RB's Ammonite Prep Thread

[RJB]

14 hours ago, Ptychodus04 said:

You’re killing me!!! That is stunning.

Thanks, but the thing is,  the picture does not do this justice by any means!!!  Plus the other side will be exposed too and a stand carved right out of the matrix. 

 

RB

[Ptychodus04]

19 minutes ago, RJB said:

Thanks, but the thing is,  the picture does not do this justice by any means!!!  Plus the other side will be exposed too and a stand carved right out of the matrix. 

 

RB

 

I've seen enough ammonites to know that this one is STUNNING in person. The colors of these things just don't get picked up my the camera.

[Fossildude19]

 

[Shellseeker]

Occasionally, I get a decent photo that highlights the magic.

 

I have a couple of grand_nieces, sweet little girls.  I have spoiled them with gifts of colorful fossils over the years. However, I made the mistake of letting them into my inner sanctum, they saw these, and they want them.   Grrrrrr......

[RJB]

   Ok, the female spedini ive been working on.   A bit more work than I had anticipated but thats the way it goes.  To make it easier to understand I have started the pics with the first one.  Before it was glued together. 

 

 

and then followed by this one where my son Coleton cut off a bunch of rock after a bit of scribe work.

 

 

In this pic you can easily see the glue line.  Thats were it will get interesting?  If not difficult!

 

 

In this pic you can see the ABSOLUTELY GORGEOUS SEXY nubs/spines that make this thing worth keeping!   You can also see the glue line on the right that is a bit difficult to clean up.

 

 

 

This is lot of hours and a lot of rock removed.  Ive got a very long ways to go.  But this is turning out to be a very exciting and fun ammo project!!!

 

RB

 

 

 

[Bobby Rico]

Looking beautiful Ron. Great work 

[Thecosmilia Trichitoma]

Gorgeous work!

[Tidgy's Dad]

That is a really stunning ammonite. 

And your prep work is second to none, Ron. 

[Misha]

All of them are absolutely beautiful.

[ynot]

The pieces You chose to work on are fantastic, and You make it look easy.

[Ludwigia]

Looks like you've got a good separating layer on that one with the well preserved spines. Great job!

[RJB]

13 hours ago, Tidgy's Dad said:

That is a really stunning ammonite. 

And your prep work is second to none, Ron.

Im not sure are that, but thank man.

 

 

4 hours ago, Ludwigia said:

Looks like you've got a good separating layer on that one with the well preserved spines. Great job!

Thanks Roger.  Im not bragging when i say that i myself was amazed at how much shell material I was able to save.

 

 

and thank you to everyone else.

 

RB

[Wrangellian]

They look great when they retain so much shell material. Nice spines.

I wouldn't sniff at the glue line, given its other qualities. 

[Ptychodus04]

 

I’m going to spend the next couple of hours telling all the ammonites in my collection that they don’t measure up and are going to have to work harder. 

 

Seriously though, you have the Midas touch when it comes to prepping.

[crabfossilsteve]

Almost like Venus on the Halfshell.  Wow!

[RJB]

12 hours ago, Ptychodus04 said:

 

Seriously though, you have the Midas touch when it comes to prepping.

Coming from you, thats quite the compliment.  Thank you.   But it does help if one has a bunch of material to pick from.  Im going to be selling some of the 'tossers', maybe I can save you a hunk or two. 

 

RB

[Ptychodus04]

44 minutes ago, RJB said:

Im going to be selling some of the 'tossers', maybe I can save you a hunk or two.

 

Definitely. I'm going to start saving some mad money now. I need to be able to take advantage of access to your discard pile!

[Ptychodus04]

49 minutes ago, RJB said:

But it does help if one has a bunch of material to pick from. 

I've seen people butcher some really nice material though.

[RJB]

29 minutes ago, Ptychodus04 said:

I've seen people butcher some really nice material though.

Yep, I see it all the time.  I was the same way when I started.

 

RB

[Ptychodus04]

1 hour ago, RJB said:

Yep, I see it all the time.  I was the same way when I started.

 

RB

Me too. There's a definite learning curve to this prep thing.

[RJB]

   Ok, back to business.   Ive removed a bunch more rock and getting the 'stand' carved out.  The thing is I want all the first nubs/spines showing and getting to the ones that will be on the 'stand' is a job and now I can see problems.  Doesnt look too bad in this photo but to me,,,,,, its purty dang bad and gunna take some serious work to clean it up. 

 

 

Now you can really see the glue line im fighting.  Ive gots me some real tricky fixing with this.

 

 

 

This is the other side.  You can see how a chunk of shell material came off.  Dang!!!

 

 

 

Glue and clamped to try and save some shell material.  Most guys wont do this, and I dont blame them, but once done, even though a bit beat up looking, its still better than not doing this but it does take more time and effort.

 

 

RB

[Tidgy's Dad]

Starting to look very nice, though shame about the glue line and the bit splitting off. 

I think it's beautiful and wouldn't worry about a few spine bases hidden in the stand. 

[Raggedy Man]

Beautiful work as always Ron!

[Wrangellian]

2 hours ago, RJB said:

 Glue and clamped to try and save some shell material.  Most guys wont do this, and I dont blame them, but once done, even though a bit beat up looking, its still better than not doing this but it does take more time and effort.

I DO blame people who won't do this! So many butchered fossils, as Kris mentions... and I'm convinced that much of that is laziness, as well as lack of practice.

[Ptychodus04]

 

Wow! That’s already nicer than any ammonite currently in my collection.