Before my teaching duties resume tomorrow, I was able to squeeze a few more preps in the last couple of days. Nothing significant, but certainly learning moments for me as I better refine my nascent skills. Already, I can count a few preparation bouts that turned out fairly well: an Illaenus sinuatus, Asaphus lepidurus, Flexicalymene croneisi, and the Flexicalymene senaria / Fusispira nobilis association. So far, so good, and it seems the normal state of things is to be covered in a fine coating of dolomite! I probed other finds as well to see if there were other things there, and even popped out a headless Thaleops sp. from Bowmanville. Working with sometimes less than ideal equipment can be its own challenge, but I manage. There are still inefficiencies in my preparation "style" whereby it will take me twice or three times as long to complete a specimen than it would a more seasoned professional preparator with a wider array of tools. So my task queue has been shortening, but by no means at the point where the lab will be going idle for the rest of winter. My next task was to "fill in a gap" in my "prepertoire": restoration. My first attempt was a mixed result on an Isotelus "mafritzae" back in November that has since been finished but I have been remiss in posting said result. This second attempt would be making use of Milliput again, but on a smaller and more expendable trilobite, the commonly found Eldredgeops rana from Penn Dixie. I've got loads of these in just about every orientation. This bug was never going to make the cover of Trilobite Vogue. It is twisted with tons of crush damage to the glabella and the right side. For added "character," it is also missing a lot of shell. For preparators, this would be the kind of example one would find in a box of rejects to be harvested for parts. At this point, a bit of scribing around and blasting followed by applying a good glob of Milliput. Some carving and let to cure for a day. And the last two stages of the process. If you're wondering, the genal area of the cephalon is largely tucked underneath at an angle (super fun to prep - not!). As far as a clean restoration attempt, it is a pretty obvious attempt (but in certain lighting conditions it is a bit tougher to tell). In my weak defense, I don't have tiny tools or tiny fingers to do this kind of detail work. What this needs is a a pin-sized sander to grind and smooth down the transition between the restored area and the original shell. The pygidium itself is a real mess. But, hey, this was already consigned to the chuck-it bucket anyway, so may as well take the opportunity to practice on a piece that I could royally botch. An incomplete Leviceraurus mammilloides that Deb found in October in Bowmanville. I may have screwed up in an earlier scribing attempt, not figuring that the tail spines would be sitting on top of the bug's plane, so all but the stubs vanished. It was already missing the left genal and part of the right genal, as well as the right eye that I could not save from the impression side, sadly. But it looks a lot crisper now that I've taken the matrix down on all sides and cleared up some of the inter-pleural gunk on this "zipper bug." While I had the compressor running, why not do a quick blast of this long-tipped Mucrospirifer thedforensis? They clean up fairly easily, but are usually just a waste of dolomite and time. And these are teed up for their time at the bench: four enrolled Greenops widderensis (one almost completely pyritized) that will be no picnic to prep. The goal with these will be to expose the other side and have them appear as if "draped" over the rock. These are incredibly delicate and flaky, so having at least four on hand to get it right is a good thing as I anticipate at least a few catastrophes with these ones!
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Kane Faucher
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February 2024
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