Phytosaur Prep

[Ptychodus04]

7 hours ago, JohnBrewer said:

Just get all the dinky bits and put ‘em in a pestle and mortar, add Paraloid and then fill in the gaps....

 

Now, there’s an idea.  

 

I think I’ll just get back to work on it after I finish up a couple knives that I have to wrap up for Christmas presents.  I’m a tad behind schedule.

[Haravex]

So how goes the jigsaw puzzle of the year? Would love to see an update if there is one 

[Ptychodus04]

1 hour ago, Haravex said:

So how goes the jigsaw puzzle of the year? Would love to see an update if there is one 

 

We cried uncle on this one. It was going together slowly (no significant change from the last photo) so I talked to Steven and he agreed to keep it as we currently have it in order to keep the cost from skyrocketing. I don't want a prep to out-value the specimen and this one would have done just that. Plus, the further I got into the sorting and piecing together, it became very clear that the original collector left some significant material in the field that would make it impossible to fully assemble the skull.

[Ash]

On 08/01/2018 at 11:50 PM, Ptychodus04 said:

left some significant material in the field that would make it impossible to fully assemble the skull.

Dont ya hate it when that happens..?

bits that don't connect because a piece is missing.. been there done that (but the missing pieces didn't exist anymore/never found)

[Ludwigia]

You win some, you lose some, I guess. To be quite honest, I was wondering at the beginning how on earth you were going to get all those bits back together again. At least he's got a nice snout to show off. Did you fill in the gaps on that?

[Ptychodus04]

9 hours ago, Ash said:

Dont ya hate it when that happens..?

bits that don't connect because a piece is missing.. been there done that (but the missing pieces didn't exist anymore/never found)

 

Yep, that really stinks. I had pieces with nice clean breaks that didn't fin anything...

 

6 hours ago, Ludwigia said:

You win some, you lose some, I guess. To be quite honest, I was wondering at the beginning how on earth you were going to get all those bits back together again. At least he's got a nice snout to show off. Did you fill in the gaps on that?

 

Steven isn't a fan of restorations. He's only ok with it in small doses. This one would have needed a ton so he opted to leave it as is.

[Ash]

I like this Steven. Not a fan of restoration either. Think it's faking it IMO!

 

But of course to each their own.

[Bobby Rico]

Great post and incredible work. Looking forward to seeing how your puzzle is getting on.

 

cheers Bobby 

[Ptychodus04]

5 hours ago, Ash said:

I like this Steven. Not a fan of restoration either. Think it's faking it IMO!

 

But of course to each their own.

 

He’s ok.  He acquires way too many nice fossils though.

 

I’m good with restorations to a point. There’s nothing wrong with filling cracks and replacing missing bits that were originally there. Sometimes, a good restoration can make a fossil more stable and less likely to incur future damage. 

 

Restorations should never wholly fabricate a large a large portion of the specimen, be overly difficult to identify, or not be disclosed.