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How do you hang or mount huge fossils on your walls/cabinets?
-Andy- posted a topic in General Fossil Discussion
Hello everyone, I recently acquired a monstrously huge Mosasaurus beaugei skull which I would like to display in my house The skull measures 170 cm / 67" and weights 85 kg /187 lbs Does anyone have similar fossils which they mounted on their walls, or displayed in their cabinets? Thank you.- 14 replies
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Can I get some tips on how to mount a fossil? What materials do I need and is there a thread that someone has already made on the forum that I can follow and learn? Thanks!
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Mosasaur skull - Broken, fragile, in need of advice...
Scribbler posted a topic in Fossil Preparation
Hello TFF members - I'm in need so some advice on this one please. So this is my first post (happy to be corrected on any newbie errors) and although preparation is my favourite part of the fossil game, I am 'fairly' new to it - In other words, please go easy on me, I'm aware it's going to be all too tempting to say I've bitten off more than I can chew here... I recently purchased this Mosasaur skull from a well known European fossil auction site; you may have seen it yourself if you follow such things. It wasn't 'hugely' expensive, but that doesn't mean I'm not serious about making something good out of it and giving it a lot of attention (which clearly it will need...). It is from Morocco, was sold as a Platycarpus (from the teeth I would tend to agree, but please correct if you think otherwise) and originally was complete in a plaster jacket. The seller decided to prep it and remove from the jacket. Whilst this may have exposed more of it, some quite nicely, they have also turned it into the most insanely fragile fossil I have ever come into contact with! It was already in five large pieces when advertised for sale, and despite being very well packaged, has suffered further in transit. The matrix is not much more than hard (ish) sand and the bone only marginally more solid. Doesn't help that it's so crushed, so only matrix between each piece. Clearly leaving it in the matrix, perhaps replacing the jacket with something more aesthetically pleasing as part of a mount and prepping only the surface would have been the way to go, but it's beyond that now, so I would really love some thoughts and suggestions on the following: 1 - Immediate stabilisation and strengthening to prevent further breakages and reattach the broken sections (buckets of CA to solidify the sand matrix and reduce porosity to enable gluing?) 2 - Rebuilding/mounting (combining these two, as it will never be strong enough to hold in one piece and the mounting technique will likely need to be integral as it will need complete support across the entire back. It would never be my first choice, but I'm thinking a rebuilt matrix under the fossil to support and hold it together at the same time?) Ok, lots of text there for background and to give you more context, here are some pictures which will help... Original, in jacket: Advert pics: And another: Now it's home, in a slightly more confused state: And another: Last one, you get the idea: If anyone is interested in seeing more of it, please let me know, have lots of pics. It's an interesting item and despite being crushed to hell, looks to be fairly complete (the reverse tells it's own story too, more teeth there, etc.), but it's realistically only ever going to be an 'in matrix' display piece. Out of curiosity, I believe it's upside down, with the two maxilla visible on top and the upper jaw section being below, sure someone will easily be able to confirm? Anyway, enough from me, would love your thoughts and really appreciate anyone who has the time to consider and reply. If I haven't been clear or you need more info, please just let me know. Thank you, Dave -
Thought I would share some simple, inexpensive display stands I made for some of my smaller fossils. I don't suggest these are museum quality, but hopefully this will encourage others to experiment. These fossils were in my display case but just lying on the floor of a shelf. I didn't feel this was an optimum way to display them. I wanted to get them up off the floor, but I didn't want to spend a lot of money. So I decided to go with a simple wooden base together with some brass rod I bent to shape. The wood came from a 1x3" piece of red oak, 2 feet long, that I got at the local Osh hardware store for $4.49. I sawed some pieces off of it the correct length and have plenty left over for future use. For the brass, I bought some 1/16" rod (4 pieces, 12" long each, for $2.99) and some 3/32 brass tubing (3 pieces, 12" long each for $3.49), also from Osh. I figured out what lengths I needed and cut them with a jeweler's saw. There is plenty left over for more stands. The tubing serves as the straight vertical piece, and the rod (which fits neatly inside the tubing) is bent to shape to hold the fossil. I don't try to get a tight fit around the fossil, I want to be able to easily remove the fossil whenever I want. After I got everything the way I wanted it, I soldered the brass together using 95:5 tin-silver solder (it is fairly strong for a soft solder). Unfortunately the color of the solder doesn't match the brass, but it's behind the fossil out of view so I wasn't too worried. For the wood stand, I rounded the corners of the wood and sanded it smooth, then figured out where I wanted the vertical rods and drilled 3/32 diameter holes at those locations. I then stained the wood with some leftover stain from another project. After it dried, I sprayed on two coats of clear gloss polyurethane. After everything was dry, I inserted the rods into the holes and used some 5-minute epoxy on the underside to hold them in place (there is a shallow clearance hole drilled on the underside of the hole for the epoxy). The labels are just something I put together from PowerPoint and printed on ordinary paper using a color laser printer. I protected the front of the label with ordinary scotch tape and used spray adhesive on the back to apply it to the wood. The one thing I'm not sure about is whether I should dip the ends of the brass rod where they touch the fossil in some liquid plastic something like black Plasti-Dip. I'm worried the brass might scratch the fossil where it touches, but I'm not sure whether a plastic covering would be archival quality. Any advice would be welcome. Hope this inspires you to try your own designs.
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