Turtle Prep

[fossilhunter21]

 

38 minutes ago, Ptychodus04 said:

My foot feels like that sometimes. 

That would be quite painfull. I hope my foot never feels like it has exploded. 

 

38 minutes ago, Ptychodus04 said:

I have a couple smaller preps to focus on and then I'll be cracking into the carapace blocks. They are huge! I can barely lift them and I'm relatively strong.

Ooh! I can't wait to see what the carapace looks like! I can imagine that the blocks would be huge with how large just it's bones are. 

 

-Micah

Edited July 7, 2022 by fossilhunter21

[Ptychodus04]

11 hours ago, fossilhunter21 said:

 

Ooh! I can't wait to see what the carapace looks like! I can imagine that the blocks would be huge with how large just it's bones are. 

I wrestled one of the carapace slabs onto the bench today and got after it. It’s going to be awesome. The bit I have exposed is really well preserved and has some cool texture.

[Ptychodus04]

The carapace is pretty cool so far.

 

[fossilhunter21]

54 minutes ago, Ptychodus04 said:

The carapace is pretty cool so far.

 

Very cool! I really like how carapaces look. I am hoping to find one while I am fossil hunting in the White River Formation.  

 

-Micah

[Ptychodus04]

1 hour ago, fossilhunter21 said:

I really like how carapaces look. I am hoping to find one while I am fossil hunting in the White River Formation.

 

They are often a nightmare to prep due to all the texturing but White River turtles are a lot less textured than this one is! Good luck.

[fossilhunter21]

1 hour ago, Ptychodus04 said:

Good luck.

Thank you. Good luck to you on the turtle!

 

-Micah

[Ptychodus04]

Lots of carapace on this turtle…

[FossilNerd]

Wow Kris! That’s pretty cool. I’m anxious to see what else to  dig out of the block. Looking good so far! 

[Ptychodus04]

It’s coming along nicely. I have my Swam Blaster pretty dialed in with a good compromise between media consumption and cutting speed. I’m able to abrade for around 45 minutes before I have to refill the hopper. 
 

The texture on the bo e makes the process slower since I can’t scribe very close to the bone without hitting all the little high points. This requires me to abrade at least 3 mm of matrix to get into the low spots. I’m clearing around 2 square inches per hour. At that rate, I have around 400 hours to go!

[Ptychodus04]

I’m going to scream… I just typed out a long update and turned right around and accidentally deleted all the text. 

 

Let’s try this again…

 

I had to build a new prep box. I was managing to get abrasive all over the lab using my smaller box that sits on top of the slab. So, off to Home Depot I went and $200 later (materiel costs are insane) I had all I needed to build a new 4’x4’ box that is just big enough to move around my largest slab.

 

Unfortunately, this is a lot more real estate than I’m used to, so the recently modified lab is feeling crowded again. I see another rearranging in my future. 

 

Anyway, back to the topic at hand… turtle prep. The matrix has become quite variable. Some of the bone is directly overlaid by hard, sticky, matrix while other areas are overlaid by more typical soft matrix. This stuff preps a lot faster but the preservation isn’t as good as the bone is more broken.

 

[hadrosauridae]

You're doing a hell of a job on that Kris!  I love the updates, and cant wait to see the final prep!

[Ptychodus04]

48 minutes ago, hadrosauridae said:

You're doing a hell of a job on that Kris!  I love the updates, and cant wait to see the final prep!

 

Thanks. I can't wait to get it done myself.  It's a rather large project.

[Top Trilo]

Its looking really good, the detail on it is amazing and you've done a terrific job at prepping!

2 hours ago, Ptychodus04 said:

I’m going to scream… I just typed out a long update and turned right around and accidentally deleted all the text. 

Does CTRL Z not work?

[Ptychodus04]

1 hour ago, Top Trilo said:

Its looking really good, the detail on it is amazing and you've done a terrific job at prepping!

Does CTRL Z not work?

 

I was on my phone. 

[Top Trilo]

4 minutes ago, Ptychodus04 said:

 

I was on my phone. 

If you shake your phone doesn’t it allow you to undo?

[Ptychodus04]

2 minutes ago, Top Trilo said:

If you shake your phone doesn’t it allow you to undo?

 

I'm a complete troglodyte. I'm lucky if I can actually do anything on my phone. I've never heard of this trick. The most exciting thing I've learned about my phone is that I can say "Hey Siri... Lumos" to turn on the flashlight and "Hey Siri... Nox" to turn it off. As a big Harry Potter fan (all fantasy really), I geeked out on that for about a minute before I got bored with it. Tech is clearly not my thing. 

[Randyw]

Wait…what? You can tell siri lumos and nox? I gotta try this!

great progress on the prep too!

[Kane]

1 hour ago, Ptychodus04 said:

 

I'm a complete troglodyte. I'm lucky if I can actually do anything on my phone. I've never heard of this trick. The most exciting thing I've learned about my phone is that I can say "Hey Siri... Lumos" to turn on the flashlight and "Hey Siri... Nox" to turn it off. As a big Harry Potter fan (all fantasy really), I geeked out on that for about a minute before I got bored with it. Tech is clearly not my thing. 

Never found Siri did my bidding. "Siri, delete yourself." Nope. "Siri, recite the first trillion digits of pi." Nope.  

[Ptychodus04]

15 minutes ago, Kane said:

Never found Siri did my bidding. "Siri, delete yourself." Nope. "Siri, recite the first trillion digits of pi." Nope.  

 

She usually doesn't help me much as well. Unfortunately, the newer updates don't appear to have cheeky responses to questions and comments like the older versions did. I once got multiple useless responses from Siri on a query and in frustration lashed out with some colorful (very sailor) verbal abuse related to Siri's inability to provide useful content. "She" responded with "I'm sorry you feel that way". 

[Kane]

1 minute ago, Ptychodus04 said:

 

She usually doesn't help me much as well. Unfortunately, the newer updates don't appear to have cheeky responses to questions and comments like the older versions did. I once got multiple useless responses from Siri on a query and in frustration lashed out with some colorful (very sailor) verbal abuse related to Siri's inability to provide useful content. "She" responded with "I'm sorry you feel that way". 

I remember those days and admit to treating it to some salty insults, just to play with its parameters.  

I've never found it to be all that helpful when almost all my queries would get the response of, "this is what I found on Wikipedia." I mean, I could just do that myself! I find it really falls down for deep searches, defaulting to the first few hits on Google. We used to have a Google home speaker, too, and I would test its limits and was frequently disappointed in my music requests ("Hey, Google, play some Inuit throat-singing, and then some Swedish folk metal"). 

[Ptychodus04]

3 minutes ago, Kane said:

I remember those days and admit to treating it to some salty insults, just to play with its parameters.  

I've never found it to be all that helpful when almost all my queries would get the response of, "this is what I found on Wikipedia." I mean, I could just do that myself! I find it really falls down for deep searches, defaulting to the first few hits on Google. We used to have a Google home speaker, too, and I would test its limits and was frequently disappointed in my music requests ("Hey, Google, play some Inuit throat-singing, and then some Swedish folk metal"). 

 

Agreed. This would be why I embrace the troglodyte lifestyle. Low tech... Forging my own tools, hunting my own meat, growing my own veggies, making my own soap, making my own clothes, etc. The results are far more useful (eventually). My wife recently told someone that if the SHTF, we would be the cleanest, best dressed, and least hungry people in the area. 

[RJB]

Hurry!!!  

 

RB

[Ptychodus04]

1 hour ago, RJB said:

Hurry!!!  

 

RB

 

I'm trying, I really am. 

[rocket]

Love to see how it´s going on. Great work, seems to be a fantastic one at the end

think about to book a flight to Denver 

[Ptychodus04]

15 hours ago, rocket said:

Love to see how it´s going on. Great work, seems to be a fantastic one at the end

think about to book a flight to Denver 

 

Thanks. It is going to be a nice specimen. I've made a lot more progress this week but the whole thing is currently covered in iron powder and rock chips. I'll clear it off and snap another photo after I finish my prep session today.

 

If you wind up coming to Denver for the show, send me a PM. I'd love to meet you in person.  I drive to the shows to pick up and deliver these specimens. It puts a lot of miles on my truck but that's the only feasible way to transport large specimens. It takes me around 12 hours to drive to Denver from Dallas. Last year, my timeline was really tight so,  had to make the drive there and back in one day! Technically, it was 26 hours round trip with a whole 2 hours in Denver. I hope I never have to do that again. It was a horrible drive.