About 4 years ago I mounted my 1st bowkill buck which was a nice 9X5. I knew little about taxidermy, and did a poor job on the mount, virtually every aspect of the deer had something wrong with it. Now that I know what I'm doing, I'd like to remount the deer with the original cape, if possible. I used derma-grip glue. Does anybody know of a way to first take the cape off the form, and then clean the cape, and get it ready to remount it on a new form. Or is this even possible? Thanks for the help.
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In 4 years, your hide has formed a "memory" and will be extremely difficult if not impossible to counter-effect. I think the glue you're using is an epoxy and if so, it's not coming off. At least if won't if it's a GOOD epoxy.
We all have deer in our closets like the one you describe. The only way to eliminate them is to "freshen" them and use a replacement hide.
The Derma Grip I beleive is just a glue, which required no pre-mixing or parts. I wasn't real impressed with it's holding power. After using other brands I realized there is a lot better stuff out there.
From doing some more inspecting on the mount, it looks like I could take it off the sand and rough up the hide enough to where I could take most of the glue off, but it still looks like the culprit of the problem(like you said) would be the memory of the hide.
I use Relax R for my capes prior to mounting, but like you said, if may not be enough to rework it again. Thanks for the info.
I think it would be worth trying again as long as you use the same mannikin. That way most of your capes memory would fall back on the same areas and you could still improve on it with your improved abilities and get all the fine detail in better than the first time.
It can't hurt to try. If the cape is no good, then get a new one and try again. I've remounted a cape like your situation once before and it came out great. The original one was done with Dextrose hide past though. I don't know much about the one you are using.
You will have to submerge it keep the warm above 70 for a couple hours and see if its loosened. Break the stitches and pry open.
If you get it off then you need to scrape any glue off and rewet with one of the agents for relaxing african hides.
Good luck