otter questions

Submitted by cart on 2/2/02. ( cspatt@fone.net ) 199.3.123.27

I am doing my first otter mount. We dont have many here in colorado. I am doing it for competition.I traded for a skin . It had been rough skinned .I noticed a fatty flap around the vent.Do they cover the vent when they are swiming?Are HB eyes acceptable or do you recomend others? All of the otter mounts I have seen ,the webing on the feet is dry and shrunkin.Is there any way to prevent this? I haven't taned it yet.Your help would be apricated.
Thanks

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Otter answers

This response submitted by Jan Van Hoesen on 2/5/02. ( vanhoese@freeway.net ) 216.93.55.160

I'm not sure about your first question. I don't know of any fatty flap that they could close during swimming.
I would use a good dark brown eye. Now the only way to get the feet to look correct is to first skin them out
all the way to the toe nail and that includes skinning the webbing. Prepare your mannikin properly is the next step.
If the mannikin has the feet with toes and webbing in it, then all you have to do is sand it down some before mounting.
But if your mannikin has no feet, I would make some on your mannikin before you mount the otter. Do not just make toes
and no webbing. You need to have something to glue the webbing to. Do not just glue the webbing to itself. Use some
foot reference of otter feet to aid in making the feet look alive. I think proper skinning is the most important so the feet
don/t look dried out. Hope this helps.
Jan


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