I have a person with some nice racks with broken off points. Is there a way to reconstruct this missing points?
please email me at gofishin@triwest.net with any tips
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I reconstruct any point that is broken by drilling a hole in the tine and using a piece of wire for the framework. I drill a hole that is slightly smaller than the wire that I'm using, then I pound the wire in and it sets really tight. Then I rebuild and shape the new point with apoxie sculpt. Next day, I stain or color to match.
I fix all my customers missing points if they request it. I drill a small hole in the point then put a wire in there and seat it with some Apoxie sculpt, Let dry then rebuild with Apoxie sculpt let dry then texture with Epo-Grip. George Roof has an excellent way of rebuilding tines maybe he will post, I have never used his method but my cousin tried it and the results were really good.
Forgot to say to paint it with oil paints, doing it in stages is the key to a good looking rebuilt point.
I don't drill undersized holes, however. In fact I drill a slightly larger hole, but I drill at least 3 holes for every tine I replace. I use one heavy wire and two slightly lighter wires. The heavy wire is my beam wire cut within 1/4 of the length I need. Then the second wire is cut a half inch shorter and the third a half inch shorter than the second. Then I take Epo-Grip Liquid Fast Set and put a few drops in the hole. Seat the wires. I use .032 aircraft lockwire (Harbor Freight sells it and the lock wire pliers to use with it. If you ever use it, you'll wonder why you never did it before.) In one of the holes, I push this .032 wire down into it and let the epoxy cure. When all the wires are secure, I start wrapping all three as tightly as I can with the lockwire until I have a steel "tower". When I get to the end of the shortest wire, I continue with two wires and then with one. When I get to the tip of the heavy wire, I go back down the "tower". As I near the base, I cut the wire and threaded it through the "tower" and tie a half hitch knot with it to secure it. I tuck the end to keep from cutting myself.
I've just created an armature for my tine. Stand back and bend it and shape it any way you'd like. The lock wire acts as a spring of sorts and is going to provide the "tooth" you'll need for your Apoxie Sculpt.
Apoxie Sculpt is going to be applied in two steps. The first one fills the tower and generally covers the wires. Use a Dairy Queen swirl at the top if you'd like but the heavy wire must be covered. Let it cure.
The next step is the final coat of Apoxie to shape your antler. You can be somewhat creative, but don't get carried away. Actually, you want it BIGGER than your original point and allow some of it to blend over you real antler. Let cure.
When cured, take a rasp or heavy bastard file and shape your point. Use the heavy file to remove your "over spray".
Now comes the tricky part. Mix a batch of Epo-Grip Seam and Seal Repair Putty. It is SUPER STICKY. I spray my hands heavily with Windex after I mix it. Cover your repairs and spray it continually with Windex as you shape it. Make sure it covers EVERYTHING and you can allow it to get on your real antler. WORK FAST. It will cure in less than 10 minutes, but you want it to set overnight.
Next day, use some 180 grit sandpaper and sand you antler. Make sure you go up and down and not around the antler. Insure that you sand your "overspray" areas as these will further hide your repair.
I use potassium permanganate to stain mine, but the Seam and Seal will take most any stain you choose. Wipe it to insure it's evenly spread and blended. Don't take it all the way to the tips so they can have an "ivory" appearance. When dry, paint your antlers (including the repair) with 50/50 linseed/turpentine and wipe excess off.
this ones getting printed and saved
ive said it before
hes a treasure of info
you new guys should feal greatful of all he shares
there are not many people with his experience that take the time to share a lifes work
i know im sure greatful as hell
hes saved me time and money
and ive learned so much in the last couple of years it aint funny
now im saying that and im no rookie
been gutting things 22 years plus
paul e
While I'm sure George's method will work very well it sounds very labor intensive. I'd have to charge $100 per repaired point to follow such a procedure. I've tried the Epo-Grip stuff from the antler repair kit and that stuff is a pain to work with and requires lots of filing and sanding.
Here's what I do these days: I clean the broken point very thuroughly using a tooth brush and Windex. I finish cleaning with thinner. I drill a hole a little bigger than the wire and super glue it in and then cut it off about 1/4" shorter than the tine length. I use kick-it to instantly set the glue. Then I apply a coat of Epoxei Clay to about half the thickness of the tine and then let it harden. After that I apply a second coat of Epoxie Clay and shape it to the desired shape and size of the point. By wetting my fingers and the Clay I can shape it and smooth out the juncture so that it is nearly seamless. I also put in little scratches with a knife to match the original rack. With a sculpuring tool, I can add texture to match contures and character, especially on brow tines. After it hardens overnight I use ultra fine grit sand paper and go over the point until it looks seamless. Then using a combination of paint and stains, I match it up to near perfection. Using this technique I can repair a point with less than an hour labor. If there are multiple points to repair (which I often do them in batches) then I can do a point in less than 30 min. labor. time.
I recently repaired a broken main beam that was also missing about two inches near the tip using George's method from one of his older responses in the archives. I epoxied a wire into the broken ends of the beam and then used natural Apoxie Sculpt to rebuild the missing area. Using water I smoothed it in as best I could. Then when it hardened I went back and sanded it smooth to match the real antler on both ends of the repaired area. Then I put on a candy coat of the Epo-Grip Repair Putty. As George said, this stuff is very sticky. I used a little water with some liquid dish washing soap in it to smooth out the Epo-Grip Repair Putty. This worked really well. I went about 1/4 to 1/2 inch past the repair edges with the Epo-Grip and feathered it into the real antler. When that was hard I used a fine grit sand paper to rough up the Epo-Grip a little. Then I used oil paints and thinner to re-color. This was my first attempt at repairing an antler and George's procedure was very easy to do. I had some trouble matching colors with the oil paints. I have some potassium permanganate and with this repair I thought the oil paints would give me a better color match. I probably didn't need to use the Epo-Grip Repair Putty since I ended up using oil paints but I did experiment with the potassium permanganate and it works great on the Epo-Grip Repair Putty.
Once you do it, you can finish one tine in less than an hour as well. I got tired of customers dinging the repairs and having them disbond at the base or crack. The tower concept of 3 wires ended all of that. The repair is almost as strong as the original. It's probably worth more than the $25 per point I get, but it's peaceful and creative work that I enjoy a helluva lot more than defatting diver ducks. LOL
George, you're a better man than I am. When I tried using the Epo-Grip putty as a top coat, it took me well over an hour in total time to fix even a small point. It's a real pain on brow tines with lots of groves and bumps. Putting in that detail was very time consuming. I used a dremel for that process.
I tested the Epoxie Clay thuroughly before I started doing it on commercial repairs. That stuff hardens up very well and is nearly as tough as real antler. It hardens to a texture that is just about identical to real antler too and it does take stain. The wire that I use is really not for the strengh of the finished point, but rather just to hold up the putty on the first coat before it hardens. I overlap at least 1/2" down from the broken juncture with the Epoxie Clay which gives me plenty of survace area to bond the repair to the antler. I tried to break off a repaired point before and couldn't even snap it off when I tried.
I'll agree that fixing points is much more enjoyable than just about anything else I do in taxidermy.