always nice to see your work - it would be a shame to let these pretty animal bits go to waste!
i've been meaning to ask: what method/product do you use to protect the skulls? i found the remains of a bird [possibly a starling?] in my garden last spring, carefully cleaned the skull, and wasn't sure how to go about protecting the delicate bone from breakage. [but if i'm asking you to disclose your trade secrets and you'd rather not, i totally understand.*]
A big key to preservation is how you cleaned the skull. Soaking in certain solutions breaks down the bone and causes it to fall apart over time. For me the preservation depends on the state of the carcass when found. I use beetles, special solution to soak after bone is mostly clean. I then coat with a thin layer of acrylic and soak in a hardening solution. This gets the skulls to become hard enough to use in jewelry. They are never going to be as hard as resin or metal but if you take care when wearing and storing the jewelry it should last for years.
it does, thankyou! the skull was mostly cleaned by weather when i found it, so i soaked it in water, then a peroxide solution, then water again.. it's now completely clean and paper-white. i have clear acrylic medium, so perhaps building up several very thin coats of that is the best way to go.
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i've been meaning to ask: what method/product do you use to protect the skulls?
i found the remains of a bird [possibly a starling?] in my garden last spring, carefully cleaned the skull, and wasn't sure how to go about protecting the delicate bone from breakage. [but if i'm asking you to disclose your trade secrets and you'd rather not, i totally understand.*]
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Hope this helps!
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the skull was mostly cleaned by weather when i found it, so i soaked it in water, then a peroxide solution, then water again.. it's now completely clean and paper-white. i have clear acrylic medium, so perhaps building up several very thin coats of that is the best way to go.
Reply
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