Leave the arsenic alone, it is very dangerious and can kill you
I have read a long time ago reading about people using it, I don`t
remenber about its use for tannings, but I have an old taxerdimy
book telling about some using it to dust birds and other small
game, Borox will do the job just as well and they won`t be finding
you dead in your shop! Have a good one!
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We all know that! Arsenic hasn't been used for many many years. Although I have heard of a few old timers that still use it.
I dont remember seeing it used for dusting any mounts, but it was used in combination with soap and brushed on the inside of the skin.
A few months ago my Dad went all over south Missouri trying to find some and noone sells it of could even order it anymore.
buy it I don't think. Arsenic is a very dangerous poison. Many taxidermists of times past died from using it. In fact I think that the fella that stuffed PT Barnum's Jumbo the Elephant died of arsenic poisoning. Someone correct me if I am wrong.
..you're going to have to have some very STRONG credentials. Arsenic is still used in some plating operations and certainly for medical and laboratory applications. If you fall into those, you may be licensed by the Federal government and the EPA to possess arsenic, otherwise, in this day of terrorism, forgetaboutit.
By the way, arsenic was once called the perfect preservative. Abraham Lincoln was embalmed with it and his recent exhumation shocked many when they discovered a perfect specimen of that former president.
see: http://www.lhei.org/archivedarticle1.htm which related that wood products (read outdoor decks) use 144 million of Chromated Copper Arsenate in 1996 alone (Chromium, copper and Arsenic the key ingrediants).
Jumbo was an early taxidermy mount of Carl Akeley when he was still wet behind the ears. He died of Pneumonia/Hypothermia in Africa.
Very few taxidermists died of Arsenic Poisening - they got plenty sick, but a statiscal study in England actually suggested the opposite effect.
The usual mode of using arsenic for tanned hides, was a dip in a (saturated with arsenic) bath just prior to applying the hide to the manikan. it was occassionally dusted though by later taxidermists - usually the lead arsenate variety.
Hell... I am still wet behind the ears! I thought Jumbo was done by Jonas Bros? Shows how much I know! Joe
My dad use to say "I may not allways be right... But I am never WRONG!"
http://www.tufts.edu/alumni/magazine/spring2002/jumbo.html
Jumbo was not necessarily that large a taxidermy piece but it was one of the first full size taxidermy mounts of an elephant on US soil in 1885-6. Akeley was but 19 years old and depending on whose story you would want to believe, he may or may not have been in charge of mounting the beast. The actual work was not good and luckilly was destroyed by fire, though the skelton still exists.
Akeley went on to mount the pair of Bull elephants in the Field Museum Foyer, and I believe 2 (or three?) of the herd of elephants in the American Museum of Natural History. After Akeley's death in 1926, Louis Jonas who worked at the AMNH for a while, helped Rockwell on one or two of the Four Elephants that Robert Rockwell mounted for the Herd. In the 1960's Jonas Brothers mounted a handful of Elephants for the Los Angeles County Museum. Louis wrote the definitive paper on the Akeley method of mounting elephants published in 1930.