I tried something the other day I thought I'd pass along. I used critter clay for the ear butts and had to leave the project set for a few days. In the past the clay would crack as it dried, especially where it is thin. So I remembered a tip I got from Mike Yeska at a seminar where he said to coat the earbutt with Buckeye Supreme after it is sculpted, and then let it set overnight. I let it go 3 days.
The nice thing with this is that when the time came to mount the deer, the ear butts were solid and stayed where I put them. I used Eppley liners and dug out a little of the form to set them in before making the butts. This helped lock the ears to the form in their original sculpted position.
It worked well for me. Just one way to skin the cat. I still need to try Bill's bondo ear butts.
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I'm ASSUMING here now, so I'm guessing you are making a dorsal cut on your whitetails to pull that trick off. With us "Y" incision guys, that's not happening. As for Bondo Ear Butts, now there's a visual I don't even want to think about.
but on this particular deer, it was a long Y.(8" approx.) It really isn't anything special, or different than using an ear liner with a butt, other than making the butt yourself. I did add a small worm of soft clay around the edge of the butt when mounting to smooth out any edge. The picture of Bill's bondo ear butt is in Breakthrough issue 65,Fall 2001, page 19, no imagination required.
on a whitetail! Please pass the Bondo and two part epoxy my way.
The latest article I added to hidetanning.net demonstrates the way I go about it. The link is http://www.hidetanning.net/EarLinerAlteration.html
Here's another link showing a Bondo ear butt (I really use Technifill, I think it works up a little easier). You can use Bondo and make those ear butts "say" anything you want them to.
http://whitetaildesignersystems.homestead.com/GreenHideFacts.html
The ear liners on the above mount were made out of cotton cloth, and wood glue. The veining on the back of the ears, which hardly shows in the photo, was done with different diameters of cotton string and wood glue. The color you see on the inside of the ear was done by using another of George's favorites......ARTIST OILS! LMAO! The inner ear was painted like a flat work, allowed to dry (George gets me here), and then WASCO'S Polytranspar Fin Creme was used for the adhesive for the skin to liner. Throw rocks at me now, I used dextrin hide paste on the mount! It was a foam mannikin..to start with. I did quite a bit of alteration, with most of the exposed surface being BONDO!
I don't sand, or rough up plastic ear liners either. If you're breaking a sweat, you're using the wrong tool.
If you use zinc white artist oil, in a LINSEED OIL VEHICLE, mix it with turpentine to the point it is like a "thick" water color. Using a 1/2" or 3/4" wide flat hair bristle brush, paint this on the ear liner quickly. That gives a surface that I have found works pretty darn good. I have never used this with two part epoxy adhesives, just water based.
You can color the inside of the ear liner by doing successive washes with the oil paint/turpentine combo, just add your color (alizarine crimson as a base color) to the zinc white. This will dry really quick.
Hi Mike,give me a call,maybe I can help you with ear butts.920-954-1536