Turtle Prep

[Ptychodus04]

22 hours ago, fossilhunter21 said:

Very impressive specimen (and prep job)! How long do you think it took? 

 

Thanks very much for sharing,

 

-Micah

It took 256 hours. I thought I was finished but my client asked me to prep the portion of the skull that is on the bottom of the slab (the bone below the jaw is the pallet). The skull disarticulated and flipped over. I’m 4.5 hours into a really delicate operation and it looks like about 1/2 of the skull is there. When prepping both sides of a crushed skull, you have to be very careful not to pinch through the bone in places.

 

17 hours ago, Ludwigia said:

 

He must know how long it took since he gets paid by the hour

[fossilhunter21]

That is quite a few hours!  That might even be an undersatement... I think it will be pretty cool to have both sides prepped out. But it does not sound super fun to do...

 

-Micah

[Ptychodus04]

On 9/27/2022 at 7:21 AM, fossilhunter21 said:

That is quite a few hours!  That might even be an undersatement... I think it will be pretty cool to have both sides prepped out. But it does not sound super fun to do...

 

-Micah

Interestingly, this was about 40 hours faster than I had anticipated.

 

The skull doesn’t look great but there’s close to 40% there. That’s enough to cast and flip to make a complete skull during the restoration. The matrix in the nare got really thin and flaky so it got stabilized. Unfortunately, that makes the nare kind of disappear in the photo. Anterior is right in the pic.

 

Edited September 29, 2022 by Ptychodus04
I don’t know left from right

[Sjfriend]

Such great work sir!

[Ptychodus04]

On 9/30/2022 at 12:43 PM, Sjfriend said:

Such great work sir!

Thanks! On to the next project. I have a few small pieces to prep for a couple people and I’m hoping my HD inspection camera shows up by the time I’m done with them so I can start on my bird prep.

[RJB]

256 hours and then,,,,, still more to do.  Holy Cow! 

 

RB

[Ptychodus04]

On 10/2/2022 at 6:33 AM, RJB said:

256 hours and then,,,,, still more to do.  Holy Cow! 

 

RB

All done now though. On to the next projects. 

[rocket]

what a great prep and result!  

really well done

And, my opinion is, 256 hours sounds a lot, but it´s fast for a prep like this.

Good job!

[Ptychodus04]

On 10/3/2022 at 3:34 PM, rocket said:

what a great prep and result!  

really well done

And, my opinion is, 256 hours sounds a lot, but it´s fast for a prep like this.

Good job!

Thanks. You are correct, it was a pretty fast prep. I was able to prep a lot faster once I was told by my client that they were planning to do a full restoration. I didn’t have to be nearly as careful about how I removed rock layers around the bones. No tool mark removal and no contouring. That would have been around 100 hours on a project of this size.