Red Fox Restoration
When a lady called the museum to ask for her pest damaged fox to be restored I was apprehensive because I know how much destruction pests such as moths and beetles can do. I asked the lady to send over some photos so I could determine if it were a lost cause. The damage was worse than I had expected but it was such a lovely mount I decided to accept the challenge. The fox was mounted in 1996 by Helen Sharp so its quality is no surprise as Helen is the daughter and student of Nottingham Natural History Museum’s taxidermy legend Don Sharp. This connection to the museum was another reason I was keen to salvage the fox.
Thankfully the pests had mostly kept to the extremities. There was some hair loss on the main body but not enough to create visible bald patches. As I tend to focus on bird taxidermy I have very little experience in this area. I’ve mounted plenty of small mammals but they have always been small enough to use the Mike Gadd beginners technique*. Therefore this project was going to be a huge learning experience for me! I decided the best way to restore the fox would be via transplant. Cue the wait for an ethically sourced fox! After many months of searching I finally sourced a pre-skinned fox pelt from the kind and very talented taxidermist, Emilie Woodford*.
Having no clue about the tanning process I did some research which I promptly threw out the window when Emilie kindly provided me with what I needed to keep the pelt in pickle until I was ready to work on it. Here’s the recipe:
Sources suggest pelts can stay in this solution indefinitely. The part of the pelt I haven’t used for this project is still in the pickle over a month later and seems to be doing fine. I check the pH regularly to make sure it stays low (pH 2). There’s loads of, often conflicting, information on pH levels when pickling and tanning and you can go mad trying to work out which is best. I took a leap of faith and combined several sources to come up with mine, it worked out! The night before I was going to commit to the transplant I took the pelt out of the pickle and cut it into sections so that I had four separate legs and a tail. I then rinsed each section and placed them in a neutralising bath of 1oz bicarbonate soda to 1 gallon of water (pH 5) for half an hour. I rinsed the sections again and hung them up for another half an hour before putting them into the tanning solution (pH 3.5). Here’s the recipe:
(all chemicals available through JHT*)
I left the legs and tail in the tanning solution overnight (~10 hours) before rinsing them out and organising them into bags to stop them from drying out while I prepared the fox mount.
I cut through the leg skin and removed it from the highest point of damage down. The form beneath was made from bone wrapped in wood wool and modelled over with plaster. I removed most of the plaster from the feet to allow for discrepancies in size between the old and the new fox. I then covered the cuff of the mount where I had removed the leg skin with cotton wool soaked in methylated spirits and left it a while to hydrate.
With the cuff skin still hydrating I added some airdry clay to the foot and carefully fit the new leg skin into place, repeatedly adjusting it as I sew up the incision around the form. By the time I got to the join the cuff skin had hydrated enough for it to be stitched to the new skin which I had now cut to size. At this point I really don’t need to point out the drastic colour difference between the two foxes! The sudden realisation I should have replaced this leg further up where the fur was longer to hide the join better now kicked in…but you live and learn. For this reason the join is much better hidden on the other front leg where the damage had spread further up. The next two legs went on the same way as the first without any trouble.
The next leg was going to be trickier, the pest damage covered most of the leg as well as large parts of the fox’s bottom eeeeek. Again I removed the damaged skin, hydrated it and fit the new skin.
When I took the manky old tail off I discovered the tail of the form was made from silicone. I think I’d probably damaged this a bit when removing the skin so I repaired areas with a hot glue gun and slipped on the new tail like a sock! This went amazingly swiftly to which I was overjoyed. I sewed the opening of the new tail to the old hydrated skin and gave myself a pat on the back for not freaking out at any point during the day!
Drying time gave me opportunity to research how the hell I was gunna rectify the drastic colour changes between the old and new skins. There’s surprisingly little information on colouring taxidermy furs but there is a number of Youtube videos of people airbrushing faux fur masks, thank ffff for furries! There is also interesting footage of airbrushing taxidermy at the American Natural History Museum using dyes but I decided to brave it and go for acrylics as in the furries videos. I’ve only used an airbrush once before when restoring an old bream at the museum and I was useless. Thankfully friend and super talented model painter, Lance Allen* lives just around the corner and was willing to help. I’d like to say after being given a quick tutorial from Lance I was raring to go but I really didn’t want to mess up the mount at this stage so instead I leered over Lance while he skilfully blended the two skins together and created a masterpiece.
For the airbrushing we used Valejo Model Air Acrylic paints and some inks, applied very lightly with lots of blow drying in between coats and brushing the hair with a pet brush and flea comb to make sure it didn’t clump together. I fully intend to stop being a wuss and get my own airbrush so I can practice and eventually finish restoring the Rothschild giraffe neck and head that’s been sat in the workshop for years.
After picking up the custom made Perspex display case from local company Marlin Plastics* I was ready to make the base. Using a circular saw I cut two pieces of MDF, one to the outside measurements of the case and one to the inside measurements. This makes a good base as the case can then be screwed to the top piece of MDF which is fixed to the bottom larger piece. I tend to order cases a bit on the large size because I hate to see mounts with their noses pressed against the case. I might have ordered a little too large this time but Hopefully I’ve made that less obvious by filling the space above the fox with some dried grass. The grass was dried hanging upside down to keep it straight, I then drilled holes in the base and used expanding wood glue to fix the grass tufts into these holes. The shorter grass has been painted green. I made the rocks using Black Magic Craft* tutorials on Youtube. I really enjoy carving rocks out of polyurethane foam, probably because the end product looks so different to its blue cuboid beginnings. Definitely gunna buy a hot wire cutter soon because carving it is long and messsssssy! Another Youtuber with really good scenery making tutorials is Luke Towan*. My partner and I literally lose entire evenings watching tutorials on terrane making, It is sad, we love it. In the past I’ve had problems with my ground cover crumbling off over time. I used to paint over the finished base with a PVA and water mix. That’s not great because it can displace the ground work and sometimes leaves a cloudy white sheen. I now spray the finished base with isopropanol and then spray it with a mixture of Mod Podge, water and fairy liquid, works very well. I’d like to get into making some super detailed scenes like those in the tutorials but as this is client work, and it’s really not all about that base, I’ve made it pretty simple. In hindsight I should have added more long grass tufts at the back… heyho.
There were a few finishing touches to do to the fox. It was missing a nail which I recreated from Miliput and painted to match the others. The left ear was torn and bent so I fixed that with a bit of Gorilla Glue. I touched up the paint work around the face and gave the eyes a good clean with a meth soaked cotton bud. Once happy with the base I fixed the fox to it after trimming the leg wires and creating a trench with my Dremel for the wire to slot in underneath the base. After a million years of cleaning the case from cat hair stuck on with static and faffing around making sure it was in the exact right position, I screwed the bases together and covered the screw heads with adhesive padded feet after counter sinking them. I then very carefully screwed the Perspex case to the top base. I say ‘very carefully’ because I once cracked the case when I was screwing it to a kestrel’s base and literally cried. But success! I got through this whole project without crying and learning loads of new stuff. If you’re not sick of me by now and have any questions on taxidermy or restoration let me know.
* Links
Mike Gadd’s book: https://taxidermy.co.uk/uk/taxidermy-training/beginner-small-mammal-taxidermy-training-book
Emilie Woodford: https://www.facebook.com/woodfordtaxidermy
Taxidermy and tanning supplies: http://www.jhtsupplies.co.uk
Lance Allen: https://www.facebook.com/lanceallenminiatures
Pickle and Tan info: https://www.vandykestaxidermy.com/Lutanreg-FN-Kit-Instructions-by-VanDykes-W130.aspx
Pickle and Tan info: http://www.amystaxidermy.com/pages/tanning.htm
Recolouring Taxidermy at the American Natural History Museum: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i0F5VpgKesQ
Airbrushing faux fur: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ydRuh0zZsns
Marlin Plastics: https://www.facebook.com/marlinplastics
Black Magic Craft- Rock Making: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VjZmihU7nxg
Luke Towan- Scenery Building: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yygwun1cdug&t=469s
