Why not the correct color/quality on African horns?

I was pleased to see this subject finally come up on this forum. I am not a taxidermist, I am a customer. I saved my money for years, and went on a safari in the Limpopo a few years back. I used a person who I understood to be a reputable taxidermist to do my work, who in fact, did some good work for me in the past. I am able to tell exceptional work from good work, and good from average, or poor work. The animals that I received back from this person included a Greater Southern Kudu, and a Nyala, along with several other species. The mounting job was acceptable to me, though the inside of the ears were drumming on the Kudu, and the colors inside the ears on both Kudu and Nyala were not quite right. Though I had specified that I wanted the horns restored to their original appearance and luster,(for which I supplied ample pictures), what I received back was anything but. My Kudu horns looked like greasy old railroad ties, and the Nyala horns looked like charcoal. Shipping a large Kudu pedestal back to someone for refinishing is not an option, especially with the person who did the work in the first place. Either way, there were some good answers provided in this discussion, and for that, I thank you. The problem will be to perform the work on an already finished mount.

 

Thank you, I will have to try the techniques out on an old, fissured piece of driftwood before bagging and masking the mounts, and trying it on them. Thank you for all the information.

 

marking

 

Hope its ok to post these here.
My first go at Kudu horns following AZ~Rich method. (Thank you)
I did use bees wax, green & brown pan pastels, brown & green colored grouts and red dirt.
I got a little disheartened mid way through and thought "omg what have i done" but they came out ok in the end.
Client was very happy.

 

they came out very nice Aussiesam. nothing looks worse on an African mount than to see shiny horns. I have seen many over the years that oiled them and made them look like crap. rich's method is great

 

I just respired and mounted a Nyala. The horns were so dried that it was like handling a cactus. You could not handle the horns without pulling splinters out of your hands. I sealed them with shellac. Shellac being a heavier base. several times in fact. then buffed the shards off with 0000 steel wool. Then a flat finish and started painting. The end result is a series of water based mostly Marshalls Pinchbacks colors, except a bit of red. One thing I have noticed in the wild live animals in Africa is the horns are not black nor gray. there maybe some gray in them but it is up the horn.

 

Rich One thing I also try to take care of is when sometimes pigments are missing the from inside the horn causing those areas to be lighter and actually translucent, (not natural in living horn).

Sorry but I think maybe you are not seeing the real horn. they are translucent. even American cattle, goat and sheep have translucent horns. I made notes of this while in Africa. My kids have also worked with exotics for most of their lives and I when I visit them they animals have translucent horns... Not antlers. Horns being keratin are translucent take a long slow look at them.

 

After cleaning the inside of the horn, have you tried sealing it with capitalized polyester resin. I just dont see black in any of the African horns until they have been ran through what ever process in Africa. Some coming out of TExas are in fact green. That maybe a combination of feed and habitat.

Keratin is translucent . even the black hooves of horses is translucent. It may be imp possible to get the true colors due to thinckness of the horn Maybe a white or flesh pearl on the inside is a better color. Horns are filled with blood.

 

I had my own personal African animals arrive a couple weeks back. I recently worked on my roan and sable. I made sure my dip and pack were under explicit orders to keep the horns as natural as possible and they actually arrived in decent shape.

Rich- I did not oil them as you described but instead this round I melted my beeswax into the horns which seemed to provide some oil into them before I started the rebuilding process.

In short- I melted beeswax and applied with a paint brush. The wax cooled quickly as I did this leaving a coat of wax on the horns.




I next use a hairdryer or a paint stripper gun on the lowest setting and melted the wax into the horn. Here is where I might have picked up some of the oil in the process as it did darken the horn slightly. I buffed out the wax while still warm and filled the cracks.

Here is a horn half buffed out and half still with the first coat of wax.


The first one with the finished wax step (right) next to the original horn (left).



Since these were my personal animals I had exact measurements from the hunt and needed to rebuild approximately 1/2" on each the sable and roan. I made silicone molds
of 3/4" of the bottom of both horns.



I next used a paddle bit to drill out the inside of the horn cores to remove any possible fat/grease or other junk and filled the holes with Borax. This might not do anything but it makes me feel I am doing SOMETHING LOL



I use a liberal amount of bondo around each core and push the extra down the bottom. I wet my finger with denatured alcohol and pat the bondo around the horn bottom and flattened out for the mold.







Once the bondo gels, I remove mold, rasp and trim edges and texture more if needed. I usually end up needing to use some apoxy clay in a few areas and reuse the mold to texture.



Horns like waterbuck often have big sections that "peel" and my roan did this also. I applied extra layers of wax and recolored. Left side original, right side waxed in with some pastel powder rubbed in.

 

The next steps involve multiple layers of stain, paint, pan pastel powder and dirt rubbed in









In total (excluding the silicone molds I made in advance) I spent approx 3.5 hrs on these two sets. I'm fairly happy with the results.