I just got in a deer cape and the customer had it rolled up and froze solid so I couldn't inspect it while he was at my shop. he told me it had a bullet burn high on the shoulder. he was black powder hunting by the way. I have only done about 10 deer and can fix most of the problems i have had thanks to people like you helping us rookies out. antway I don't know how to fix this one. I thawed it out and the bullet burn or what ever it is , is about 3 inches wide and 6 inches long . you can see where the bullet grazed the skin and there is absolutely no hair in the 4" x 6" area. is it fixable. I was going to cut it out with the football shaped cut but thought that it might not line up good or really knock the neck size down in that area to a point where the form would have to be altered. Keep in mind that this is a monster deer for my area and alot of people will be checking this out for some time. I just want to make sure it is perfect. so john c ,b bishop, george, please help with this thanks. p.s. anyone else that has an Idea please post also just those three have probably forgot more about taxidermy than I will ever know.
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If you have enough cape that will allow you to remove it. Cut it so that the hair from the front will over lap, use small stitches and small needle. You may even what to remove a bit of foam from the form and use a lot of glue to set the seam in.
I would cut it out and sew it back. I would also elect to maybe a wall pedestal mount and put that side to the back. you should be able to cut your foot ball hole length from top to bottom and it will pull the skin from back of cape instead of cutting horizontal whitch would pull skinn tight around neck. You could also cut a piece from the back of cape and sew into place, but I personally havn't had much luck with this.
john c , i have alot of cape but maybe I didn't get precise enough on the location. it is the front upper part of the shoulder wher it starts and then go up into the neck another 4". If that gives ya a better idea of where it is, it sounded from your answer thet maybe you thought it was farther back on the shoulder. thanks alot guyz, shawn
shawn just something to think about. i recently had a costumer with a mule deer that he brought in and it was in a cardboard box all frozen and wrap in dry ice with just the horns sticking out it look as if this guy really knew what he was doing he said "we've done this before and know what we are doing" but the cape was a mess they draged all the hair off of one side and a little off the other.cut to short you name it. after calling and explaining that somethings just cant be fixed he insisted that we mount it any way and do the best we could. it looked like $hit. he was happy, he got "his" deer back. however every time one of his friends ask who did that he will say i did it and i am not happy with it.after his friends start picking it apart he won't like it any more and he will not say he is the one that screweed it up but that you did. another piece like that will never go out of this shop again. if they insist you use the junk they bring and the result will be unsatisfactory have them come and get it and let them go elsewhere. if you can talk the guy into a new cape. just my two cents worth.
Mark