i was wondering if anyone has tried this before with success?
let me lay the situation on you , i had a mount done for a friend the taxi man wrecked the original cape failed to tell me about it.
so i am speculating he bought a new cape , this was late rifle season the deer was taken in mich. pretty good size buck 115-120" rack 2 1/2 yr old when the mount came back it had orange guard hairs all over , and it looked as if it starved to death.
now what my intentions are is to pull the rack out of the old mount , but still save the mount i wish to not to destroy the mount but reuse it on one of my own bucks i have killed down south.
has this been acomplished successfully , do you have suggestions please.
thank you in advance
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Yes it has been done many times before. There are some things you need to consider before doing it though:
How old is the original mount?
How was the cape prepared? Tanned or DPed?
What sort of glue was used around the antlerburrs?
If the mount is fairly recent and the cape has been tanned I don't see why you couldn't switch them out.
Just resoak the seam behind the head and around the antlerburrs. You can do this by laying a wet papertowel over the seam and wrap with plastic for a day. Then open up the stitches far enough down to where the skullcap is exposed.
Now depending on how the antlers were attached (either bondo, apoxie, or clay layed over the skullcap)you may have to do some prying to remove the covering over the skullcap to expose the screws. Once you have the screws exposed you should be able to unscrew the skullcap and remove the whole thing in one piece. Make sure that your hide is sufficiently resoaked in that area so it is flexible and won't break or rip.
Now you can attach your own set of antlers, rebuild the skullcap and sew up the seam again. This needs to be done at the same time as you remove the antlers.
If the hide was DPed I do not know how resoaking would affect it since I don't use dp. It may help if you can find out from the person who mounted that deer to see what they did when they mounted it up before you get started.
It's getting a little old almost a whole year that you dont have the "money" yet,Now that this is public I'm sure I can run out to mailbox and it should be there anyday now huh?
the transfer was a success , although there was some hair slippage on one ear not noticeable though. does that mean it was dry pres- or could this occur with a tanned hide also?
as for moneyless in seatle use some couth , i am sure you can find a better way to handle this problem , besides cluttering up advice forums , ya think.
If the cape was Dry Preserved then you can rehydrate the same way superpig instructed but it will take a few days. After you have the antlers out you will need to reapply DP before you close up the head. With all dp cape drying you will experience hair slip for two weeks where you rehydrated then the cape will dry and hold the hair again. I did this on a few ocasions a long time ago.
God Bless