Preparation Of An Aalenian Ammonite

[Ludwigia]

This time I thought to make a photo documentation of my most recent prepp activity. It was an interesting development which took roughly 6 hours to complete. I find the end result is satisfactory, although I was hoping for a little more quality and quantity with this one. I won't be keeping it in the collection since I already have enough good samples of this species, Ludwigia haugi.

The first 2 pictures show the rock basically as found. The bits on the top of the block in the left hand photo are parts of the living chamber which I managed to remove from bedrock which didn't want to get dislocated. They're placed into position in the right hand photo to give an idea what the goal is. These parts will be glued on later in this case, once the preparation has reached the point where it makes sense.

If you look closely you can see at the bottom right in the picture below what appears to be part of the living chamber of another large ammonite, so I was hoping for a double here. The first thing to do was to whittle away some matrix with the air pens in order to determine better the exact position of the ammos. I'll post this photo now and then move on to the next post because of the size.

[Ludwigia]

After that I used the air abrader to get closer in without damaging the shell and then removed more matrix with the pen down to the point which can be seen below. There was a lot of shell substance in the lump in the middle which I wanted to study more closely just in case there was something interesting in there too. I could also mention here that there was an awful lot of broken shell scree all over in the matrix, some of which was firmly attached to the shell of the ammonite, which made the preparation all the more finicky.

The lump turned out to be uninteresting, so I removed it and then dug down further in order to get at the rest of the assumed 2nd ammonite below.

Unfortunately that was not to be, as seen above. It was just a partial which wasn't worth saving. I then decided to reduce the size of the block since it would then have been too large to display the leftover lone ammo which would have been lost in the matrix otherwise in my opinion.

[Ludwigia]

I figured it was now time to glue on the remaining bits and began carefully with fine pen and abrader to remove the excess baggage. I placed a small sandsack underneath for this phase in order to reduce the vibrations.

[Ludwigia]

Now it was time to start really thinking about the aesthetic side of things. During the earlier phases of the operation, bits of shell kept popping off the ammonite which I would then glue back on again. It was in this case unfortunately so that the separating layer was below rather than above the shell, so in the end I lost a lot unretrievably and the bits I'd managed to save just didn't look nice in their isolated positions, so I decided to remove all of them again, exposing what was turning out to be a nice clear calcite mold of the septal lobes. That kept me busy for a while with acetone and a razor knife and a quick blastover afterwards with the abrader at low pressure. Before and after can be seen below.

The last thing to do in the basement workshop now was to smooth down the matrix and do some fine abrading to finish.

Edited July 4, 2013 by Ludwigia

[Ludwigia]

All that was left to do now was to move upstairs to my more comfortable finishing table. I had decided on the variation shown below for display.

I then filled in the gaps and cracks with a mixture of stonemeal and clear lacquer and then finished it off with my trusty Rember, a beeswax-based stone finish. Voilà.

Edited July 4, 2013 by Ludwigia

[Doctor Mud]

Amazing transformation. And all in only 6 hours?

[Ludwigia]

Amazing transformation. And all in only 6 hours?

I forgot to mention that I also have a stone splitter to help get rid of the big chunks quickly.

Edited July 4, 2013 by Ludwigia

[vertman]

Really nice work! As Dr. Mudd said an amazing transformation indeed. May I ask what you intend to do with the specimen since you won't be keeping it in your collection?

[Ammojoe]

Thanks for sharing, Roger. An interesting read; I always enjoy reading others prep reports. You've done a fine job on a specimen that looks like it was a tricky piece to prep - congratulations on your high caliber work...

Kind regards,

Joe

[Ludwigia]

Really nice work! As Dr. Mudd said an amazing transformation indeed. May I ask what you intend to do with the specimen since you won't be keeping it in your collection?

Thanks. I'll be putting it in the box for trade or sale.

[Ludwigia]

Thanks for sharing, Roger. An interesting read; I always enjoy reading others prep reports. You've done a fine job on a specimen that looks like it was a tricky piece to prep - congratulations on your high caliber work...

Kind regards,

Joe

Thanks, Joe .

[Terry Dactyll]

Roger.... that's come out really well.... Nice work...

[Ludwigia]

Thanks, Steve! Pity the one at the bottom didn't turn out, but you can't have everything all the time.

Edited July 4, 2013 by Ludwigia

[claire01]

Interesting! I very much enjoyed seeing the process: )

[Ludwigia]

Interesting! I very much enjoyed seeing the process: )

Thanks! Glad to hear that, since that was among my intentions in placing this post.