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Post by willyp on Mar 17, 2018 1:44:32 GMT -5
For 90% of folks it would be a part time or hobby job. Why is that ? Because you aren't going to get rich unless you work 23 hours a day !
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Post by Deleted on Mar 17, 2018 5:58:19 GMT -5
Never even crossed my mind. Of course, being an old retired type, any kind of wORk is a four-letter word.  |
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Post by Deleted on Mar 17, 2018 7:33:29 GMT -5
I thought it until I took a head to my local guy asked him how long he had been a taxidermist ......he told me 8 years ever since i was 25 ........he looked like he was in his 60's
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Post by redarrow on Mar 17, 2018 8:13:48 GMT -5
I still like messing with furs and doing skull mounts of but doing such stuff as a job would take all the enjoyment out of such stuff.
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Post by GlennD on Mar 17, 2018 8:33:58 GMT -5
A friend and I signed up for the Northwestern School of Taxidermy when we were about 12 years old. We were doing fine until his Mother caught us boiling a squirrel skull in one of her sauce pans. Sure did stink up the house..  Lessons over.. |
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Post by redarrow on Mar 17, 2018 9:27:44 GMT -5
Back when I was in my early teens, I caught the one and only weasel I have ever trapped in my life. I cut into it's scent glands when I started skinning it-man the stink. It wasn't more than a minute or so that I heard my mom at the top of the basement stairs: "I don't know what your skinning down there, but get it outside right now, and leave the door open!" I almost got evicted from the little skinning/drying area I set up in our furnace room each fall.
I never caught another weasel, but I skinned the minks outside and never skinned any of the skunks that ended up in my traps-inside or outside.
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Post by willyp on Mar 18, 2018 7:43:08 GMT -5
Oh an also,how much stuff you get stuck with that people don't come to pick up ?
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Post by bushmaster on Mar 18, 2018 14:47:14 GMT -5
My Uncle has been a full time taxidermist for 60 years. He's 85 and still at it. He's got 95 shoulder mounts in the shop from last season to do. He's done quite well for himself.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 18, 2018 17:47:49 GMT -5
No way Jose! A friend of mine is a taxidermist and I've sat in his shop talking to him for many hours watching him work. Way too many ticks to deal with for me and the work itself doesn't appeal to me either.
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Post by davet on Mar 19, 2018 9:14:19 GMT -5
I was never any good at any type of work that required skill of artistry. Heck......when I use to putty up my cars for inspection they ended up looking like someone glued a giant turd to the car. I did paint one car one time. It had more orange peel and overspray of anything I ever saw.
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Post by redarrow on Mar 19, 2018 19:14:26 GMT -5
I have done dozens of skull mounts since the early 80s and have tanned at least one of most of PA's furbearers.
I enjoy doing this stuff most of the time, but if it got to a point where I had to do more than a few in archery and maybe a few in rifle season for friends and family, it would get to be a chore that got old fast.
I have seen some taxidermy that impressed me, but if it's not done very well, or it's not displayed in the right kind of setting, I don't like most of it.
Good taxidermists are real artists. The work of mediocre ones look too cookie cutter to me.
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Post by bushmaster on Mar 19, 2018 20:24:38 GMT -5
Attachment DeletedIF you need a good one. I've got one in the family. He's done everything from Musk ox to Lion, and every one of my mounts.
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Post by willyp on Mar 20, 2018 3:47:47 GMT -5
Bushmaster how
many fellows help him ?
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Post by bushmaster on Mar 20, 2018 6:21:18 GMT -5
Just his wife, she does all the detail work They are quite a team.
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Post by redarrow on Mar 20, 2018 13:30:43 GMT -5
That looks like a well done mount, and a beautiful buck.
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Post by bushmaster on Mar 20, 2018 13:53:35 GMT -5
That looks like a well done mount, and a beautiful buck. Thanks, he really is very good at it. |
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Post by dougell on Mar 20, 2018 14:43:32 GMT -5
There's a guy down the road from me who does over 400 deer per year plus just about everything else.It's a huge operation and he has two full time guys working for him.The one guy has a dipping business on the side and the other guy has a skull cleaning business.The guy who cleans the skulls does 500+ per year.He has very little overhead and at $85 a head,do the math.Not a bad part time gig.
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Post by dougell on Mar 20, 2018 14:45:35 GMT -5
I would never be a taxidermist.First,I suck at anything that requires artistic ability.Second,you're busy when you want to be hunting.
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Post by redarrow on Mar 20, 2018 15:19:18 GMT -5
I really don't like dipped skulls, I probably would have as a teenager.
Skinning a head is pretty easy to do, especially if you've done much skinning of anything else. Boiling and cleaning isn't all that bad if you do it within a couple days of the kill. Peroxide whitens it nicely. And I know a guy who has painted some of his with flat white ceiling paint.
Doing a skull mount is a good way to add a little to your deer hunting.
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