can someone tell me how to mount a 360 crappie ( or any fish ) where to cut to how to put back together! do I use glue? do I epoxie where I cut? or can someone tell me where to look for this information. I am not concerned about losing the scales . just the mounting part.
thank you
Jude
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You can either cut along one side as is customary(recommended), or remove the dorsal fins and make the cut along the top. Either place you should remove(pick out) the scales along the line your cut will follow. Wherever you cut, the skin MUST meet along the incision. You should use a good hide paste to allow the skin to slide into place without stressing the skin. The incision can be glued with super glue. ZIP KICKER will make the super glue kick instantly. The seam should get a thin application of epoxy putty and that is to be rescaled.
There is a fairly new product called KNEAD-A-MOLD. It is a 2 part epoxy that when mixed, forms a putty like Play Dough. You can press that along the side opposite the cut and press in onto the scales. After it kicks you have a mold of the actual scales you want to re-sculpt. Press that mold onto the epoxy puttied(LOL) seam and BADA-BOOM...real crappie scales. You've picked a tough fish to do a 360 of.. Good luck...eh?
Some are more complicated than others. If I were a beginner I would probably try either a dorsal or ventral incision. Another factor to consider is it for competition or commercial? The dorsal insision you cut where the scales meet the head down to the spiny dorsal fin and cut as close to it as possible on one side or the other, all the way down to the tail. That way the only scales you need to rebuild are the small sections at the beginning and end of the fins. I would use a body a little smaller than the measurement. I prefer the skin to have about 1/8 slack for shrinkage. When you mount the fish butt the edges of the skin together. I use my regular hide paste as the glue. I have even made a small trench where the seam is and filled with Apoxie sculpt and pressed the edges into the Epoxy. It is not necessarily an easy job to pull off a good pedestal mount but if you take time to do them they turn out very well. The ventral incision is done the same way but there are more scales to deal with when rebuilding. The advantage of the ventral is it is on the bottom and should be able to camo well. Good luck.
Todd B
What i do is start by removing the head. then i will cut up the center of the back to the end of the dorsal fin. now you can skin and flesh the fish with no problem. now when you mount it i pin the skin along the dorsal fin and i actually sew the skin from the front of the spiny dorsal to the head. you can sew the skin and not see the stitches at all or even lose a scale(you might with a crappie) but you have very little repair work.. might take a bit longer but i think that the results are far better..Good luck and i am sure you will get lots of other suggestions also. this is just what i like best! you will develop your own personal favorite!
I use to say the final positioning will determine where you cut it. But, we all get our preferences through the years. Usually, the belly is close to a table and one would think it would be the best location for a seam. I don't like performing a belly cut simply because with the curve of the belly (and the abundance of scales to match) it is a bear to get it to look good.
I prefer either a dorsal cut or a typical backside incision. Probably leaning towards the dorsal cut. When making the dorsal incision just keep cutting to one side of the dorsal fins as close to the fins as possible. No need to remove them. Typically, there is a "backside - side that shows less than the "front" on all pedestal mounts. Continue the incision along the "backside" all the way to the tail.
I Superglue the seam together when mounting. I don't like taking a mold prior and trying to use that to finish the seam. It is very difficult to line up. Therefore, once dried I just manually rebuild all the scales. This is the method I prefer. As you can see, there are many others that will work as well...