what is dry preserve? can I make it myself? Is it just Borax?
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Its probably mostly borax.
Its also crap.
Get your capes tanned and be a real taxidermist!
Dry preservative (DP) is not simply borax. Borax is a cleaning and anti-fungal agent, but it is not a preservative in itself. A true preservative is an antioxidant, meaning an agent that prevents bacterial growth that is associated with rotting or spoiling of meat and other fiberous tissue or rancidity in fats and oils.
A true "preservative" should be composed of a number of elements and compounds that prevent bacterial deterioation. The canned and prepared foods we eat are full of the antioxidants. Most of the common types used as food preservatives will also work in taxidermy where skins are concerned.
Some of these compounds are cheap and simple to locate, others are relatively cheap, but must be purchased in large quantities from the makers. Some specialty suppliers do carry the materials, but the prices reflect the breakdown and handling and profit associated with this type of small quantity purchase.
Common materials are Potassium Sorbate or Sorbic Acid, used as a preservative in canning and other food processes. Sodium Benzoate is also available from specialty shops. Vitamin C (Ascorbic acid) and Vitimin E (Tocopherol) is also available from comestic supply and soap supply vendors. Both vitamin C and E are natural antioxidents and will preserve tissue.
Commercial antioxidants (preservatives) that are available are Hydroxytoluene (BHT), Butylated hydroxyanlisol (BHA) and Thoxyquin. All of these are used under the names or initials in many foods. Most dog food, both dry and moist, contains Thoxyquin. It is a suspected carcinigen, but only when ingested by the pound!
I would suppose that any dry preservative mix should include borax as a basic embodier because of it's cheap price and one or more of the other ingredients. The biggest enemy of untanned skins is rehydration which will set up the diner for all sorts of fungi and bacterial forms to thrive and attack the tissue. Preservatives prevent this from happening. This does mean to indicate in any way that the use of preservatives to inhibit bacterial or fungal growth replaces tanning.
What amounts and proportions should you use? Lord knows. I would check some food recipe sites and let the suggested volume be the rule for additions. I would think that small amounts of any of the above, or all of the above (they are non-reactive) added to borax in a 5% by weight proportion, (95% borax - 5% antitoxin) would make a "good" dry preservative......if there is any such thing.
Talc is the major ingrediant in the commercial dry preserves. Plain borax would be my choice instead of trying to make my own DP.
Real Taxidermists can use Dp instead of being lazy and getting it tanned can do that blind folded won a many blue ribbons using Dp im not lazy dont mind the work dont cut down dp unless your familier with it know how to use it if you do right it works fine have mounts 15 to 20 years old still like new
And the debate rages on....
Well what do you know Chris must be a REAL taxidermist!
Thank you for your thoughts. I just finished my first mount, a squirrel. I used dp and the kit from WASCO. I had a little trouble with the feet but all in all it turned out ok. I will try to tan my next mount, an 8 point deer a friend is letting me have. if any one has any more suggestions on dp or tanning I would like some help. e-mail me. thanks again for the help. A truely intersted beginner
Why must the DP and tanning always elicit debate? Both are valid methods used in taxidermy for centuries. Using one method over another where small mammals are concerned does not make one taxidermist better than another. You only BS yourself if you believe that hide preparation is a substitute for anatomy knowledge and sculpting skills.
Congratulations on your squirrel mount, bud. I hope you do many more in the future. You asked a valid question, and I tried to give you a valid answer, not a defense of one method over another. Old Fart is right about the high talc content in some DP's.......that is for two reasons: 1. It acts as a dehydrater and 2. It is as cheap as pond scum.
Tanning the capes and hides of thick skinned mammals is a valid and prudent step, but to say that tanning a squirrel hide will make for a better mount is a pipe dream. The Smithsonia repository is filled with 500,000 bird skins, some centuries old, that are borax, salt or KCl cured. Mammal repositories all across the globe are filled with borax treated skins because mammologists do not want to chance pigment change associated with some tanning processes.
The argument over which process is the better of the two is moot. In fact, you should ask a paleoanthropologist......seems that green rawhide in an arid environment last longer than does leather, or so they say.
Chris, welcome to the world of Real Taxidermy.
Cur,
I made the mistake of argueing the validity of using dry preservatives over tanning in a lengthy statement prior to when you joined the forum running discussion of DP vs. Tanning and met similar critics. Your antioxident discussion was quite interesting and Thank you for imparting another outlook on the forum.
However, I must make a few modifications on the percentages of specimens containing borax in bird collections and even more so in mammal study skin collections. The Smithsonian does have around 500,000 specimens but should I estimate numbers containing specific chemicals, knowing the approximate dates of the greatest growth, I would hasten to estimate perhaps 350,000 contain either Arsenic soap or Arsenic-Alum mixture and quite a few coated coated with Mecuric Chloride, perhaps 100,000 nothing was added, and maybe only 50,000 with borax. While the current crew at the USNM in birds have jumpstarted the program in the last decade, 90% of the collection was made before arsenic was totally eliminated from casual use.
Mammal specimens are almost never preserved with Borax. There is a running argument between Bird and Mammal Curators and Preparators about use of Borax on study skins. Well documented studies have been published in the mammal literature suggesting that because of the Beta-carotenoid pigments in Mammals, Borax never be used BECAUSE of modifications in color, which as you know is a key character is speciation.
The best paper detailing 99% the chemicals used in history to preserve vertebrate specimens is - Hawks, C.A. and S. Williams. 1986. "Arsenic in Natural History Collections", Leather Conservation News, volume 2, number two, Spring, pp 1 - 4.
The largest bird study skin collection on US soil is the AMNH which has approximately 1 million specimens. By purchasing Lord Rothschilds collection early in their history, they already had 600,000 specimens by 1933. Very few were prepared with borax even though the inventor and first advocate for Borax as the safe preservative was Montague Brown, an Englishman, whose idea was later popularized by Leon Pray.
Again, thank you Cur, and it is a pleasure to see you back on the forums.
I didn't mention the arsenates because I figured someone would want them...We used arsenic at the Duvenick and I used it routinely years ago. I helped put up a lot of study skins and.....God forgive me....I used borax........LOL I thought the mercurial compounds were downstream oxidizers and that most of them eventually became red dust......or is that a million years downstream? I should have thought about the age of the Smithsonian's collection and how recent the borax process was as described by Pray.
Actuall, Brown didn't invent Borax. Boric acid was first made by a German named Hamburg. ( I remember his name because of the hat.) The famous Englishman, Davy first isolated the element boron.
It's use is traced to the time of the ancient Egyptians and some believe it to have been used by at least a number of the mummy preparors. It was in use by the Arabs as early as the seventh century and by the Indians prior to that. The Chinese used it as a medicinal agent and as flux and ingredient in glazes for their fine porcelaine.
I am sure that Brown, being an academecian, stole the process from another and that it was probably in use long before he wrote of it. I would like to think that some unnamed hero found a dead mouse or cat or bird under a pile of the stuff and was amazed at the state of preservation. Imagine, if you would, an Arab welder named Akbar finding a little gekko in his pot of borax. He probably turned to his buddy, Ali and said..."Look at this lizard....it looks real! We could use our buraq to preserve others and sell them to the crusaders the next time they come!" That is how I like to envision the introduction of an element or simple compound to human use. Found and applied by a layman, only to be robbed by some member of the elite centuries later.
After all, thirteen centuries from the time of discovery to practical application in the taxidermy field seems par for the course.....LOL
I didn't mean that he invented borax - gees, I got to proofread what I write. But you are absolutely right to assume that Brown most probably borrowed the idea from someone like Akbar who noticed the preservative qualities. However I would rather attribute it to "Standing Feather" the Chief Taxidermist of a tribe of Native Americans that inhabitated the Borax salt flats area of California, at a date far before the Egyptians. I'm not real happy with Arabs at present.
Old Montague was the first to actually advocate borax for birds in the literature though (to the best of my knowledge). Prior to that all sorts of recipes existed ranging from cayenne pepper to strycnine. Montague's first publication was in 1878 which predates anything ever written by Pray. Borax, of cource, doesn't really prevent live insects from consuming old hair or feathers, so it is a mute point.
95% of the books you read also attribute Arsenic to being "developed" for taxidermy by the Becoure an apothecary living in Metz, France, but later popularized by Dufresne in Paris, tranlated by Bowditch in 1820, and then routinely being used by English speaking preparators up into the 1970's and beyond by many institutions. Never mind a publication in 1682 in old style German exactly described arsenic for preparing specimens. There are three forms arsenic usually comes in - each applied at a particular step in a given vertebrate specimen.
Mecuric compounds were the black powder you often see on old study skins on birds and even herbarium specimens. The 1842-1845 Great American World Exploring Expedition used it on all the plants, and since the Smitsonian conscripted them when they WERE to be sent to Peales Museum, the Smithsonian still has the contaminated specimens. oh well!
A rearcher I have contact with from Italy is attempting to find the first published recipes for taxidermy preparation. The only reference prior to the Georgia Curiosa 1682 piece was perhaps Boyle who I think advocated "spirits" - run for preservation. Are you aware of any written knowledge prior to that? Did Akbar publish anything?
I forgot another citation on Mammal preservative materials: Williams, S.L. and C.A. Hawks. 1987. "History of Preparation Materials Used for Recent Mammal Specimens", Mammal Collection Management, Texas Tech University Press, Lubbock. pp. 21 - 49.
As always, I always learn something.
Very good cur, I see you are well aware of the old saying,
"B***S*** baffles brains."
i need instruction on how to tan a squirrel hide. can anyone help me out here? please e-mail me
I am interested in learning how to preserve feathers from upland game birds