Another Fish Prep

[Ptychodus04]

Steven and his dad have been aggressively collecting a site that has produced high quality fish for me for the last 15 years. Their hard work is starting to pay off. Here's an Apsopelix sp. that I just finished prepping for them

Before...

[Ptychodus04]

...and after.

[Xiphactinus]

Amazing fish! (And awesome prep too!)

[Fossildude19]

Very nice job!

Looks like it was a hard one.

Thanks for showing us.

Regards,

[Ptychodus04]

The exciting part on this one was the fact that there was a layer of disassociated bones right where the head should have been (you can see a few below the head in the matrix. The skull happened to be about 2mm deeper than I expected so I had to delicately probe around the bones with my Aro in order to find it. Until I found it, I wasn't sure whether the bones were random or I was dealing with a disarticulated skull!

Thankfully, they were random!

[RJB]

Daaaaaaangola! Neat fish for sure. and yeah, looks like that was a bit of a tuff prep job. Nice job Kris.

RB

[doushantuo]

hot tamales!!!

Seems aggressive collecting has a bright future.

So you threatened to punch everyone within in a 80 foot radius of you?

[Ptychodus04]

Daaaaaaangola! Neat fish for sure. and yeah, looks like that was a bit of a tuff prep job. Nice job Kris.

RB

It was tense for an hour or so. I blew through a largish scale with my CP9361 that I thought might have been the operculum and my periproct tightened up. I then switched to the Aro and micro-abrasive to get past the random bone hash. When I uncovered two vertebrae where the maxilla should have been, I felt better about the prospects of not ruining a specimen that belongs to somebody else.

So you threatened to punch everyone within in a 80 foot radius of you?

They carry large, sharp tools also.

[doushantuo]

NEVER come between a collector and his/her prey

Edited July 6, 2016 by doushantuo

[StevenJD]

Can't wait to pick it up, Kris does awesome work!

[dirtdauber]

Really nice work on a tough prep. Great job, Kris!

[Lori LuvsFossils]

NICE !!

[FossilDudeCO]

Just saw this post, AWESOME prep!

[Mike from North Queensland]

Nice before and after photos of a lovely prep job

Mike D

[jpc]

Nice prep, but did you coat the fish with something?

[Pagurus]

Difficult to find and difficult to prep but a wonderful outcome. Thanks for sharing it.

[Ptychodus04]

Nice prep, but did you coat the fish with something?

Just some PVA. It was a bit on the flaky side... even for a fish!

[amour 25]

Nice work , came out great.