Yorkshire prep thread

[DanJeavs]

One currently mid prep. A really nice nautilus from the south coast of the UK. The backside is terrible. Lost at least a third from sea wear, but this side is still god, currently sat glued so will probably continue tomorrow, tried a quick rough polish to see if there was much calcite in there. By the looks of it, There’s not. Though still have hope for the centre to have some. 

[DanJeavs]

The naut is starting to come out reasonable. Still a fair bit of prep to go yet. Probably going to remove a bit more of the living chamber so I can expose the inner whorl some more and add some much needed colour to this piece. Iv also heard of some coloured buffing wax that adds some colour, so may try that to bring out the colour in the mud filled chambers. By no means is this perfect, but it was my first ever nautilus I found and deserves to go in the collection for that alone. I’ll always remember my excitement finding it, even if I spend 2 hours chiselling it out with a small chisel and 2lb lump hammer 

[RJB]

  The thing is, your staying busy and having a bunch of fun!  Plus, we get to see what your up to.  always nice to see other peeps do fossil preppin.

 

RB

[DanJeavs]

21 hours ago, RJB said:

  The thing is, your staying busy and having a bunch of fun!  Plus, we get to see what your up to.  always nice to see other peeps do fossil preppin.

 

RB

Plenty to stay busy with Ron. Though I won’t lie, I’m starting to reach the bottom of the barrel as far as rare stuff goes. 

[DanJeavs]

Time for a few humble Dactylioceras. Honestly, if you ask any collector/preppier on the Yorkshire coast, they’ll tell you they hate the things. The abundance of how many you can find in a day is ridiculous. They’re incredibly common. I’d say I have at least 200 unprepped that may never see the light of day. They don’t get very large, averaging about 2 inches. You do get the odd really nice 4 inches, but definitely not common. Hopefully this lockdown ends soon so I can get back out and start finding some real rare stuff again. Bags are packed and ready the moment it happens 

[DanJeavs]

Now here’s a nice piece out of my collection. A block containing promicroceras and asteroceras washed up again a big chunk of wood. The block and wood was quite bigger, but unfortunately contained nothing, so I decided to half the block to make it a little more cleaner 

[DanJeavs]

Here is a rather stunning Eleganticeras Elegantum block I prepped recently. It is absolutely rammed with smaller ones I got a rather lucky split on this one which meant prep time was considerably reduced. These are some of my favorite pieces to work on as they always come out stunning. it took around 3-4 hours to complete.

[LabRatKing]

As I browsed through this, I realized it was your work and Ludwigia’s that inspired me to track down Cowboy Pass Utah back in 19 to get some ammos to prep.

 

Thanks for the inspiration!

[DanJeavs]

16 hours ago, LabRatKing said:

As I browsed through this, I realized it was your work and Ludwigia’s that inspired me to track down Cowboy Pass Utah back in 19 to get some ammos to prep.

 

Thanks for the inspiration!

Thanks for the kind words sir. Not many things top ammonites for me, yes finding bone etc is always exciting, but all the variability's that come with ammonites are incredible, from pathologies from when they were alive, the distinctive colours of a species from seperate locations are amazing. I can find  standard ammonite on one stetch of the coast thats a dark brown, yet i can travel 15 miles away and find the same type of ammonite but in reds and yellows still amazes me to this day.  

[RJB]

  Hard to take ones eyes away from that multi!!

 

RB

[DanJeavs]

34 minutes ago, RJB said:

  Hard to take ones eyes away from that multi!!

 

RB

Always a joy these ones. I have some much bigger blocks of these but they can be very time consuming and it’s hard to get round to doing them while doing customer preps at the moment. 

[Ludwigia]

22 hours ago, DanJeavs said:

Here is a rather stunning Eleganticeras Elegantum block I prepped recently. It is absolutely rammed with smaller ones I got a rather lucky split on this one which meant prep time was considerably reduced. These are some of my favorite pieces to work on as they always come out stunning. it took around 3-4 hours to complete.

Ever thought about completing the picture?

[Ludwigia]

21 hours ago, LabRatKing said:

As I browsed through this, I realized it was your work and Ludwigia’s that inspired me to track down Cowboy Pass Utah back in 19 to get some ammos to prep.

 

Thanks for the inspiration!

Glad to have been of assistance

[Pixpaleosky]

2 hours ago, Ludwigia said:

Ever thought about completing the picture?

 

I dont understand why fossils and particularly ammonites need to be artificially reconstructed, nature is beautiful as it is isnt it ?

[DanJeavs]

On 11/7/2020 at 11:32 AM, Ludwigia said:

Ever thought about completing the picture?

not really, i quite enjoying seeing the natural erosion to it, i may removed the top section of the mouth border at some point though, as there's probably a good few washed in there that aren't currently visible

[DanJeavs]

59 minutes ago, Pixpaleosky said:

I dont understand why fossils and particularly ammonites need to be artificially reconstructed, nature is beautiful as it is isnt it ?

To an extent yes, it depends on what it is, like my previous post with the large phyllo. That needed to be done otherwise it would have looked awful not even slightly presentable. All down to personal preference to be honest.

[Ludwigia]

3 hours ago, Pixpaleosky said:

I dont understand why fossils and particularly ammonites need to be artificially reconstructed, nature is beautiful as it is isnt it ?

They don't need to be, they just may be if one prefers to. Museums are full of reconstructed fossils. Of course nature is beautiful as it is, but people do mow their lawns and trim trees

[Pixpaleosky]

This is personnal preference indeed . I just wanted to understand the motivations but I guess everyone has his own (for a museum educational purpose, for a seller making more money... ) By the way I admire the artistic skills it takes to restore 

[DanJeavs]

Here’s a little something special I’m currently working on. An absolute jam packed ichthyosaur bone block from the Yorkshire coast. There is verts, neural arches, ribs, even a section of jaw. There is another part to this block containing the jaw that I’m keeping separate due to where all the rest of the bone is laid. There’s a fair amount of pen work left, and there’s still acid treatment to come after that. It’ll hopefully be something special once I’m finished

[Ludwigia]

This is going to be very interesting!

[DanJeavs]

1 minute ago, Ludwigia said:

This is going to be very interesting!

Very much so. I’m at around 20 hours of prep so far. There’s a lot of calcitic ammonites which is making it difficult to differentiate between bone and ammo so it’s slow and steady. There’s teeth to expose too also but that will be done with acid. To delicate for pen work