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Post by fishhead on Mar 7, 2008 20:05:35 GMT -5
I have started to do my first pike and it is not going to well. I did not no that pike lose their scales easy. It seems to be worse than a crappie. So now I have a 7 year olds biggest fish he ever caught and have so many scales missing that I do not no how I am going to fix it.
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Post by cecil on Mar 7, 2008 22:19:49 GMT -5
I have started to do my first pike and it is not going to well. I did not no that pike lose their scales easy. It seems to be worse than a crappie. So now I have a 7 year olds biggest fish he ever caught and have so many scales missing that I do not no how I am going to fix it. Normally pike don't lose their scales easily. It's one or more of three things: the fish is a very small one that is more delicate than an older fish, or the fish was not put in the freezer right away by the angler's parent and started to have bacterial scale slippage. Maybe they had to brag and show it to lots of people and let it deteriorate? Was there an odor to it? Or another possibilty is there was already some scales missing and when you did your scraping they continued to be removed. And there is even one more possiblity. Was the fish ever frozen? Did you by any chance get it fresh without being frozen and you skinned it out without it having been frozen? If so, that can make skinning and scraping more difficult and could have added stress to the skin. One thing you may want to consider next time you skin and scrape a small pike is to use a fresh scalpel for the scraping. The tissue will come off easier and you won't put as much pressure on the show side. Don't lose hope. Two things you have going for you are: 1.) The scales on a pike are small (relatively speaking) and 2.) They are tight to the body. Which makes the missing scales fairly easy to repair. After the skin dries first make a mold of an area of the fish that had good scales. Then iron down any lifted scales and fill in with a thin layer apoxie sculpt. Next press in your scale detail with your mold and let it set up. Then once dry, paint the apoxied areas with dark brown and lightly buff with fine steel wool just as you would with a replica. Do this everywhere needed and then blend in once again using your air brush with dark brown to come up with a homogenus skin color. If you have to use a Q-tip with a solvent to even out things or take some paint away to add detail. After you get everything evened out paint as you usually would. You'll probably have to paint in your bean spots with off white and some retarter. You can also lightly shade the side with transparent dark green over the been spots to get them to blend in better. You can do it! It's a good experience. Anything can be repaired if you know how! Unfortuantely problem solving is part of being a taxidermist.
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Post by jwj4856 on Mar 7, 2008 22:50:51 GMT -5
I once did a small rainbow that did the same thing and I did exactly as Cecil said and it turned out beautifully, no one ever knew a scale had fallen off.
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Post by fishhead on Mar 8, 2008 16:48:56 GMT -5
Cecil, What should I use for molding material. I have tried hot glue and silicone before with poor results. I ended up not mounting it yet. It wasn't going to well yesterday and my temper got the best of me and I took it out on my paint booth and ended up cutting my finger real bad.Ended up with 9 stitches and I still might loose the piece of skin and meat that almost got cut off in between the first nuckle and second one.But the DR. said it should reconnect and survive.
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Post by cecil on Mar 9, 2008 0:07:43 GMT -5
Cecil, What should I use for molding material. I have tried hot glue and silicone before with poor results. I ended up not mounting it yet. It wasn't going to well yesterday and my temper got the best of me and I took it out on my paint booth and ended up cutting my finger real bad.Ended up with 9 stitches and I still might loose the piece of skin and meat that almost got cut off in between the first nuckle and second one.But the DR. said it should reconnect and survive. Dude you need to stay calm. This will not be the last time you have a problem, and like I said taxidermy is all about problem solving at times. However the more you do the more you know what NOT to do and you will have less problems. And you will be amazed at how good you get at fixing things! A product I like to use to mold scales is called Knead -A-Mold. If you do a search on the Internet you should be able to find it from some hobby supplier. I don't believe any of the supply companies have it. You don't need much and it's not that expensive. Best part is it's a breeze to use. It comes in two parts and sets up in less than 20 minutes. And NO release is necessary. Now realize you don't have to line up any scales. You just have to add scale texture.
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Post by fishhead on Mar 11, 2008 12:43:39 GMT -5
I had some other taxidermists tell me to scale the whole fish. But I do not think it is a very good idea. What do you think? I will probally get some knead-a-mold and practice on another fish before I do the pike. There might not be any scales in the same area I need on the back of the pike.You can buy that stuff right from the company that makes.They even have a brush on molding stuff.
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Post by cecil on Mar 12, 2008 14:43:25 GMT -5
I would not scale it.
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Post by fishhead on Mar 13, 2008 16:41:09 GMT -5
Thanks I thought so. I just won't start at it again until my finger heals. I just mounted up a sunfish today and that was a little painful. So I will wait,so I will have all of my mind on doing the pike and not worrying about my finger. I am suppose to get the stitches out on Mon.
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