Rehydrating a fox

i *hope* you know that glacier wears foxes are NOT mountable. the ears are not turned, The feet are not there and sometimes parts of the faces are missing. Not a good fox to start with. I would call them ASAP to ask them for one with a complete face if you can. they sell for garments. a good fox to start out with you would be able to find on Hideandfur.com. They have pictures of the exact fox you would be getting. Glacierwear in the past has not been very good in my experience.

Anyways on to the rehydrating....

Glacierwear tans can dry "crispy" they crinkle and become stiff. so ONLY get the head wet. Soak it in a sink or a shallow bucket. Just enough water to submerge the head and ears. Depending how stiff the face is will determine how long it will sit. the face should be very pliable and the nose should not have any hardness to it...i stress that... To many people make these plushes when they don't let it sit long enough because they are excited over there first mount. once you get to that point you are ready to go... Sometimes this can take 30 min, other times 6 hours if garment tanned like the foxes your getting (you can wet the head, then put it in the fridge in a large ziplock bag, grocery bag or garbage bag. you can add salt to help prevent slip and if the nose is very hard and deformed you can put hide relaxer in with it... a very small amount tho.

sorry if i sounded a bit harsh. I have just seen so many plushes with these mistakes that i need to stress them.

Make sure you buy the rite supplies also... Don't try carving your first taxidermy form.

also print LOTS of reference photos and have fun!

 

o yeah. if you need help with anything please feel free to PM me or message me on a messenger.

yahoo: [email protected]
Aim: iknomyabcdsn123s

 

They have a section for taxidermy quality animals.... and most of the animals with feet and claws have bottom lips and in my experience are very mountable.

 

I rehydrated a garment tanned cross fox and suffered massive slippage on one of the ears (but it looked like the ear was pretty much a lost cause anyways). Some of the leather around the nose area is also very brittle (tears easy). I'm afraid I won't have time to work on the fox for at least a few more days (due to complications with the foam head being waaay too big) and I'm worried about the face/ears falling apart on me if I leave it soaked for too long. Right now it's wrapped in a soaking, sopping wet bath towel in a garbage bag in my relatively cool closet. Should I leave it be or change things up a bit? Any advice?

 

is this gonna be for a plush? if you want you can call me and i can tell ya what to do 203-278-0694.

If your not gonna use it in a few days freeze it in the freezer, it will continue to saturate the pelt which might make the problem worse if you leave it in the closet. if its for a plush and you did not get the rest of the head wet just rap the head in a plastic bag with a hair tie around it or a rubber band, then put the rest of the pelt in another bag to , so it will be protected from the stuff in the freezer

 

Yes, it is going to be for a plush.

I was thinking about freezing it...I'm just not the only in my house who uses the freezer and I really don't want to hear it from the other inhabitants. I was seeking to avoid this my hydrating and mounting the fox in one day. Spending a good 3-4 hours trying to reshape the foam head yesterday sort of fudged that plan. :/

Hmn. Just checked on it and it did get worse. The whole area by the nose is breaking apart more.

I'm thinking what I might do is put just the head in a smaller garbage bag with just a wet face towel instead of a whole body towel. At least that way it will stay at least partially moist and then I can attempt to mount it tomorrow...After I shave the foam head down more and pretty much rebuild it with apoxy sculpt. I was hoping I would only have to mod the form a little bit. My poor fox and his tiny head. >.<

Does that sound like an alright idea?

 

if you don't mount it very soon.. i suggest just letting it dry and having it as a wallhanger. Or you can buy a fox face and do that, but if its your first time doing it then it wont come out to well, haha frankenstein foxes

 

Yeah, I'll already settled down into the fact that it's not going to come out too well, but I can live with that.
It doesn't have to be perfect, it's my first fox.

I wanted to gain from this experience the basic skills I would be expected to have, should I continue to practice soft mount taxidermy.
I've already learned multitudes from this experience.

I bought this fox specifically to learn the process of soft mount taxidermy. If the fox is flawed, then I will learn from it's flaws and learn how to prevent them with my future mounts.

I don't particularly want it to be a frankenfox. D: But, ah well, we'll see. XD

Thank you for your advice, leopardpaws. I'll let you know how it turns out.