OK, in the past I always made a back of the head incision. Just skinned four birds via the beak and then cleaned the skulls to reuse. I could use a couple of pointers that I could not find through the archives.
When glueing the skin back on, where do you start? I assume one would start glueing the skin back at the top of the bill (in/at the V) then work your way down each side of the face and ending with the bottom of the bill?
Concerning the glue itself, I have the "slow' Zap-a Gap and other gel super glues. I figure once I do several heads using the norm (super glue) I will get the hang of it. But I saw one, and only one, old post where somebody used caulk because it allowed them time to "play with/adjust" the skin due to its slow dry time. Is this viable? Since I have never reattached via this method, I may want to use the caulk method on my first attempt since it will be a learning experience.
For rebuilding the skull, is there any compound (clay, sculpy, 2 part resins)that super glue tends not to adhere to as well compared to other compounds? Whatever compound used, should a thin layer be spread all the way up to the bill for adhesive purposes, or glue the skin direclty to bone (top of skull for example)?
Finally, when cleaning the skull, do you all seperate the upper and lower mandibles for easier/quicker cleaning? I found that they are only attached by a thin threadlike fleshy piece that shrivels up anyway - figure I will have to "rebuild" this later such as for eyelids/eyerings.
Sorry for all the questions, but like I said, this is the first time I've skinned through the bill and now that I've done several, I came up with many little "detail" questions that I could not find answers to in the archives. Also, thanks in advance to all those who may post "use a precast head dummy". I'll eventually try that too, probably, maybe. Fake verses real is a "hot" topic on this forum, but alas, the customer is always right, and in this case I'm the customer as I am just a Lowly Duck Hunter, not a taxidermist.
Thanks for all your help/info,
Davey J
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I spent a good 15 minutes and couldn't find it. I have said much about artificial heads versus real heads in a number of discussions pertaining to using real skulls in the archives, and I know I typed out my "technique", but it must have been in a deleted category. So I'll spew some more opinion on the subject.
There is a great advantage to using the original skull in a duck mount because it is the right size. It you cast your own duck skull for each individual duck you mount, it will also fit right, but a standard sized duck skull doesn't fit 95% of the ducks out there. It would be like buying a size 8 D shoe and giving it to everyone at the NTA meeting and expecting them to waer them home. Ducks aren't assembly line organisms created by mother nature - they come in all sizes, shapes lengths, widths, depths.. you get the idea.
The method I have used for roughly 15 years on my ducks is to remove the head via the method you outline, cuting at the flexible edge of the skin around the bill. That means, I actually leave some non-feathers portions of the edge attached to the head skin. I set the head aside and skin out the entire bird, wash well in dishwater detergent, pat dry, fluff dry the contour feathers only (not worrying about the down), then fill out the bird to about standard size with a wet towel, paper towels, moist cloths etc. including filling the head to size leaving moiture around the incision. Then I bag the inflated body in plastic and freeze until I am ready for it. I carve my bodies out of dense polyurethane or urethane foam or balsa wood, use yarn, cotton, or excelsior or modified flexible tube foam for the neck and then begin the head. I ocassionally use the original vertebrae for a basis of the neck. I usually leave the first half of the neck onto the skull and the botton half onto the body. Both areas must be studied to get proper angle of the bends present. Body tracings are made of the proposed positioning to visualize the angles and bends that will be present in the finished project. I often have a base in mind at this point.
The first proceedure to do on the head is to inject water into the eyes and fill out the head area as in life. Then take a caliper and measure and draw the exact angle of the eye against a side view, top view, back view and bottom view. Measure the inside edges of the sclerotic ring against the distance to the front process off the maxilla, the back process off the skull base and the top of the skull so that you can place the artificial eye in correctly. Whether you use a ringed eye of expense or a type A simple eye on a wire, the edge of the actual eye position should be able to be placed.
After doing this, draw and study the skull meat but don't pay a lot of attension between the ey and the former edge where the bill met. The skin is actually stretched across this area almost like a drum so that you have to correct the area on the skull to be flat.
I then remove the majority of the skull in four basic cuts. The first dorso-ventral across the back edge of the skull removing the back 1/8 inch of the skull including the atlas joint. Then two parallel cuts just inside the the jaw lines through to the basal areas but do not remove the basal area. The the last cut across just behind the edge of the juncture of the bill and unfeathered skull. The majority of the head is removed in one fell swoop. The rest is reomved by picking with forceps, dipping it into boarx whicjh allow purcase on membrane material.
Some great taxidermists wrap a ball of excelsior up and fill in the area removed, but I use a slow proceedure of using pieces of foam or cotton hot glued inside the skull filling up the area. I attach the entire artificial neck already bent into the basic final position, and attach it temporarily onto the artificial body to get proper positioning. I build up with foam, cotton, and hot glue the brain area and eye area setting the eyes as per the measurements recorded. You can examine the eye set from all angles, and if not exact, you can pop out the eyes, remove or add more hot glue, and re-set the eye. Sound confusing but thats how I do it. The area bewteen the base of the eyes and bill have a deeper area that I fill with good papier mache that sets hard. I almost build the area up to actual depth but hold off a bit for later when I glue the skin around the bill. The head is sometimes soaked in formalin to impregnate inside areas to prevent alter consumption by bugs. Sometimes I pop the whol skull after cleaning in a jar of formalin and let the soft parts harden.
After sculpting all the head with hot glue and papier mache, I let it dry thoughly. The largest shrinkage is in the area of the nostrils, on the edges of the roof of the mouth, and the fleshy areas nearer the feathers. These areas can be built up with sculpall or smooth out or modge podge or apoxy sculpt, whatever you are most familiar with. After dry the bill can be painted. You can also built eye lids and nictitating membranes at this stage should you wish.
During the mounting phase, I pop off the neck head assembly, and put the neck wire through the open head and do the entire body mounting and sewing leaving a plastic bag over the head to keep moisture present. Once finished the head is the last part to do. I slide the head skin back and apply smooth-it onto the papier mache surface and pull the skin over. Superglue always caused white residue or works too fast for me and I swithched to smooth it. I attache the corners of the mouths first, then the top and finally the bottom. If placed correctly and in the right quantities, the smooth-it will leak out a small bit and allow you to smooth over the junction between the parts of the real bill and the parts attached to the feathers.
Hopefully that will be detail enough. Have a good time experimenting, and hopefully someone else will post their methods.