Youngest killed this buck 5 years ago.

I caped it, ordered a form, eyes, ear liners, etc and promptly the cape got buried in one of the freezers and forgotten.

Prepped form and mounted rack/ skull cap.

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Pulled it out last week and thawed it.
One ear and a good sized patch of throat fairly freezer burned. Part of lip too.

As in stiff as plywood even after it thawed. Tried a product called Stop Rot that seemed to help. Got the ears partialy opened and poured more in.

Next day got a little closer to turned, so fleshed and salted.
Tried a soak in TruBond LipaSolve 55 and cape got soft and pliable.

Meanwhile in went eyes.

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Finished turning ears, lips, etc and pickled for a few days.

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Used paint on TruBond tan,ear liners in, and mounted her up!

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Will fool with it as it dries over next week or so, then finish it off, paint, etc.

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Before anyone gets too critical,I call my butchery
Ten Yard Taxidermy.
Cause it looks passable at 30 feet.

Amazing buck and nice work. I can only dream of getting one like that some day!

Very nice!  I always equate taxidermist to an artist, not a scientist but a part biologist.

It looks pissed...or maybe judgemental.

Looks good to me. I could never do that; no skills for fine work like that.

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I have no clue what you're saying, but it looks good to me.

That looks great, OP.

Hell, just doing a good cape job is artwork.

Looks good!

But ... how do you "forget" about a rack like that, that needs mounted!!!

After a few years, just sorta didn't even notice it anymore
LOL, have a heavy 8 I killed 19 years ago.
No idea where the cape went, had double throat patch.

And when I dug this one out, wife found a piebald she killed a good 20 years ago. Expect it's freezer burned beyond all hope, will see what I can do.

As cape dries, starting to see some detail.
I hate musclebound mounts, I sanded some detail off this form,  but kept shoulder/ neck detail, as it was a beast in life.

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