rinse with acetone to remove the water. Now pour a one inch thick coat of plaster, watching close before the plaster heats, turn it over remove bedding being careful not to disrupt fins. staple carde board around the edges and coat the first layer with liqiud soap, Dawb is fine or Ivory, what ever you have on hand. POUR your second layer about one inch thick. Once set and it heats, carefully remove the cardboard dam from the edge, find the mold parting line and wedge apart with wooden wedges. remove all parts.
now you can either drill a sprue hole to the base of fin or cut it with a dremal tool.
You can cast them using Chicago 501 latex, without any further work on the mold, or dry and seal wax and cast with your choice of resins, polyester, flex resin (WASCO) even casting resins like enviortex will work. OR HOT GLUE, but be warned hot glue will warp under exposure to Laq. paints and retarders.
Jason,
As far as heads go, trout are terribly greasy. However, they can be mounted. The trick is you have to cut the top half of the head off, rebuild this area, and then seal the head with a good sealant. This can be accomplished, and turn out a beautiful mount, but if you don't get all the grease and oil out, it will leak over time. Many wonderful taxidermists do this expertley, but others opt for the artificial head. I myself use artificial heads on all my trout, but you may choose not to. Its personal preference. As far as most other fish go, bass, etc, they should be degreased of course, but the real head works fine.
Good luck.