I got a deer head in during Nov. with a cape in noticeably bad shape. It was bloody around the front of the shoulders from several bullet holes and the cape was wet from being in the rain for several days. The cape stunk. It was a young hunter who shot the deer, probably the buck of a lifetime for him and he couldn't afford to replace the cape, which had a 24" upper neck circumference. The hair seemed to be tight to the cape, so I decided to try to mount it. However, after tanning (Lutan-F) the cape, I noticed the hair was falling out around the bullet holes, but was holding tight everywhere else. I photographed the slippage, cut away the bat spots and sewed them up. Then I mounted the thing. After a few days of drying, the hair started pulling out easily around the areas where the bullet holes were (the entire front of the shoulder area). The situation has not improved after two full weeks of drying at 40% humidity. The hair is not falling out, but if you tug on the hair in that area, it does pull out. I tried using Stop Slip on the affected areas a week ago and it didn't seem to help. I'm asking for advice on what to do. Should I just inform the customer of the problem and tell him not to pull on the hair in any way? What would the longevity of the mount be if handled kindly? I am covered in my contract that he signed on hair slippage. If I need to remount the head at this point, I have already invested 8 hour into it and can't aford that lose, so how should I handle that?
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Bacteria thrived in those areas saturated with blood. Always wash them well and remove a larger area than needed.
You can pull the hair out of a good skin, so stop pulling on it!
If the skin made it trough the salting and the pickle and the tan is shloud be fine unless you skipped some of the steps.
When you say the skin stunk, do you mean with a rotting smell or just a wet deer smell, now do you know the difference?
While you and a few others will think this is a smart assed remark, its not to help you we need more information. STINK covers a wide range of smells and may not have anything to do with the slipping.
Mel,
You got a bad cape from the client. You need to tell the client before you mount the cape that it might slip. I always double my deposit on iffy capes. That way you will not get totally burned when you let the client know the mount has issues. I do not know of a way to fix this cape but in the future on all iffy capes I use a dry preserve instead of tanning. D.P. capes slip anyway for two weeks and then they get hard as a rock and hold the hair. If you ever do this tell the client you do not always D.P. capes only bad ones. When the D.P. mount falls apart faster than a tanned cape the client will know you did the best option at the time and will continue to bring you heads. As for bullet hole slip. In my opinion the velocity of a bullet hitting the skin of an animal can destroy the hair follicles in that area. I have no proof of this only that on most capes that come to me with a bullet hole in it I notice that the hair is easy to pull out in that area and gets tighter as you move away from it. Try it on a good cape once and see if it true or just senility on my part. HAHAHA
God Bless
I don't know how to define the stink of that cape, but it smelled wet and rotten to me. I did salt and pickle the cape. I also washed it and all the blood and stick came out. I have not finished the mount yet. I just tried a second application of Stop Slip and will let it sit for another week before I make up my mind what to do. I collected a standard $200 deposit on the work, which is half the total cost.
Mel, I had one a few years ago which arrived in a cardboard box of South Dakota snow and ice in the bed of a pickup- I'm in North Carolina. Having been dead 3 days, windblown for 26 hours on the drive home and looking very rough I still agreed to take it. Neck shot and bloody, I did the mount with your exact results. I stressed over this deer as I knew this hunter spends a lot on taxidermy and it was my first job for him. It was about 4 weeks before the shedding finaly stopped but it did stop. Try running a fan on the mount for a week or so and resist the urge to check the hair also if you have a warmer dryer area such as an attic put it there. I think these fragile capes just need to dry down completely to hold the hair. When it is as dry as it will get brush it out completely to get the loose stuff out and hopefully it will be fine. Sometimes it's hard to be sure when to turn the cape down but a replacement cape would have saved you and me a lot of worry. Best of luck, Aaron H.
wether your skeptical about this stuff or not, try it! i have my capes commercially tanned, but when faced with an iffy cape i use the krow tan , ive had them stinky and real loose haired, after throwing them in this stuff the hair sets real nice.