Repairing: fish and hyena jaw

[Max-fossils]

Hi all,

 

These two have been sitting on my desk for some time, as I kept on forgetting to ask this. Now I finally remembered.

I once made a trade with a fossil-lover in Singapore, but unfortunately the fossils arrived broken, having not survived the trip.

 

The two broken fossils I got were: a partial Lycoptera davidi, and a small jaw piece of a hyena.

I didn't dare take out the fossils of the bag yet, as I was scared I would lose some of the broken off pieces and damage the fossils even more.

Here they are:

 

The damage on the Lycoptera isn't very severe; only a big block of matrix got loose (the fossil itself is still intact). But the damage on the hyena jaw is very bad: the big tooth split in two, and many other crumbs here and there. Here is what the jaw looked like before:

 

I was wondering: is there a way to repair the fossils? As in stick them back into one nice piece? I can buy necessary material if it is cheap.

 

Note that this would be my first fossil repair, and I have no experience whatsoever in the subject. 

 

Thanks in advance for your help,

 

Max

[RJB]

You should be able to glue those jaw pieces back together easily enough, but you may have to use a 2 part putty to fill cracks and sculpt it. 

 

RB

[Max-fossils]

10 minutes ago, RJB said:

You should be able to glue those jaw pieces back together easily enough, but you may have to use a 2 part putty to fill cracks and sculpt it. 

 

RB

Thanks! Not sure about 'easily' though (not sure how to do this safely).

How do I use a 2 part putty?

[RJB]

You get two containers when you buy it.  You mix equal parts and mix with your fingers till its mixed real good.  Force it into whatever cracks and leave it high enough to sculpt back down to the shape of the bone.   Check out that Rhino repair job that Kris did here on the Preperation part of the forum.  That should help.

 

RB

[Max-fossils]

Just now, RJB said:

You get two containers when you buy it.  You mix equal parts and mix with your fingers till its mixed real good.  Force it into whatever cracks and leave it high enough to sculpt back down to the shape of the bone.   Check out that Rhino repair job that Kris did here on the Preperation part of the forum.  That should help.

 

RB

Alright, thanks a lot! 

[Ptychodus04]

I would use cyanoacrylate (super glue) the put the pieces back together. Start by taking the pieces and seeing where they fit together. Then, when you have a match, put a drop of glue on one piece and stick the two together. The bond is usually pretty close to instant.

 

I use Apoxie Sculpt for my crack filling needs. It can be had cheap on the internet. It is an epoxy clay that takes about 4 hours to set. You mix equal parts of A and B and then it can be worked just like natural clay. It can even be smoothed with a wet finger like clay.

 

Use this to fill in the cracks where small bits crumbled. Get it as close as you can to a finished product before the clay sets as it is a bit of a pain to work when set up.

 

Then you can paint the repairs.

[Max-fossils]

15 minutes ago, Ptychodus04 said:

I would use cyanoacrylate (super glue) the put the pieces back together. Start by taking the pieces and seeing where they fit together. Then, when you have a match, put a drop of glue on one piece and stick the two together. The bond is usually pretty close to instant.

 

I use Apoxie Sculpt for my crack filling needs. It can be had cheap on the internet. It is an epoxy clay that takes about 4 hours to set. You mix equal parts of A and B and then it can be worked just like natural clay. It can even be smoothed with a wet finger like clay.

 

Use this to fill in the cracks where small bits crumbled. Get it as close as you can to a finished product before the clay sets as it is a bit of a pain to work when set up.

 

Then you can paint the repairs.

Thanks a lot for the detailed help!

 

Should I use this technique for the fish too?

[Ptychodus04]

3 hours ago, Max-fossils said:

Thanks a lot for the detailed help!

 

Should I use this technique for the fish too?

 

Yes, the fish should glue right together. There probably isn't any crack filling that will be needed as it is only broken matrix.

 

You could even leave it as it is since the broken off matrix doesn't distract from the specimen.

[RJB]

Yeah,, what Ptychodus04 says.  He's a guy who knows what he's doing.  A very helpfull gent.

 

RB