Yet Another Phytosaur Prep

[Ptychodus04]

3 hours ago, Fossil-Hound said:

@Ptychodus04 the best things in life aren't free. In this case it's your time that's being spent! Keep working through that sticky madness! 

 

It’s all good. I’ve been prepping long enough to be used to these messes. Nothing that the right tools and a bit of patience can’t remedy.

[Ptychodus04]

All right, enough fun with Green River material. Back to work on the Phytosaur. I put 2 more hours into the back of the skull yesterday afternoon. My total is up to 63 hours now. I think I’m getting close to the end on the posterior prep. 

[LordTrilobite]

Getting better and better.

[Ptychodus04]

3 hours ago, LordTrilobite said:

Getting better and better.

Slowly but surely.

[Ptychodus04]

Spent another 4 hours scribing away on the skull today after I took my boys on a college tour (man, they grow up fast). This is now at 67 hours. I spent most of my time with the Aro cleaning out the ornamentation and smoothing the matrix in the fenestrae abd left orbit with the Super Jack. I’m almost finished with the left side. I also spent some time on the nares.

 

If you look close just above the distal end of the antorbital fenestra, there are 2 holes and possibly a 3rd that look like bite marks. They don’t correspond to matching features on the right side but there is an elongated mark that roughly lines up on the right and could be where a tooth tore through the bone.

 

[Ptychodus04]

I logged another 6 hours on this guy today (73 hours for those who are counting). I’m done with everything but the ventral surface and spent my last hour of work on it. The matrix is softer here but just as sticky.

 

 

[Ptychodus04]

[Ptychodus04]

[Ptychodus04]

[RJB]

   Man, thats a lot of work!  Looks purty dang nice though!  Those bite marks really add to the coolness factor for this thing too.  I only have one question.    Will you be doing any repair on missing parts or filling in the cracks?  

 

RB

[Al Tahan]

Dang.....this is impressive 

[Ptychodus04]

5 hours ago, RJB said:

I only have one question.    Will you be doing any repair on missing parts or filling in the cracks?  

 

RB

Nope, the owner doesn’t like any restoration on his fossils so there will be 0% crack filling and rebuilding on this prep.

 

2 hours ago, Al Tahan said:

Dang.....this is impressive 

Thanks.

[JarrodB]

Great job Kris. I still want to drop off my Keichousaurus to you one day. Sorry I've been super busy working since I talked to you last. 

[Ptychodus04]

2 hours ago, JarrodB said:

Great job Kris. I still want to drop off my Keichousaurus to you one day. Sorry I've been super busy working since I talked to you last. 

No worries. I’m here when you’re ready. I’ll be closer to you a bit this fall as I’ll be hunting in Honey Grove.

[JarrodB]

12 hours ago, Ptychodus04 said:

No worries. I’m here when you’re ready. I’ll be closer to you a bit this fall as I’ll be hunting in Honey Grove.

Sounds good. That's where I do most of my fossil hunting. I found a new creek there last time I was home. Pretty remote and hard to get in so it has potential lol. 

[LordTrilobite]

Very impressive indeed.

[Ptychodus04]

80 hours in as of this afternoon. I’m going to have to leave some matrix in strategic places on this side in order to support the broken ends of some of the bones and some of the thinner elements, but overall, this is cleaning up nicely on the ventral side. 

 

 

 

[Ptychodus04]

Well, the day finally came and the phytosaur skull is finished. Due to some crushing of the palatal bones I had to leave a bit more matrix on the ventral side than I would have liked but otherwise, it came out really well. All in, the prep took 93 hours.

 

Here’s a reminder of what it looked like after I glued all the pieces together but before the actual prep began.

 

[Ptychodus04]

And now the final product.

 

[Ptychodus04]

[Ptychodus04]

[Ptychodus04]

[Ptychodus04]

[Mike from North Queensland]

I like the prep job and the fact that there is no restoration of the missing sections.

This is honest as most specimens do not come out of the ground and prep into pristine examples of of the now extinct animal.

The finder can always be hopeful of finding some of the missing sections but is usually not the case.

Have you thought of making a cast and adding the missing sections to that and displaying next to the original as I wish museums did.

 

Mike 

[Bobby Rico]

Wow looking fantastic and quite incredible how far it has come from the beginning of this thread. Cheers Bobby