A few years ago, when I first learned taxidermy, my teacher was a surgical nurse. She would get the staplers used in surgery and use them in her shop on gameheads in place of needle and thread. Each staple gun is a disposable plastic device that looks like a long-nosed pair of pliers and the staples were surgical stanless steel. I've brought this up to several other taxi's and have often wondered if anyone out there in the product development line has ever considered developing such a device for our use? Anyone else ever thought of this? I saw her seams and, if properly mallotized, were no more visible than a well managed sewn seam.
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Lance,
I agree with you! I looked into making the staple guns available to the taxidermy industry. The problem is that only the sterile surgical productis made which makes it very expensive. These are a disposible item on each surgery, and your hospital bill will reflect that. I had thoughts of modifying existing staplers to do the same task, not an easy problem to solve and keep the cost down.
Your teacher is very lucky to have a free source for a very neat tool.
Steve entertained this idea when we were working on Epo-Grip Epoxy Hide Paste and I always was the devil's advocate. The beauty of a surgical stapler is that it was designed with one significant benefit: It was used on LIVE skin that would grow back together.
Tanned or DP skin has depth. That's great for the idea but bad for practicality. Lets hypothesize here. Take two, two inch thick pieces of foam rubber. On a flat surface, place a good layer of contact glue and butt the two pieces together. The paste will hold them but as they draw, the separate. Now staple them down as a surgical stapler would. This will insure that the undersides stay put until the glue dries. When it's dried, pull the staples. Now take your hands, lay one on each piece and push in opposite directions. What happens to the seam where the staples were?
A tanned hide won't heal itself and the staple will insure that the bases stay in place until the glue dries. HOWEVER, the epidermal layer is still moist to some degree and as years pass, the natural drumming of dry skin is going to eventually open that seam. Remember OJ's gloves. Its a shame lawyers are too stupid to understand moisture, leather, and natural drumming. If they'd had any sense, they'd have soaked those gloves in warm water and THEN handed them to OJ with his rubber gloves on. We all know what would have happened then. All of us except the lawyers. Surgical staples will have to withstand the OJ test for me to ever believe it's a viable solution.
I was an O.R. nurse for ten years and presently I am a Supervisor for a Material Management Dept at the hospital. I've used staplers for years in the O.R. and they are a great time saver, but as George mentioned the hide will pull apart. In a patient you have to remember that the surgeon is putting a subcutaneous stitch which will help to bolster the staple line but in taxidermy we don't have this.
Another point to remember is the cost, staplers range from $5.00 to $25.00 and can contain up to 35 staples/stapler. One stapler might handle a short Y incision, but you'd use two to three on a long Y incision.
Another disadvantage to staplers is that it is hard to reapproximate the skin edges together and staple at the same time. Stapling is best achieved with one person approximating the skin edges and the other person stapling.
The one technique that I do use that I got from the O.R. is the use of surgical suture. You can't bet the needles for sharpness (No prepunching of the leather) and used with an instrument called a needleholder,which gives a superior grip on the needle. Outdated suture can be purchased on eBay or from a local area hospital at a cheap price, buy monofilament suture or braided nonabsorbable suture. Suture size 3-0 or 4-0 is great for small animals and 0 or 1-0 suture is great for deer, bear, etc. Needleholders can be bought cheaply on eBay as well.
Personally I think that this concept if brought in the taxidermy trade has a lot of potential.
I agree with scanman, I have worked in the OR for 20 years now as a surgical assistant. The staples would tear through the skin without a supporting stitch to help take some of the tention off the skin.