Suggestions from part time/busy shops

Tanglewood are you saying you pay yourself somewhere between 150,000 to 195,000 a year? That's a nice income in any field not just taxidermy.

 

So Cal how many hours do you have in a deer head from dealing with client at drop off all the way through to pick up?

 

Not any more. I pretty much retired from taxidermy. I did manage to pay off an incredible amount of debt I accrued and was able to take care of my family financially. It took a while to get there and then I started going down hill physically, so I retired, but was good for a while! That was not what I payed myself, it was what the company took in. I payed myself less than half.

 

I try to prep several (6-7) deer at once. I do all the form prepping on them, remove all the ear cartilage and do the detail fleshing and sew up all holes. Then I can easily mount two per day on my days off. Doing this I can do two or three a week and do the prepping and finishing on days I work when I get off. I take in between 220-300 animals a year. I'm just a part timer so I definitely have to do what I can to save time without losing quality.

 

The day before I mount, I take two out, do the ears, put them on my hide stretcher and oil them to make it easier for them to fit because many of the deer around here are 16-17". I do the clay work around the eyes and bag the form to let the clay firm up just a little so it won't be messed up when I put the hide on the next day. I usually try to mount two at a time. I previously prefit and bondo all my antlers using tape so I can remove the antlers until I'm ready to mount and the antlers are then prefit and ready to go.

 

I hot glue the glass eyes to the form.

 

I also hot glue my eyes in beforehand. I level my form and draw a level line with a sharpie, then hot glue them in. Then I do the clay and bag overnight to let the clay semiharden.

 

The thing I like about the hot glue over 5 minute epoxy is that if things aren't right, you can remove the hot glue easier than the epoxy.

 

I just put a few dots of super glue along the edge to glue the eye in place. Then apply the Epoxy Sculpt.

 

Seems strange that the hot glue setup that fast??

 

I set mine in clay. Minor adjustments are easy to make for 24-48 hours.

 

Makes sense. I have a crappy hot glue gun, if it's not warmed up enough, the glue sets up pretty fast. I would be interested to see how the 5-min epoxy would do for you.

 

Same here!

 

I put in fridge, no problems in 3-4 days