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Hi all! Here is a reconstruction of Berthasaura leopoldinae I created! I've always been super excited by new discoveries.

I am not sure how niche of a topic this will end up being and if anyone other than myself will really post on here, but I thought that it still might be worth a try. I really enjoy 3D modeling and printing as a hobby and find that it often comes in handy when dealing with certain problems around collecting, organizing, displaying of fossils. Some of these designs I have come up with myself while others have been heavily inspired by other people's projects and I thought that creating a single place to share all my 3D prints related to this may be helpful or inspiring to others. So here are some of the models I've created and found quite useful for my collection, as always any forum members are free to message me and I will be happy to share any of these files with you: Microfossil slides, I think outside of some simple stands these may have been the first items like this I designed and printed. These have been quite useful as I can print these whenever I am sorting through some micromatrix and always have room for my micros instead of having to buy expensive slides and waiting for them to ship. This is my most recent print and it's a small universal stand for all my slides to keep them organized, it works with the printed ones, metal ones, injection molded plastic and just glass thin sections. Scale cubes, probably the most useful of all of these as I take many pictures of my fossils and having this as a reference with both metric and imperial units is great. and here are some of these mounts and hooks I designed. I just got some new shelving for my collection and each shelf this sort of beam behind it, this was a great way to mount some of my riker displays and larger flat specimens to reduce the space they take up on the shelf itself. If anyone has any other designs like this they have made with 3D printing, or other similar technologies like CNC that you'd like to share, it would be great to see some of them here to learn and get ideas or inspiration for our own projects. Thanks for looking!

I've notice some smaller armatures for articulated animals are copper and not steel. Is there a good reason for this? I'm about to build my own and have more experience with steel. Sure, it can be heavier and harder to bend, but I don't plan on taking my dino camping with me...

I created these fossil frames for my finds on trips to Kemmerer and Delta. They were a fair amount of work but I thought I'd share the design because I haven't seen anyone selling similar frames. I think the open space shows the fragility of the rock along with its natural shape instead of trapped in a rectangular frame. And I love collecting the accompanying negative impression. If you have any of your own designs, I'd love to see them! (no offense if this doesn't count as prep, but couldn't find display as a category) Cheers.

I posted recently asking for opinions on a partial Moroccan Dyrosaurus skull and jaws that I've had for a while, waiting for me to do something with it. The feedback I had encouraged me to start work on it, so I'm going to document my progress here. I seem to have most of the skull and upper jaws, though it is in a very fragmentary state. The bone pieces are very delicate and most are still covered in matrix. I plan to clean and consolidate all of the bones, and then mount them in 3D. Whether I will do this in the traditional way, or with the help of my 3D printer, I am as yet undecided. This summarises my position as of now: I have lots of bones, and don't know what they are. I have no idea what I'm doing. I have never done anything like this before. I'm sure a lot of people would tell me to leave it alone and give it to a professional to do, but firstly I don't have that kind of money and secondly I am keen to learn. If anybody has any tips at any point, those would be greatly appreciated. If you'd rather tell me something in confidence, please send me a message and I will keep the information to myself. Anything I discover on my own I will post here for the benefit of anybody else stupid enough to attempt this. I have cleaned a few of the bones so far, and after some initial hiccups, it's now going well. My method is to dab water onto the matrix, which quickly soaks it up. I continue until the matrix is sodden, at which point is usually comes away fairly easily using a dental pick and a scalpel. As I go, I consolidate the outside of the bones using small quantities of superglue to prevent breaks, and help maintain the basic stability if anything does break. When I'm finished, I have the option of using solvents to remove a bit of the excess glue, but whilst I'm working on it I want to know it's not going to fall to bits. Once I have removed the bulk of the matrix, I use a damp brush to remove any residual bits, and then a dry brush to remove small particles. Then I repeat as necessary. Here's my progress so far - a handful of cleaned and partially cleaned bones. My aim isn't to get them all pristine and white, just to remove the matrix to a point where all of the shapes and details can be seen. I don't mind a little bit of Moroccan sand here and there. Anyway, that's how far I've gotten. I will post occasional progress updates as I progress! I will also post better images in future - I am a professional photographer, so posting poor quality smartphone shots is inexcusable! Feedback or advice is most welcome.

These mounts were mentioned in a different post but I thought I would start a new thread since they are completed. I used copper wire to form the mounts, then soldered several places for strength, soldered to a copper plate and tempered the hot metal to make it rigid. I used combinations of vinegar and ammonia in a closed environment to force a patina on the copper. The bases are made from zebrawood with a satin polyurethane finish.