Do most Taxidermist use artifical teeth when doing a boar, and if so is this something you discuss with the customer, because the jaw sets I see look pretty basic as far as size of the teeth. It seems to me boars teeth come in all sizes and shape and I would hate to put teeth in that were not the same size as the original.
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This has been addressed many times on this site. I would highly reccomend Rick Carters boar video, its great for beginners as well as those with expirence. The short answer is yes you have to use artifical tusks and whets. The actuals are prone to splitting and cracking. I tell my customers up front that they will HAVE to have artificals and explain why, they have all been understanding about this issue. Good luck, Mark www.natures-reflection.com
Ricks video is tops, you can get different sizes of tusk with a jaw set, S,M,L and most hunters want large even if what they shot was not. Just be firm up front and inform the hunters that the real tusk will only fall out latter, they are soft to start with, and will dry out and crack.
I mount a bunch of hogs and around here, you'd be ostrisized if you attempted to use fake tusks .(Im assuming when you say "teeth" you mean the tusks and whets?) The tusks are what makes a trophy hog a trophy hog. Much like a deer antlers make him the trophy he is. Can you imagine telling all your deer customers that you would habe to use fake antlers? Im not sure if it is because of our humidity here but I never had one crack yet. They will crack down the road if you boil them to get them out. I rot mine out and I fill the hollow inside the tusks with apoxi sculp. As far as what Mr. T said about them "falling out", Now THAT just doesnt happen anywhere. They may crack like Mark said. But fall out? If I were you I'd give your customers the choice atleast, fake or real. And inform them of the chance of it cracking. Remove your tusks as I instructed and give it a try.
After you rot them out do you place them in a jaw set. Because it would be nice to be able to give a choice.
After you rot them out you clean them with soap, water and some pinesol, dry, fill the hollow and place them in the artificial jaw set. I use the sets with the tusk sockets in them, rather than the ones without. They look better. Simply dremmel out the socket to fit the tusks, after you seat your jaw set and secure, then stuff some apoxi down in the hole and push the tusk in the hole and let it smash into the apoxi and let dry. Make sure they are in position and then dont touch till apoxi hardens. I guess you know that when you rot out the tusks and pull them out they are just as long under the gumline as they are above, so measure the length of each one above the gum line and give yourself an extra 1.5 inches to stuff into the jaw set then cut away the excess tusk.
Thanks for all the advise.