A taxidermist that used to be in my area but is no longer in buisness had mounted several deer where the hair on the neck,shoulders and head stand up like as if it had been in a bad fight and lost! tusks of hair standing out all over and it looks terrible. His old customers are now bringing these mounts to me asking if I can fix them (for a price of course) I have tried wetting down the areas and brushing them down, adding a bit of hair gel and carding it down untill dry. After removing the carding I find that the hairs are still standing out. anyone have suggestions on fixing this? I have searched the "orange" button but came up with nothing. Thanks in advance for all your help. Take care.
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Could it be spots where hide nails or pins have been pushed in and caused a pinched "tight spot" and thus the hair sticks out? Just a guess.
Horse groom will work too, maybe even better than plain "people" hair gel. Think it's called "show groom" or something like that.
Good luck.
Try this-
Take the mount outside and hose it down good and wet;
let it drain until it stops dripping.
Check for the above mentioned nails and tacks, remove them if thats the problem!
Take a ball of potters clay the size of a baseball and wipe down the entire mount; be careful to wipe the hair in the direction it should lay.
Put it in the corner with a slow fan on it for a few days; when evrything in good and dry then you can brush out the clay.
If that doesn't make the hair stay down, nothing will.
Brush well, blow off with air; wipe with you usual mount finisher!
Could also be that the cape was over streched during mounting, this will sometimes cause hair to lay irregular.
Your right about the over stretched. I looked in the back of the neck and found that he had added about 7 inches long and 3 inches wide of extra hide to make the deer neck look thicker. any way to lay the hair back down? The deer was mounted a bit more than a year ago. thank you all for your replies.
9 times out of 10 hair not laying down is from the skin not being taxied correctly usually due to the form being too big. I would get a new cape and start over if gels etc don't control it.