Earlier I had asked for some ideas on Ears and liners. I had differant ideas brought to my attention. I was taught years ago to use earliners without removing the cartlage and also using bondo for adhesive. It has work fine for me but at times i get the ear pulling away from the liner as it dries. This results in a type of drumming. Has anyone ever worked ears this way and if so what was your outcome. I am really looking for that great looking ear and would be willing to try other ways to get it. Hopefully I get some good ideas from all of you . thanks.
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If you want to do great looking ears,Remove the cartilage and install a good quality earliner.Also,after removing the cartilage,make sure that the ear is opened all the way to the edge.A lot of taxidermists don't realize that you may have to open as much as 1/8" of ear edge beyond the cartilage edge.Take one of the cartilages that you remove and use that as a pattern to trim your earliner.Now set it aside to dry on it's own.You'll see how much this thing shrinks and pulls as it drys.That should tell you something about leaving cartilages in.I prefer an epoxy that sets in about 10 minutes and glue and shape one ear at a time.This should give you an ear that is thin as the real thing and if done properly,will never pull or drum.
First off, Bondo is not now nor ever has been an "adhesive". It's body filler and to use it in an ear conversation, one would assume it was used as reinforcement to the cartilage. In those old, golden days, sheet lead, tin, and aluminum flashing were used as "liners" along with regular hide paste. When Van Dykes marketed the first plastic FORMED earliners, they recommended that you punch holes across the surface since no glue being used at that time would adhere to the plastic. We used caulk, liquid nails, and contact cement. I may have been one of the first to use epoxy and I only found out about it as I was using it in furniture building and had run out of contact cement. When I ordered it for my taxidermy business, Steve Steinbring of Epo-Grip, my supplier, began asking questions and it took off from there. We conducted seminars at state and national shows in 1999 to show these new techniques and the comparisons of the methods.
Epo-Grip now markets a product called Ear Magic that's fantastic as a replacement for Bondo and cartilage as well.
Jim covered all the other issues .
Brad, Everybody has their preferences and it doesn't always mean that one is right and one is wrong. There's just different right ways. If the bondo method was so out of place in the taxidermy world it wouldn't be so widely used by many professionals. I'm not talking about competition mounts. I'm talking bread and butter customer mounts. I don't know how you did your bondo ears but here is how I do mine. I don't incorperate an earliner. I keep the cartilage in because the cartilage guides the ear shape. But I score the cartilage in a checker board design so that it cannot act as one powerful unit to pull away as it dries. I clean the inner ear with laquer thinner. I mix bondo and resin in more or less even amounts. I then add the bondo hardener and chopped fiber glass until I get a more or less jelly consistancy. Push that stuff in and mold the ear. Let harden. Done. The resin and fiber glass added to the bondo forms what amounts to a nearly indestructable earliner with a hard, flexible plastic like result that does adhere well to the ear. The best thing about this method is you get a perfect fitting earliner every time. I have several old mounts that I did this way and there is no drumming.
If you're going to use earliners Id say do as George described and leave the bono out of it. Yes, bondo, acting on its own is not a good adhesive for earliners.
One question for Hogger, You stated that you used a lot of bondo on older ears. What do you use or how do you do them know? Well thatnks for the comments they all help in there own ways. I will be tring these ideas this year to see what one works for me .
What I was trying to say is that the method I mentioned above is the method I used on those old mounts and still use it today. If it's not broken dont fix it.