I have a large doe to mount the eye to nose is 7 3/4" and the neck is 14" I can find a form to match the neck but none to match the face. i have altered forms before but the closest I have seen is a form with 6 3/4 x 14 and that seems to me the face might not look proportinate to the rest of the body if I alter to fit. the doe was a very large frame all over just had a small neck. Or should I get a larger form and slim the neck down? any options would be apreciated.
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I have found with most manufacturers that they sculpt the body in proportion to the neck not the head, so when I for instance get a 300# buck taken in late august with a 20" neck I need to order a big 24-25" neck then rasp it down, if I order a 20" neck with the right sized head I get the body of a 150# deer. I would do the same on the doe. McKenzie has a 7 1/4 x 16" doe that should work great it has a BIG body. I used it on a doe that hung out at the butcher at 126# and this form fit well, it had a 15" neck over the muscle but still fit well with no alteration.
I wish I could get my deer to fit a size that's three inches bigger and then have to rasp it down to fit. LOL man you need to change something here. Sorry but I have no idea on why you would want to rasp 3" or more off just so you can get the right head size.
Joe there a few ways here that you can do this. The way I do things is that I never worry to much about nose to eye on MOST heads. I always order neck size. That way I know that will work. Now from there I can alter the nose to eye by cutting it and adding to it or taking away some foam.
The other way is to get a change out head. This way all you have to do is cut the head off and place the new one on. You may have to call them manufacter for this (doe head.
I rather the first part, cut the head in sections and add on to it. One inch is a lot to add and I may recheck my nose to eye after the hide is tanned just to be on the safe side. After that then I would make my deccision.
Plus check out other companies you may find one that fits better than what your looking at right now.
Frank, I do not do this on a 1 or 2" difference in neck size but I found long ago that McKenzie (This is what I use and I dont know how other companies do it) sculpts lets say a form with a 19" neck and the body corresponds to a deer that has a 19" neck when SWELLED. They then mold that form with heads of various sizes, this is done to offer the widest variety of neck sizes in a given head size with the least amount of sculpting time. They do not make a form with a big head, big body and small neck. Comercial forms with a small neck have small bodies as well, this is not always true with deer. Next time you have lets say a 7 3/4 x 19" form place it back to back with a 7 3/4 x 25" form, you will find a major difference in both hight and width of the chest. A 250# deer with a summer 19" neck has a 23-25" neck in november and still has a 250# body. A 7 3/4 x 19" form will fit a texas deer well but try it on an alberta buck and you will find you have alot of excess skin to deal with.
If I had to rasp that much off and rebuild a form to fit my deer, personally I would start a line of new forms. I din't miss the point and you may be able to rasp it down right but we have a ton of newbie's here and they have no idea or very little idea on anotomy. I have seen folks rasp their deer down and well, it speaks for itself.
thanks for the input. I am in no way a newbie to this stuff as my first post stated I have done some altering. This project is for a competition peice for masters division at our state show if it turns out good and I was looking for other opinions to go along with my own. I can see things from both you guys side on this but the deer did have a large frame and I am afraid that if I went with a form that fit the neck I would have too small a shoulder and it would look like a big headed small doe. Dose anyone sell doe replacement heads? I haven't seen any while looking for a form for this project.