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Showing results for tags 'paleosculp'.
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Hello, I have a large canine tooth (~14 cm with the root, ~6.5 cm with just the tooth) from the White River Formation that I collected this summer on privately held land in northeastern Colorado, and though the fossil in its natural state is fantastic as-is I’m thinking about doing a little bit of restoration on the fossil and am looking for some insights. The tooth itself is from either an entelodont or the rhino Metamynodon, with the shape of the tooth and root strongly suggesting the latter to me (feel free to speak out if you have an opinion one way or the other, though I’m not specifically asking for an ID in this thread). I found the tooth in several pieces and glued everything that I could find back together. I have most of the tooth, but only a small piece of the tip remains. Also, I have not glued the tooth back to its root, and instead simply display them together as if they were connected. I am thinking about restoring the rest of the tip by sculpting it in using paleosculp from Paleobond, using what piece of the tip there is as a guide. I am looking for any information anyone can give me on paleosculp and the process of restoring a fossil using this material. Would this be the correct product for the job? Is there anything I should know when working with the material? Is restoring the tip of this tooth even a good idea at all, or in the name of science should I leave it as I found it? I intend to leave the paleosculp unpainted for the purposes of not risking damage to the fossil and also making it obvious which pieces of the fossil are original (most of it) and which pieces are restoration (just a little section of the tip). I understand that dinosaur teeth are frequently restored in this way, but I want to make sure that I’m not committing blasphemy by doing such a restoration. Also, paleosculp is advertised as being sand-able and drill-able after it dries, and so I figure if the restoration ever needs to be removed for whatever reason it could be sanded away in a labor-intensive process, but do let me know if this is not the case. I also intend to clean the fossil up a bit more (ie get rid of some of the residual dirt still on it) and potentially glue the tooth onto the root. Thank you for any insights and information you may have! Picture of the fossil and of the tooth tip provided for context.