Well I have a question on african mounts. I have a guy that is there now and plans on bringing back some animals to be mounted. I've explained to him that I have no expereince in african mounts and don't feel condfedent in mounting them for him. He is insiting that I try which I guess is a complament in its own way He has always been happy with the other work I have done for him. Is there any good info out there on where to start. I would hate for his mounts to turn out bad but I must admit that the challange is very tempting. Looking for info from skinning to tanning all the way to finishing. Thanks for any help you can give me.
Bill
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One thing for sure, you wont have to worry about skinning the cridders because that is done over there.
You need to decide to tan them here in the states or in Africa. If its South Africa, Kwiktan has been good for me by tanning there and can save your client some cash. His choice.
Ask your client to take some simple feild measurements, nose to eye and neck. This will help when it comes to picking the forms.
Have him take some close up feild photos for your reference of the eyes, nose and ears. A good side and front view will help you with horn placement also.
Then when he returns, get the list of cridders he shot and wants you to mount and start collecting reference photos to add to the feild photos he took.
Jonas has step by step paint schedules, and paint kits, for most of the African cridders.
Plan on modifying most if not all of the forms. If you havent shortened or lengthened faces and such, learn!
You will also be much better at sewing holes, building ear canals and patching nose pads and lips when you are finished with these animals. Most dont have much hair so your seems will be fun too! Use small stitches and thread. Most capes look like they were skinned and fleshed with a chainsaw and sledge hammer.
Dont worry about the African mounts, they mount-up just like a White Tail, they just end up look-un funny! LOL! Use you reference and you will be fine!
Have ya some fun...... and dont forget to charge a "shop rate" for the form modifications and cape repairs!
Buy a couple African capes and horns and practice mounting them. You will have at least a year before you will ever see the shippment. That gives you time to practice. Don't bother with the measurements over there. They won't be measured properly anyway to do you any good. Use the skulls when they come in, it will give you the best reference to the length and width of the head. Be ready to make crap look good. Many of the capes are skun and fleshed poorly. They can arrive with the ears only partialy turned, lips and nose not split holes and scars to repair, slipped spots to fix. etc. Think of the worst prepped cape you can imagine. It can be worst than that.There are also many that do great prep work, many don't. I had great skinners both times I was there. I have had many customers capes come back in the condition I mentioned above. You end up doing a lot of scalpal work splitting and fleshing after tanning. Reference photos taken over there can help a little, but remember it is of a dead animal. Things will change. Buy good ref. books and photos. If you plan on getting into African work you can never have to much reference. African animals however do not mount up like a whitetail.They don't look funny either if done correctly. They are some the most beautiful animals there are, even a hartebeest. You will have extra skin under the neck, etc. on these animals. They have a lot of wrinkles. That is not an easy thing to do pull off corectly. Start with the most common animals. Impala, blesbok,springbok. They are the easiest to track down capes on in case you run into trouble. Don't tan them yourself until you get used to them. They require extra care in degreasing. African animals have extra oily skin. If he is hunting in Zimbabwe, just hope they get good salt shipped in, or your capes will likely be junk. The salt there has to high of a ph and won't tan up. Good Luck
I have to disagree with you about Kwiktan. You may have had good results from them but here's the "other side" . . .
I hunted Africa about 3 years ago and had all my hides sent from Windhoek, Namibia, to be tanned by Kwiktan because I had seen their tanning at the DSC show in Dallas and liked it. What I got back from them was NOT what I saw at the show! I personally did the skinning of my caracal for a full body mount and salted it. When I got it back all four legs were cut off above the knees. When I contacted them, the owner said that they did not cut the legs off (I'm sure he saw the hide come in and personally followed it through the process in their plant!) and that it was probably mishandled by the skinner.
That didn't set will with me but even after I told him I was the skinner, he still said that Kwiktan didn't do it, but, in good faith, he would send me a replacement hide. I refused it, because the trophy of a caracal IS the hide since there are no horns to go with it, and a replacement hide was not the one I shot.
The remainder of the hides were cr*p! They are almost as stiff as cardboard and have a very strong odor of acid to them. I did mount a spotted genet, the caracal in a pedestal shoulder mount, and my impala in a wall pedestal. The hides had absolutely NO stretch even after soaked up and sweated in a fridge for 2 days. In fact, the impala neck that was 16 1/2" in the field had shrunk to a 15" neck on the form. I could not get it to stretch 1/4" more! The mount looks horrible and is hanging in my garage! I will not put it in my house!
I don't even think I'm going to try to mount the kudu, zebra, gemsbok, wildebeest, springbok, and giraffe - and the giraffe tanning was $1100.00 for the cape!
I have nothing good to say about Kwiktan . . . after I wrote a lengthy description of what occurred and stated my opinion of Kwiktan, the owner even threatened to file a lawsuit on me if I didn't stop. I'm scared . . . (yawn) . . .
For what it's worth, I owned a taxidermy shop for several years and can stick my neck out and state that I know a little about taxidermy and tanning.
Good luck!
Jerry S.