Ptychodus04’s Fossil Fish Prepapalooza

[daves64]

  Why am I suddenly hungry for seafood? 

[Randyw]

3 hours ago, Ptychodus04 said:

Cockerelites liops

I love the look of this type fish and that’s a great looking specimen. Good job!

[Ptychodus04]

9 hours in the lab today and I finished the Bottom Cap Priscacara I started a month or so ago as well as a so so Knightia tgg HVAC has a pile of coprolites with it.

 

The Priscacara has beautiful fins and is almost completely covered in scales. This was a challenging prep since the matrix is so hard. I had to abrade at 80psi and pray the pressure doesn’t peel off the bones!  

 

 

[Arlie]

Awesome job on the fish they look great!

[Ptychodus04]

1 hour ago, Arlie said:

Awesome job on the fish they look great!

Thanks 

[Bobby Rico]

Wonderful prep work and really nice fish too.   

 

[RJB]

9 hours in the lab!  Wish i could do that.  I just realized your preppin the poops!  Never thought of doing that.  Nice job man.

 

RB

[Ptychodus04]

3 minutes ago, RJB said:

9 hours in the lab!  Wish i could do that.  I just realized your preppin the poops!  Never thought of doing that.  Nice job man.

 

RB

I don’t usually prep the poop but this Knightia wasn’t all that great and there is a poop right by its face so I though, why not?

[Ptychodus04]

2 hours ago, Bobby Rico said:

Wonderful prep work and really nice fish too.   

 

Thank you sir.

[daves64]

Poor little Knightia.. died in the bathroom. 

[Ptychodus04]

1 hour ago, daves64 said:

Poor little Knightia.. died in the bathroom. 

[RJB]

21 hours ago, daves64 said:

Poor little Knightia.. died in the bathroom. 

My laugh for the day.

 

RB

[Ptychodus04]

I wrapped up the Knightia triple prep today. It turned out pretty nice. The middle fish is missing some bits but the other two are great.

 

Then, on to the next one. I figured this would be a medium sized Diplomystus.

 

After only about 30 minutes, I could tell this wasn’t a Diplo (the caudal fin is shaped wrong). So, I moved up the the head.

Here’s a shot of the business end of this little guy. Needless to say, I’m super excited. This will be the first Phareodus for my collection and it looks like it will be a beauty.

[Randyw]

1 hour ago, Ptychodus04 said:

This will be the first Phareodus for my collection

Super cool! Congratulations!

ill be watching to see it fully prepped! 

[Ptychodus04]

Found the pectoral fin. I’m pretty sure this is a Mioplosus rather than Phareodus. Still cool but not as cool. The teeth do seem a bit large for a Mio but that might just be my inexperience prepping Mioplosus. This will only be my 5th ever.

 

[Sjfriend]

Your work makes me want to get my own Green River finds. You do great work!!

[Ptychodus04]

On 1/3/2020 at 1:52 AM, Sjfriend said:

Your work makes me want to get my own Green River finds. You do great work!!

Thanks!

[Ptychodus04]

I wrapped up the prep on this little Cockerelites this morning. It took around 8 hours.

 

This is the very first Green River fish that I ever collected. It saw the light of day for the first time in 52 million years on June 4th 2019 shortly after 8:00 AM Mountain Daylight Time. How’s that for provenance? 

 

[Randyw]

Looks great as always!

[RJB]

That little Cockerelites is OUTSTANDING!!!   The others are nice too but that little fish I have already fallen in love with!   The preservation is exquizit and its in some super nice rock!  Im now wondering if there is anything I have that you may trade for?    Purty please

 

RB

[Ptychodus04]

3 hours ago, RJB said:

That little Cockerelites is OUTSTANDING!!!   The others are nice too but that little fish I have already fallen in love with!   The preservation is exquizit and its in some super nice rock!  Im now wondering if there is anything I have that you may trade for?    Purty please

 

RB

You’ve been beaten to the draw my good friend. I took it to show to my local rock shop owner with some Knightias he wanted and he bought it from me along with the little fish.

[Bobby Rico]

Beautiful work on this lovely fish mate. 

[Ptychodus04]

3 minutes ago, Bobby Rico said:

Beautiful work on this lovely fish mate. 

Thanks 

[Ptychodus04]

I finished up this little mass mortality plate tonight. For the most part, these plates only need some stabilization as they split pretty cleanly at this layer.

 

[Randyw]

So on these do you stabilize the whole piece of just the fish?