Ptychodus04’s Fossil Fish Prepapalooza

[fossilhunter21]

14 minutes ago, Ptychodus04 said:

That looks amazing!Nice work!

[Bobby Rico]

Wow that is incredible. You definitely do some fine work. Where ever it ends up that’s going be a jewel in any collection. 
 

all the best Bobby 

Edited August 17, 2021 by Bobby Rico

[Randyw]

That diplomystus is just…..wow! Once again excellent work. 

[FossilDAWG]

     

 

Don

[RJB]

 Ya got to be proud of that one.  Dang nice fish!

 

RB

[Ptychodus04]

1 hour ago, RJB said:

 Ya got to be proud of that one.  Dang nice fish!

 

RB

Thanks. Yep, I'm pretty happy with how it turned out.

[Ptychodus04]

Here are a few Cockerelites that I finished up recently. I’m working on a monster Mioplosus now.

 

 

[fossilhunter21]

9 hours ago, Ptychodus04 said:

Here are a few Cockerelites that I finished up recently. I’m working on a monster Mioplosus now.

 

  

Nice work!

Can't wait to see the Mioplosus. 

[Pagurus]

You make those fish sit so naturally in the rock, Kris. Your work seems so effortless. 

[Ptychodus04]

On 8/20/2021 at 5:27 PM, fossilhunter21 said:

Nice work!

Can't wait to see the Mioplosus. 

 

The Mioplosus turned out to be a monster Diplomystus. It's close to 22" long. The mouth isn't as drastically upturned as most diplos are so it confused me... until I got to the armored scales between the head and the dorsal fin. That's a dead giveaway. There's a bit of bone displacement that shifted some of the bone orientation.

 

I'm 30 hours into this fish already with at least 10-15 more to go. It's a tough prep. There's a hard, sticky layer right on top of the fish that I can't abrade off without burning through the scales. This means that I have to switch to a detail scribe after roughing through more than 1/2" of matrix on the entire fish! On top of this, the bone is pretty brittle so I have to be extremely careful not to blow it off the fish!!! I spent 7 hours yesterday just prepping the caudal fin!

 

 

On 8/20/2021 at 6:29 PM, Pagurus said:

You make those fish sit so naturally in the rock, Kris. Your work seems so effortless. 

 

Thanks. It's almost like they died right there. The trick is getting your scribe work as close to vertical as possible on the perimeter of the fish and not letting your abrasive travel past the perimeter as much as possible to keep from abrading the micro layer on the surface of the slab.

[Randyw]

10 hours ago, Ptychodus04 said:

monster Diplomystus. It's close to 22" long.

22”?! Wow! I just put a tape measure against my 14” one and wow! That things gotta be huge!

Edited August 23, 2021 by Randyw

[RJB]

22 hours ago, Ptychodus04 said:

The Mioplosus turned out to be a monster Diplomystus. It's close to 22" long.

Your into the 'grand daddy' size!  looking forward to seeing this one.

 

RB

[Ptychodus04]

I just wrapped up the prep on the granddaddy Diplo. This beast took me 44 hours in total. There was a hard/sticky layer right on top of the fish so, lots of detail scribe work on this one. It has some disarticulation on the dorsal and anal fins but is otherwise really nice.

 

[Top Trilo]

Really a wonderful specimen Kris, a giant, almost in perfect condition, and fantastically prepped. You did a great job on this one.

[fossilhunter21]

That is one big fish! 

Awesome job on the prep. 

[hadrosauridae]

Fabulous!  Congrats on the find and kudos to the first rate prep!

[Earendil]

Amazing job!!! A quick Google search revealed that the record Diplo is 26 inches! Only 4 inches away!! Fingers crossed for some more monster Diplos!

[Ptychodus04]

6 hours ago, hadrosauridae said:

Fabulous!  Congrats on the find and kudos to the first rate prep!

Thanks. Unfortunately, this one belongs to a client. 

[Bobby Rico]

11 minutes ago, Ptychodus04 said:

Thanks. Unfortunately, this one belongs to a client. 

A very happy client I think.

[RJB]

  Hey Kris, these mature diplo's always remind me of the sockeye salmon.  and get a load of the way that fish makes the 1 inch cube look sooooooooooo small!  Wonderful fish Kris.

 

RB

[Ptychodus04]

5 hours ago, RJB said:

  Hey Kris, these mature diplo's always remind me of the sockeye salmon.  and get a load of the way that fish makes the 1 inch cube look sooooooooooo small!  Wonderful fish Kris.

 

RB

This one was a whopper for sure. And the slab is approximately 3' square and 2" thick... Not fun to move around on the prep table!

[Ptychodus04]

I’m working on a very well preserved Diplomystus right now. Check out the preservation on the caudal fin! I should wrap this prep up in the next few days.

 

[Kane]

Looks great so far! That is some very fine preserved detail there!

(I'll send you my mailing address when it's done.   )

[Ludwigia]

Ooooooooo! Luverly!

[Ptychodus04]

4 hours ago, Kane said:

Looks great so far! That is some very fine preserved detail there!

(I'll send you my mailing address when it's done.   )

I don't think my client would appreciate that very much. The rest of the fish is just as nice.

 

 

2 hours ago, Ludwigia said:

Ooooooooo! Luverly!

Yah. I love prepping nearly perfectly preserved fossils!