I have a customer who has a very nice (and large) bear rug that was done about 20 years ago. Recently, a new puppy decided to use one of the ears as a chew toy. Before he noticed what the dog was doing, half the ear was gone. He wants me to do the work, but I'm not sure how to rebuild the top half of an ear. Currently I don't have any scraps of bear skin in my shop, but my first thought was to re-build the ear using an earliner and some scrap bearskin and then trim the fur down to match the original ear hair. I'd have to wait until this coming fall when I'll have some scrap bear skin to use. Any suggestions would be much appreciated.
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Hi Tom. I've done this before myself. I did just as you described (or nearly so). I removed the remaining hide from the chewed up ear liner (right down to the head) and inserted another liner. Then I used epoxy to glue scrap hide to both sides of the ear. When glue was set I trimmed the hair to match the other ear. Trouble then was that the trimmed ear was a different color that the other one because after trimming the long hair (the scraps were from the body, not from an ear) it exposed the a lighter colored under fur. I simply painted it with an airbrush with black laquer and combed it out with a toothbrush when the paint dried. When my customer came for it he couldn't remember which ear had been chewed. He was tickled pink 'cause he thought his precious trophy was "ruint". Heck, I'll send ya some bear hide scraps. Email me with an address.
Use one of his it it matches.
Thanks for the help. The guy is a friend of mine and I'd really like to help him and do a good job on the repair. If you have some blackbear scraps laying around, I'd really appreciate it if you could send me a bit. I'll email you my address.
Tom
My puppy chews everything he can find . Ate a nice chunk of one of my first mounts . I repaired it but offered his hide to join the rest of my walls . He seems to be doing much better now that he has met the rest ! LOL To the point , not too bad a fix there as long as you can find fur that matches . Maybe even a quick fix to change out the entire ear for your friend ( that would be like a miracle to him ) yet can be done with searching and patience ! Bradlee