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Another big one


Ludwigia

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I have a very proficient and capable customer (actually he's become more of a friend and colleague with time) when it comes to seeking and finding good fossils, and he struck again last week, bringing me quite a large ammonite with a diameter of ca. 40cm. for preparation. He sent me a photo of it which he took during the extraction procedure.

 

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The matrix was pretty tough, so he ended up having to extricate it in several pieces, most of which he glued back together before he brought it to me. I did some stylus work on it to begin with and then we were faced with the decision of whether we should retain the last piece at the end of the living chamber. Either like this:

 

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Or like this:

 

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We finally decided on the second alternative, since the first would have meant a little too much additional modelling work, so we chucked the piece. We also decided to stick to working on just the one side for two reasons, the first being that it was chock-a-block with oysters and concretions, and the second being that he would have had to pay for a lot more hours of work which probably wouldn't have made all that much difference in the end. Here's a photo of the other side.

 

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I then spent a good number of hours with the air abrader on it, alternating back to the fine stylus when necessary in order to remove larger chunks of matrix once I was sure of their position. The abrading was slow going due to the hardness of the matrix, but it was worth having the necessary patience for it as can be seen below.

 

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There is a huge tube worm on it and the transition from phragmocone to living chamber can be distinctly seen. The shell is somewhat dented in places, particularly by the inner whorls, but I find that doesn't necessarily detract from the whole picture. I then filled in the gaps with my trusty Apoxie sculpt, painted it and applied the beeswax finish. I also cleaned up the back side a bit. The whole procedure took roughly 10 hours. Here's the final result.

 

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Fissilobiceras ovale. 40cm.

ovale zone

Wedelsandstein Formation

Early Bajocian

Middle Jurassic

From the Wutach area.

 

 

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Greetings from the Lake of Constance. Roger

http://www.steinkern.de/

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Awesome work Roger :default_clap2:

Many greetings from Germany ! Have a great time with many fossils :)

Regards Sebastian

Belo.gif

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Another fine job... :)

Leaving one side unfinished makes sense, as you're likely to only be displaying one side of such a large ammo anyway, but if it were mine I think I would have opted to keep the living chamber extension, for the sake of completeness and size! but of course financial considerations can be compelling... :zzzzscratchchin:

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Great work as always Roger! It never ceases to amaze me how you can take an ammonite puzzle like this and make it look as good as you do. :) 

 

The tube worm epibiont is very cool too!

The good thing about science is that it's true whether or not you believe in it.  -Neil deGrasse Tyson

 

Everyone you will ever meet knows something you don't. -Bill Nye (The Science Guy)

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59 minutes ago, Wrangellian said:

Another fine job... :)

Leaving one side unfinished makes sense, as you're likely to only be displaying one side of such a large ammo anyway, but if it were mine I think I would have opted to keep the living chamber extension, for the sake of completeness and size! but of course financial considerations can be compelling... :zzzzscratchchin:

I would have kept it as well for posterity, but the customer is always right, right?

 

Greetings from the Lake of Constance. Roger

http://www.steinkern.de/

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2 hours ago, nala said:

Wow ,ammonite resurection!

 

2 hours ago, TqB said:

 Nice work on what must have been a tricky prep. :)

 

40 minutes ago, FossilNerd said:

Great work as always Roger! It never ceases to amaze me how you can take an ammonite puzzle like this and make it look as good as you do. :) 

 

The tube worm epibiont is very cool too!

Thanks for your comments, guys.

 

 

Greetings from the Lake of Constance. Roger

http://www.steinkern.de/

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11 hours ago, Ludwigia said:

I would have kept it as well for posterity, but the customer is always right, right?

I guess so.

I meant to say I like the worm tube too.. a thing like that is an added bonus. ;)

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  Very nice how you can bring life (so to speak) back into these ammos you prep.  and once again Roger,  you have done a top notch job.   May I ask what media you used for this project?

 

RB

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It looks wonderful I really like the rich colour you have brought out of it. Great Job cheers Bobby 

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1 hour ago, RJB said:

  Very nice how you can bring life (so to speak) back into these ammos you prep.  and once again Roger,  you have done a top notch job.   May I ask what media you used for this project?

 

RB

Thanks Ron. I always use iron powder 150µm.

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Greetings from the Lake of Constance. Roger

http://www.steinkern.de/

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1 hour ago, Bobby Rico said:

It looks wonderful I really like the rich colour you have brought out of it. Great Job cheers Bobby 

Thanks Bobby :D

 

Greetings from the Lake of Constance. Roger

http://www.steinkern.de/

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