WORKSHOP

My Favorite Hide Paste Formula
BY Bob Chauvin

MOST SEASONED TAXIDERMISTS HAVE FAVORITE and least favorite products for adhering hides and capes to forms. The list of products available is considerable as are the price ranges. The effectiveness of commercial taxidermy adhesives also has a wide range of latitude as well. Price is not always an indicator of efficiency either. I have spent too much money on some of those only to find that what I had purchased was about as useful as an ashtray on a motorcycle.

For my uses, a good hide paste must provide a multitude of services. It has to be equally useable with full- or wet-tanned skins. The glue of choice must adhere tightly and permanently when dry. It also needs a long period of workability without going sour if the project takes two or three days to complete.

Beyond those requirements, a good paste should be as slippery as the proverbial eel, yet have substantial "body" to it. The thickness that constitutes the "body" of the adhesive is most important for me when mounting African and similar trophies. Without substance and density to the paste, it can be next to impossible to work the natural wrinkles into the trophy and not...

...Continued in the Fall 2002 Issue of Breakthrough.

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