Fossil Fishy's of Lebanon Thread

[FranzBernhard]

On 6/2/2021 at 9:32 PM, RJB said:

anybody want to come over and hold me.

Yes, here ! I love the tail the way it is! Its broken, but still complete(?). Imagine the story behind it, why does it look like they way it looks? What was going on? Nothing a perfect tail can tell .

Franz Bernhard

[Huntonia]

Wow!!   Another gorgeous fish I've never heard of! Great work! This thread keeps getting better and better.

    can't wait to see what's next.

[RJB]

I just fishished up this Nematonotus longispinus from Lebanon today.  It was an easy prep being that it was a split fish.  I did remove some rock on the best half and I did wash up both sides very carefully.  They cut these fish using a water saw and there is some residue left by that. 

 

In this photo of both halves you can see some extra rock below the fish on the left side that came off the fish on the right side. 

 

In this photo you can see that I have removed the extra rock below the fish.  I also exposed the tail end of the little tiny fish just below the tail of the main fish.  I then gave a very thin coat of Glyptal over the intire fish including the tiny one.  Holds any flakyness in place and brings out the fish a little bit for the eye.  Right now this one is in the garage with a wall hanger glued on with 2 part epoxy and in a day or so it will be fully cured and ready to go onto the wall.

[Randyw]

Wow! Great looking fish! Great job again!

[RJB]

  Looks like its been awhile since I've posted anything on this thread?  Not that I haven't been working on any Lebanese fossils, in fact been working on quite a few.  Been going crazy on making video's and giving less time to the forum.  Sorry folks.   But,,,,,,,, I ordered 4 boxes of prep projects from Lebanon and even though I've got some very large projects going on everywhere, I decided to take care of some of the smaller stuff yesterday.  That big stuff really beats me up nowadays.  Here is a picture of some small fish and shrimp  slabs.  They were literally covered in dry slurry from being underneath their water saw when they cut all there slabs and they arrived extremely dirty, but nothing some water and a tooth brush couldn't handle.

 

The double specimen lower left came off the back of the big slab while taking off rock to make the back nice and flat.   If you look closely you can see where I scribed off a small bit of rock to expose more antenna.  I did put fossil sauce on some of these specimens.  

 

[Scylla]

What is your fossil sauce recipe?

[RJB]

9 hours ago, Scylla said:

What is your fossil sauce recipe?

Its kinda like Paraloid 72.   Glyptal mixed with Acitone.  I mix 2 parts glyptal to 8 parts acitone, or there abouts

 

RB

[holdinghistory]

Nicely done! These Lebanese fish are very tricky to prep.

Edited December 14, 2022 by holdinghistory

[RJB]

On 12/13/2022 at 6:52 PM, Scylla said:

What is your fossil sauce recipe?

I was just going through the latter part of this thread and saw your post.  I appologize for this late response.   Most folks use the pariloid stuff, but I use Glyptal mixed with acitone to a watery consistancy, about 1 part glyptal to 4, 5 or 6 parts acitone. 

[RJB]

  I know I dont post as much as I used to here.  I have fallen in love with making fossil video's.  Thats taking up most of my time nowadays.  Anyways, I broke down and spent some serious moneys and now have a ton of Lebanese fossil fish projects to do.  I cleaned up one section of my big garage and set up some saw horses with long boards and then covered those with sheets of plywood.  One the 4 boxes of fish fossils arrived I unwrapped it all that got it all organized.  Been super busy washing and gluing and clamping these last few days to get them ready for prep.  One can only imagine the fun and excitement I'm having!!!  Here is a picture of only unpacking 2 boxes.  2 more to go

 

RB

 

Hard to see in this photo, but there are 3 different species of Picnodonts, one Spanidon, Guitar fish, Eurypholis and more.  Love the challenges of getting these back together and such. 

[fossilhunter21]

 

Cheers and Shalom 

 

-Micah

[RJB]

Gunna start calling myself, Mr Glue Man.  Been doing it for days now. 

 

RB

 

Here is day 4 of tryin to get all the pieces of this beauty back together.  

 

Here is another picnodont that now only needs a little crack repair and clean up. 

[fossilhunter21]

Looking good, Ron! Those fish are pretty neat looking. 

 

Cheers and Shalom,

 

-Micah

[FossilDAWG]

  

 

Don

[RJB]

15 hours ago, FossilDAWG said:

  

Pop corn and patience Don.  I've got about 15 projects going!

 

RB

[Yoda]

@RJB,

 

Those look to be some nice specimens 

[RJB]

  Lots of gluing, both sides were in many pieces, lots of rock transfers and miles of crack repair, but I finally got these beauts done!  Fish measures almost 5.5 inches wide and almost 8 inches tall!  I did make a video of this from start to finish showing everything I did but it wont be published for a week or so?  All in all, im almost happy with how these turned out.  Giving one side to my youngest son Coleton.  He should be happy.

 

RB

[FossilDAWG]

Beautiful!

Don

[Yoda]

@RJB

 

Those two came out really nicely 

[RJB]

For anyone who wants to see what I did, how I go about rock repair, then here ya go.  A 38 minute video of repairing this,  "broken up in many many pieces"  pos/neg fossil fish from Lebanon.  Very cool Pycnodont!  

 

https://youtu.be/LCs2YkPSYWM

[Sjfriend]

That is a very cool looking fish!

[Tidgy's Dad]

Glad I found this thread again and caught up.

Interesting and beautiful. 

[RJB]

1 hour ago, Tidgy's Dad said:

Glad I found this thread again and caught up.

Interesting and beautiful. 

I'm glad you did too.  I confess I found it quite fun going over it again.

 

RB

[RJB]

Boy o boy, this video making is really gettin in the way of my posting here on The Fossil Forum.  But Oh what fun I am having.  Anyways, this is the second shark I have prepped out from Lebanon.  This one is much much better than the first one.  First one being from 2 different sharks even though the guy I got it from swears its all from the same fish.  Nope!!!  I doubt I will ever get my money back, don't trust him one bit.  But enough of that, this one was a really fun prep along with some scary parts.  I had to do some transfer and I did not know at all if it would work or if it did, how well it would work.  Here is a pic of the finished project but if you want to watch the prep video of it, here it is.  Just published it this morning

 

A real challenge but now hanging on one of the walls in my office.  Lots of the vert column were on the opposing rock but was transferred successfully. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

            

 

 

[Jaybot]

Very nice!  Your fossil vids on youtube is what got me started with fossil prepping.  I really enjoy them.

I don't often see sharks with soft body tissue like that, very neat!  Great job.