Crack fill for dinosaur bones

[Flx]

Hi
I am currently preparing some Camarasaurus bones from the Morrison Formation. 
Unfortunately, roots have damaged/broken the fossil. Often the pieces fit together very nicely and it is easy to glue the pieces together using cyanoacrylate glue. However, somethimes I end up with gaps that are 1-3 mm wide. I can fill these gaps with Apoxy sculpt and then paint the material. However, this is a pretty laborious process. I wonder if there is a better way.

What do you normally use for filling cracks?

[Troodon]

A professional preprarer I know uses Durham's water putty for crack fill.

[jpc]

I use magic Sculpt, which is very similar to Apoxie.  I do not paint the stuff.  I prefer to leave all fixes visible.  Apoxie does come in several colors... maybe get a sample of the closest to Morrison bone color.  

[Flx]

Ok, thanks.

[holdinghistory]

I have used PaleoSculpt (Jurassic Brown) and just left it that color. Pretty close match, but still visible repair, so nice on both fronts.

[RJB]

What JPC said. 

 

RB

[Flx]

On 6.4.2018 at 9:47 PM, holdinghistory said:

I have used PaleoSculpt (Jurassic Brown) and just left it that color. Pretty close match, but still visible repair, so nice on both fronts.

 

This sounds very handy. Thank you.
I like the color name "Jurrasic Brown". Here in Switzerland we call it "chocolate brown". 

[Ash]

On 07/04/2018 at 1:56 AM, jpc said:

I use magic Sculpt, which is very similar to Apoxie.  I do not paint the stuff.  I prefer to leave all fixes visible.  Apoxie does come in several colors... maybe get a sample of the closest to Morrison bone color.  

 

What he said.

I'm not overly concerned about appearance when it comes to prep - I often glue matrix where it already is to provide support for other pieces. With cracks that have already been glued but have a gap I fill it with epoxy (clear setting) and just leave it like that - makes it sturdier.

[holdinghistory]

This is one I did recently with the PaleoSculpt, no change of color, just left it as is. You can see it easily enough if you look at it, but not distracting as a whole. 

[Ptychodus04]

I used to paint after the fill but I have started using a mixture of white/brown/black Apoxie Sculpt to get relatively close to the right color. You can still see it’s a repair but it isn’t obscenely  obvious.

[Ash]

I knew a fellow who used to mix crushed fossil (we find a lot of fragments) of the right colour fossil in with the epoxy to glue, forming a tailored colour to fill the gaps.

[Ptychodus04]

15 hours ago, Ash said:

I knew a fellow who used to mix crushed fossil (we find a lot of fragments) of the right colour fossil in with the epoxy to glue, forming a tailored colour to fill the gaps.

I have used crushed matrix mixed with PVA to fill cracks in matrix before with good results. For cracks in fossils, I prefer the putty method due to its ease of use.