Deer Shoulder Mount Time?

Somewhere in the neighborhood of 14 to 16 hours, sometimes a little less, sometimes a little more.

 

I’ll be a real ASS here and say this to all you beginners etc.
WHO GIVES A RATS BEHIND ON HOW LONG IT TAKES YOU!!
Now the reason I say this is your learning these new skills and it’ll take time to be able to incorporate them on a daily’s basis cause you don’t have the memory control yet. Your thinking about every step you have to do. Most of us doing this full time don’t even think about it as our mind and hands know what to do without real thinking. We know step A is this and so on. So our hrs will differ from me to you and the next person depending on what their doing from the rest.
There are a lot of variables to go buy so sit down and do this first:
Make a list of all your steps you need to preform on either mounting your deer or from when your clients come in and how you handle them. Then practice these steps. Some of them can be done repeatedly like all your clay work on a deer. Get yourself some plasticine clay and set eyes 20-30 times a day , same if your rebuilding earbuds. Weigh your clay and use the same amounts on each side. This will give you memory control plus speed. A lot goes into this work before you should worry about time, worry about getting it as good as you can get to reference, hair patterns etc. So what if you need to bag it overnight to work on it better to get it right. It’s ok to do it in 20-30 hrs then you’ll see you’ll get to that 12-16 hrs time
Never worry about time , worry about your quality cause it’s your name that the whole world will see and make comments on it and I don’t care how good you are you will still have haters of your work, listen to your peers who understand this work not those who don’t or think they know cause their are plenty.

 

To add to what Frank said , you don’t just mount it and wait to dry you need to adjust it as it dries, see my tutorial under Bag them . You want your mount to dry slowly.

 

About 8 hours, not including tanning. However... I've been at this for 35 years.

A beginner, more likely in the 15 hour range.

 

Lol I guess for as long as I’ve been doing it I’m still a beginner by your hours lol

 

9 hours, which includes 30 minutes at drop-off and 15 minutes at pick-up. I use dry preservative on WT Deer. I do all capeing, fleshing and shaving myself.

 

I never realized what speed and quality could be achieved until I worked for a large shop about 20 years ago. It really pushed me.
I work for a smaller operation now, but we do put out an impressive amount of work, and someone's got to do it. I'm lucky in that I only work on mammals, try to work in batches, and rarely answer the phone or deal with customers. Dealing with interruptions can really slow you down.

 

Absolutely! My most productive time is from 6AM-9AM. Once the rest of the world wakes up, my productivity goes down.

 

What brand dry preservative do you use?
I assume that you have been using this for quite a while with no issues, I’m a beginner and have wanted to try do but the few guys of asked about it say go with tanning.
Thanks

 

Second-2-Nature. I have a raccoon I mounted 50 years ago...the hair is still tight as a drum.

 

A properly tanned hide is better than an improperly tanned hide and better than an improperly DP'd hide.
A properly DP'd hide is better than an improperly DP'd hide and better than an improperly tanned hide.

A properly done DP hide can be every bit as good as a properly tanned hide. The key word is "properly".

For mounting purposes.

 

Thank You for your help!