I haven't done any ducks yet but in just getting ready to do a few. I want to use the real head but was worried about the head insicsion. I was wondering if you could skin the head out like you weree using a reproduction head instead of doing a chin or cheek insiscion. Why couldn't you just tube the head out with no insiscion and glue the skin to the real head like you were using a reproduction head. Will this work? Or do you have to make a chin or cheek insiscion.
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Tube it out, clean the head, borax it and let it dry out. Then rebuild everything,using epoxy-sculpt, attach the neck, paint the beak and mount away... needless to say, freeze your cleaned skin while the head is drying. A frozen, cleaned bird skin will thaw very quickly. This is also good practice for you. Use a quality cast head for reference when rebuilding if you can get one.
Good luck/BS
If you are going to the trouble of removing the real head why put it back in. Lets look at the pros and cons of real vs. artificial.
Real: much shrinkage in the skull and the bill-feel the bill on a fresh bird and it feels soft and "fleshy" or full, as it dries this goes away and the bill shrinks in all dimensions and becomes just a dried out head that is a little smaller, the artificial heads do not have this problem. Time if you are going to remove the real head why waste the time to rebuild it when you could pitch it and use your reference head instead-time saved here can be used on the important things like skin alignment and feather placement, sometimes we lose sight of what really matters and get side tracked. If you have your artificial head ordered and pre-painted when you get your bird preped, you do not have to freeze the bird and wait for the rebuilt head to set up-more time saved for other things. I will not use a real head in any of my birds any more, if a replacement head is not available I cast my own for the mount. Good luck.
I always use the real head, just like BigSwede described. It's free, and you don't have to wait for it to come in the mail! If you are doing a competition bird, everyone says you should use an artificial head, but for customer birds, I use the real head every time.
I totally agree with Becky. Real head it the way to go. Nothin beats real head.
Peabody
artificial heads for the exact reasons Jeff S gave. BP
Is "free" worth it? I don't compete, but when work goes out of my shop, it has my name on it. Why would I charge a premium price and then shortchange my customer. The LAST thing I want to do today is split the head of a hooded merganser or a wood duck, or a bufflehead. Then to take the chance of bug attractions or even the epoxy filling disbonding, no thanks. Why anyone uses the real heads today is beyond me. I seldom work on a specimen the day I get it in anyway BUT if having quick availability of a cast head was that important, I'd be casting my own.
... bubbles or missing chunks, visible seams, pre-existing shrinkage faithfully molded in ... I could go on and on.
Oh, pardon me. I forgot that commercial cast heads are supposed to be considered SUPERIOR to the real thing.
Silly me!
LMAO
Well said!
Peabody
You know we're not ALL birdbrains on here. Some of us mount all species so give us a little break here. I'm positive you didn't want me to mention grease leakage, SHRINKAGE, symetry after the eyes are removed, SHRINKAGE, filling the brain cavity so it doesn't leech out, SHRINKAGE, hiding the incision on the nape, SHRINKAGE, and a few dozen other things. It's really tough how some of you bird people think it's a dumb idea, yet it's the top notch BIRD PEOPLE who market the artificial heads. Lets see: Stefan Savides, Joe Ferebee, Frank Newmyer, and Tony Finazzo. That's a veritable who's who of bird people yet YOU say it's not the best method. Help me figure that one out.
And I agree with Nancy on this one. Bird bills come in more than one size and to just take a "typical one" off the shelf and stuff it into a bird skin is just as silly in my mind as picking a deer mannikan, WITHOUT measuring the size, and stuffing it into a deer skin. Or taking a bear nose of any old size and putting it on a cub bear. I could simply order a trout manikan - they don't come in different sizes do they?
Nancy also mentioned defects CAST into the artificial head. I have seen seams, miss-sculpted replacement meat, errors in eye bases, etc. in many heads. Also lamella - I don't care who casts the head, silicon only has so good of tensile strength when in fine detail, and at best only one perfect head can be removed from a cast. Detail on the finer portions are NOT good - nostrils, fine line between the mandibles, and lamellae. Show me ANY cast shoveler bill that looks as good as real one.
A taxidermist who leaves enough fat in a skull to allow it to leak out ALREADY has problems with fat leaking out of bones in the bird, in amoung the feather butts, etc. If you can't clean a skull, then you can't clean a skin right either.
The other problem is that "they" have convinced taxidermists that artificial is the way to go on ALL birds. Pheasant beaks or owls or hawks, or quail maybe shrink 1-3 percent. If the bill of a screech owl is a centimeter long or wide, the total shrinkage is less than the thickeness of the lines on your metric ruler. There is more individual variation in individuals than that. Duck noses vary as much as human noses.
Seams in the head on the nape or the throat are often easier to hide than a poor job of gluing on the skin around the bill. Have you ever looked a bills a dozen years after the bird has been mounted. The bills I have seen invariably show gaps or seams or frosted areas from the glue. Let me tell you, it ain't all perfect.
I am in no way trying to influence peoples opinion on whether they should use artificial heads or not, but try it both ways, and decide for yourself. Check the fine detail and size and nostrils, etc., then add in your time and cost for either molding it yourself or ordering and purchasing the fake bill. I can probably clean out and build up a head before you could even get the catalogue to order your possibly miss-sized head with the poor sculpting job - you know the one that you have to dremal out the nostrils, and cut off the seam lines on.
The four taxidermists mentioned above have great reputations, but there are many taxidermists who produce very fine taxidermy without fake heads - I am sure you could name four others who don't have lines of heads to sell. I could easily but what difference would it matter. Competition isn't the end game here. What the heck does a customer care if you bougth a top end super-apex-eyes-molded-in-type 47-elastomer-daffy-duck-bill.
Picture it this way, there are arguments about whether global warming exists. The people who get grant money to study global warming either think it is occuring or it needs more study. I wouldn't think they would say it isn't happening. Likewise, people who market artificial heads will sell the heads to anyone that wants to purchase one - and I bet they market heads for birds that even THEY don't use the artificial bils when mounting. But if "you sell it they will come" to buy it.
Besides George, the discussion about shrinkage and artifial birds heads are already in the archives. I and Nancy have already come out for REAL heads though the manner we use them are different.
Well Nothing is perfect not even nature once ya put a load of 4's thru it..
Hoever just like any other form of this industry there is always PREP...It only depends on what ya know and IF ya can..
As for not waiting for a head to arive drrrrrr a little alginate and apoxie scultp I have a good head for maikeing the mold and one for the mount I casted the subject from..
I made 4 different snows and ross just to get easy fitting now I have 6 that are measured and marked..pour each a couple days before so they are painted and eye set for skin,,, ..Once ya get a few molds down its a peice of cake.. Then if your casting your own ya aint got no one to blame for being wrong,altho seeing all the layed down flat sided crooked eggtooth heads is what got me to casting my own.I found out how fun it is to pour em for PENNIE'S.
If I would want to do the pefect head I think a good cast would be simpler to proof for all the nose goodies with a dremel.Just another show of capability aint it?. Hey IF a wood carver can do it I would hope a taxidermist could....LOL
OMG I cant think of to much in this industry that dont take PREP...................A little putty or even at worst a peice of sand paper and even the worst cast on the market is doable..
If it works for ya do it..many ways to skin da duck.......
TIME/DRIVE is what it take to learn this stuff without it your gonna one day say "thats good enough" and you will stop learning.. .Must been one of the things I got from the NWST diploma on my wall......Heheheheh..
Forgot to . The bad glue heads yep sunlight and heat can cause grief but it does also to other areas on birds..I have never seen a mount that wasnt preserved in museum conditions be perfect there is ALWAY's sumtin to pimp on it...A private taxidermist in the ortonville MN area has a exhibit thats air condition/humidty contained and its primo.DU did a big article on him .Some of his mounts are decades old..You can see the difference as he evolved from real to cast...The only way you can see it is the shrinkage in the real,,Even those he has puttied and primped up nice,,,This guy traveld all over collecting
Does anyone know who I am talking about?..
I just don't feel the need to post all of the time, and there are plenty of other people who can give an answer just as well as I can.
Poorly done cast beaks look very fake to me, and all of the commercial ones that I have purchased to date have been what I would consider to be poor. I have used heads from all 4 of the people you mentioned, and you know what? I think they all would probably agree with me! It isn't because the heads were molded badly in the beginning, but because so many copies have been made that they just aren't as good as when they were first cast.
Each to his own.
both real and cast heads require prepping if they are to be as natural as can be...
If I am going to spend the time to prep a head, I might as well spend the time to prep the real one. Atleast I know it should fit back with no problems. And those poor eye sockets on cast heads just flat out are wrong 99% of the time. Why Dremel out a hole and fill it back in when the real head already has the hole there and in the right spot too.
Oh well..
Jon
I preffer not cutting and sewing,Dragging out brains and eye's,Tounge the head bill skin ares flesh's out easier.
Have ,can, but choose not to.
Cast heads for me...
However I totaly think one should be able to do either and be open to gaining ability in any way..never know when ya need it..
Plus have'n mold's and a painted ready to use inventory is nice.