My Last Rhino - Attention: The Guy From Between The Us And Australia

My Last Rhino - drying out nicely (Sorry, the 'Conversation' route won't take uploads.) Enjoy. Joe

 

I'm so old I forgot to attach the photo. Here it is:

 

Also, here's the picture of Henry down under which I didn't know how to send before.

 

If I remember correctly on this one, I jigsawed out the bottom of each foot then substituted a “pad” of plywood the approximate thickness and shape to replace what was the natural pad. I don’t recall how exactly I accommodated the leg rods – probably with a simple sawed slot. Those plywood spacers were then screwed to the plywood bottoms of the manikin which had been cast in - the same as a “head block” on a game head. The feet will not dry, only get moldy if you leave the pads on. Then, Filled in the toes with clay like you would any hoofed mammal. Test fitted until everything looked right. Then the leg rods were cut off flush with the floor. Nothing was anchored to a temporary base because the mount would be free standing.

I then screwed on two scraps of plywood to the bottoms of both pairs of feet. Lastly I drilled a hole about an inch from the bottom and front of each toe nail and ran 2 1/2” inch screws to hold the toes to the scraps so that they would not curl up while drying. Those toes will shrink up if you don’t pin them to the floor. Same with elephants.

This was a contract job I did for B & B Taxidermy, Mike Baird, who brought his two hired hands Travis Frazier and his sister Trish. With a good manikin like I make, we put the skin on in one day. Mike Baird doesn’t mess around.

A few years later this fine mount was literally floating in the customer’s trophy room during the Houston flooding that followed New Orleans’ Katrina. I don’t know how Mike salvaged it but he did.
I hope this was understandable.