Hello. I have been doin waterfowl taxidermy for about 5 years off and on. After i get it mounted it eminates a fowl odor for quite some time. This is the process i use, and keep in mind im a beginner. I mostly only do my birds but have wonderful results.
Fist i skin the bird, remove head (skull) and then meat out wings. once that is done i give it a good wash just for kicks. Because im a beginner and very intricate with my work i use a dremel with a very soft wire wheel and meticuously go over all the inside making sure the entire membrame is removed. (I made a shield for the dremel to block all the flying fat). After this i wash deliberately with Dawn or whatever the ole lady has in the house at the time but predominantly Dawn. I then soak in mineral spirits for about 1 hour. I then spread borax everywhere and dry with a hair dryer with just air no heat. I mount carcass on form and position initally. i use magnets for the wings and embalming fluid for the feet. I eventually baseball stitch the breast and hang in garage. I return every so often to reposition and ensure all is well. I use the artificial heads that come pre painted. In the past i have detected a bad odor coming from the birds for quite some time. Is there a curing addative that i should put on the hide. Or is there something im missing? Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.
Paul
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it may be that you are not getting all the fat out. My first advise is only use Dawn, it's the only thing that for sure breaks up the fat. Some detergents say they do but Dawn is what everyone recommended so it must work. It also may be that you aren't getting all the meat out. Like I said, I don't mount alot of ducks, maybe 8 or so a year, but I have never had any stink. The other thing I'd recommend is to soak in Coleman fuel for 20 min. then wash, then mineral spirits. Some may disagree, but that is the way I do it. I also soak the skin side in Dawn overnight in the fridg. Then wire wheel, then etc. The overnight soak seems to really penetrate the fat and also it wheels better IMHO. Some of the more professional people probably have better ways but thats how I do it. Hope it helps.
skinning the wings all the way out to the wrist, and removing the oil glands at the base of the tail? If the skin is fleshed and degreased properly you should not get a foul odor.
I take the wings all the way out. I detach the feathers from the cartlidge stuff and literally take it out all the way as far as she will go. The oil glands are my main concern and i always ensure i get all of that out. Hmmm....maybe its just me. Any other suggestions?
Remember one irrefutable fact - meat rots, putrifies and smells. Skin by itself does not rot and putrify. Somewhere, someplace, you have left meat. And soap is ALL you need to degrease. Nowhere do you mention tumbling so using Coleman fuel and mineral spirits are not being used to displace any water from your tumbling mix and I just don't know how smart it is to use a hot hairdryer to evaporate Coleman fuel or mineral spirits. You're lucky you haven't set your house on fire yet.
ok let me clarify..the hair dryer does not blow hot air but it is electric. I do have a paper bag with tumbling mix that i partially use to try but the air i use is either a compressor or a hair dryer that cannot blow hot air. lol..but thanks for the info i really appreciate it. I havent used coleman and im not too sure that mineral spirits are flammable! (are they). Im just gonna have to put my birds through rigorous inspections cuz i smell something..lol
If it has meat in it somewhere it is going to stink. When I was at a Taxidermy school, one of the guys didn't get all of the meat out of the wrist area and that thing smelled like someone dropped a .... in it. none of the other twelve birds that was drying smelled at all and none had any flies on them like that one did. I think it had to be more then the wrist area but he swore he cleaned everything else well. The only washing we did was twenty minutes in lysol and dawn after fleshing then we then clean water rinsed, tumbled for twenty then borax and sew. I don't know yet if that is long enough to soak one or not but that is all we did. Mine still don't smell though!
I run a stiff wire into the bones and clean out the marrow, flush with water from squirt bottle, then clean again with the wire, shoving borax into the bones. I also remove leg tendons. Just a guess, as it was never mentioned in your post.
One other thing...if you choose to still use a solvent after washing, theres no need to soak it for an hour. Its to displace water, and thats all. Id do like George says anyway, but if you use the spirits, just rinse it through and move on.