I have a messed up antler plate. It has cracked, but not on the fisure like you would expect. Instead, one section basically broke off, near the antler base. The hunter tried to epoxy it back together, but it did not hold. Now he wants it mounted with a deer he shot last year. In this situation would you: 1. Secure both sections to the form, trying to make them secure and as anatomically coreect as possible. Or 2. would uou saw the antlers off of the the respective chunks of skull and and secure them to a shed connector. The archives dont seemk to adress this specific issue or I am not using the right search words. Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.
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If the antler plate is still in one piece, then I would just attach it to the form the same way I alway do. When your putting the bondo/fiberglass mixture under the skull plate, use the extra to fill in the part missing. I would then use a little mache to cover everything up, let this dry. Then finish the mounting.
Coyote
I suspect the hunter didnt mix the epoxy properly and it never attained full cure. There's no reason 5 minute epoxy shouldn't be able to hold the stuff together if it was mixed and applied properly. Totally clean teh broken surfaces to ensure there is no epoxy residue - and re-glue it. I regularly glue things together that weight MUCH more than a skull plate with a rack and it doesn't break apart. After that if you still aren't sure - back it up underneath with fiberglass and WOW will it ever be strong!
I should have specified that it was taoatl broken, parts missing as well. Raven, what do I use to clean of that old epox? Plain ol elbow grease?
A stiff bladed knife or mini chisel. Gouge n scrape the old surface away to make sure no epoxy film is left. A light sanding afterwards helps too. Once you know it is clean, bare bone... re-epoxy it. Use a square of fiberglass mat material and fiberglass a patch underneath. Then flip it back over and fill the missing area to make it look pretty. Mache will work, but I use epoxy putties for all my bone fixes.
That's how I'd go about it anyway. I'd probably omit the fiberglass stage myself, but if you REALLY want to know it's not going anywhere - it can't hurt. There's no scientific value for you to compromise (something I have to be conscious of in the work I do), so adding it (the fiberglass) will make it super strong.
Though I use the same methods as Coyote, maybe you'd feel better with a reproduction skull cap. Research sells them as do several other suppliers. Most of them also sell mounting brackets. You could simply cut the antlers off and bolt them on to the reproductions/brackets and mount as usual.
works great - just used one that worked out wonderful