i am using the bonded ear method with bondo and it is working great,BUT on one of my deer heads the ears kinda got narrow as it hardened and dried,. well it is all dry now and i was wondering if there is anything i can do to get them opened up again like they really should be? thanks all
Return to Deer Taxidermy Category Menu
The heat from a blow drier maight be enough to open it up, you will have to hold it open until cool.
John's right - heated bondo will bend and stay pliable until cool. Make sure it is heated uniformly - not just on the surfaces and still cool interior. If it's thin this shouldn't be a problem for you. I don't know what effects it will have on the hair or skin - that's not my department ;) To help cool the bondo faster you can use an air compressor with a blower attachment or even just an airbrush (with no paint in it of course). That cool air blowing over it helps to cool and set it's new shape a lot faster.
Why didn't you just pull it out after you completed it. Bondo is a filler and not an adhesive. You could have easily peeled the ear right out of there when it cooled and redone he work properly.
Bondo is a filler yes - but it is also an adhesive. Granted it serves it's role more as a 'body filler' but don't let that title confuse what it does. It may not be the best adhesive or even have been INTENDED as an adhesive... but no doubt - it does stick junk together. If it had no adhesive properties it would be pretty useless for it's intended purpose as a body filler wouldn't it? You would have to let it cure - then pop it off and glue it in place to fill your dent right? But nope - just prep the surface and bondo "adheres" all on it's own. It's base is polyester resin... and do any bit of fiberglassing and you'll know that polyester resin bonds to a whole hell of a lot of stuff. Now I'm not saying you couldn't just peel the ear off, maybe you can... but Id be nervous about tearing it.
You KNOW it's NOT an adhesive. They cover boats with the stuff when it doesn't have microbaloons in it, for cripes sake. It disbonds from everthing it doesn't INCAPSULATE. Doubt me, pour regular fiberglass down on a piece of cedar and let it harden. Do the same with epoxy. Then try to use a chisel and flick the epoxy loose. What happened to the fiberglass resin? Fiberglass won't even bond to itself after it dries. Don't try that with epoxy. That's WHY fiberglass resin is NOT an adhesive. Water will hold two pieces of glass together so tightly that you can't pry them apart, but I don't see anyone calling water an adhesive. And AS a body filler, you always have to drill holes in the material its filling. Ever did any body work? It won't stick to metal either.
Polyester resin most certainly WILL stick to it self BIG time! The problem you are describing is because of an additional wax that is sometimes added to the resin itself, NOT as a result of the resins own properties. And you mention cedar? Cedar is renowned for having it's own oils which will work as a separator to certain materials. It's these oils that make cedar a poor choice to keep reptiles on, and is also why it is so useful to resist water damage. Look up a word called 'tyloses' and you'll find the exact compound. As for the boat building part? Fiberglass boats are made up of several layers of glass mat stuck together WITH, quite commonly, polyester resin. In fact thats ALL they are is glass an polyester resin. If it has zero adhesion properties.. what holds it and car bodies together? Prayers and good luck? You may not like to call it an adhesive - but I'll gladly discuss it's adhesive qualitites and prove or disprove anything you like until you get bored of the topic =) I don't dispute deer stuff with you George because that IS what you do. I respect your area of expertise and yield to you THERE.
Someone just emailed me something that is SO obvious it made me laugh out loud... They didn't want to post it themselves for fear of being attacked by people here...
Their point however was;
It's called BOND-o for a reason.... not FILL-o... ya think the Dynatron company that makes the stuff may have though about that when they developed their product? ;)
You didn't read what I wrote. Fiberglass resin sticks well to itself, uncured, but those chopped mats are INCAPSULATED inside the resin.You don't think I picked cedar out of the air, do you? LOL And they called it BOND-o because that was the name brand they chose. Marsden calls it WHITE-fill and it ain't white. Now it's exactly the same thing as Bondo and about half the price and they got the name right. Sorta like SprayTan and Liquid Wrench or Mr. Clean. And Fiberglas is a name brand as well, just like Celophane, and Scotch Tape.
The first rule of taxidermy applies here; never argue with someone you need to educate first.
BONDO does not glue leather together any better then a dried bugger does
forgot to say i learned something tho
didnt know heat would make bondo flexable ,after it hardens.
thanks for that one raven
Make a mold of a polyresin sculpture - an easy shape like an egg. Don't apply a mold release to it at all. Make a simple two part mold with something clean and non oily as your bedding material and build a retaining wall to hold your mold material. Use a pour of polyester resin and nothing more (no wax additives or mold releases) to make your mold. When your first half is fully cured, flip it over and remove the bedding material. Then without adding mold release, add bondo to the second side. Now since all applications were allowed to fully cure between moving on to the next step, and theres no fiber involved to encapsulate, the whole thing should pop apart clean as a whistle. In Georges words pasted from above; "That's WHY fiberglass resin is NOT an adhesive" so therefore it won't stick right? Yeah right.. have fun with your solid block of resin...LOL!
I aint gonna discuss this with you guys anymore - ANYONE who knows about ANY of this stuff knows how off the mark you are. Why do you think they sell PVA and mold release waxes? Do you have ANY idea what would happen if you tried to cast a fish or a boat out of fiberglass from a clean fiberglass mold with no mold releases applied anywhere?!?!
You're right Wilson; "never argue with someone you need to educate first." That's why I'm done arguing with you two... get back to me after that little experiment and let me know how it worked out for ya...
He's the one that mentionned Bondos (polyester resin) thermoreactive properties. I don't know that a hair dryer will get it hot enough to bend, but I know a heatgun will. I don't know what effects a heatgun would have on the hair or skin though... I can't imagine it being good?
Now that's an ear I want to see afterwards. LOL As I said, Bondo ain't an adhesive and will pull out of an ear as clean as a whistle without disturbing a hair or tearing any of that onion skin of the inner ear. Been there, done that too many times. Don't NEED to argue. HMMmmmm, Wilson, my buggers are big enough for earliners.
Have you seen what happens to bonded ears a couple years down the road chuck? The ones i've had in my shop to repair all looked horrible! Now im not saying no-one can do good long lasting bonded ears, i'm just saying i've seen many done and zero that looked good down the road. Just my opinion that good earliners with good adhesives are the way to go for longevity. Good day!
By definition I guess anything that sticks two objects together is an adhesive. You can put water between two pieces of glass and they stick together and have to be slid apart. That lasts until the water evaporates.
One of the problems with Bondo is that it is so highly filled with talc that the polyester resin looses many of its adhesive properties. It has to be highly filled to be workable for its original intended use of auto body repair. I doubt bondo would be much good as a product to be used as a layup material with glass cloth on moulded items. Why, not enough adhesion it looses alot when the fillers are added. The same thing happens to epoxy clays the shear strength drops and adhesion suffers because most of the wetting agents are adsorbed by the fillers.
When reinforced with glass mat or roving fiberglass resin is extremely strong, but that is not bondo. Bondo takes on its own characteristics even though its base material is polyester resin. Super strong adhesion to disimilar materials is not one of them.
Hmmm, I checked mine, and theres no auto in there either! Hahaha, I love watching people, even the guys I like, argue over moot points. If bondo under ANY name was so good, we wouldnt even have this original post! The best thing the guy could do was soak the skin, easily peel the ear fender mold out of there and put an adhesive thats specializes at adhering into it, along with an earliner!
You people make me laugh it's simple some people know how to use bondo and some don't. I have used it for 20 years and have also won blue ribbions in World National and state show Bill Yox even gave me a blue just my 2 cent
If you'd have used real glue and earliners, it wouldn't have taken you 20 years to perfect the method. LMAO.
Bondo,fiberglass resin,fiberglass chop mixture in my opinion is easiest,fastest, best ear mounting method. Skin absolutely can not be pulled apart after mixture is fully cured if done properly.