Over the weekend, I was trying to prepare an Eldredgeops rana roller so that it would be nicely presented in pedestal fashion (just to get some practice with that approach). The roller itself was flawless with no cracks from crush damage, and fully inflated. It was going very well until it popped off the last remaining bit of rock that had been holding it in place, and... rolled away. Cleaning out my entire prep area did not result in me finding it, so it has likely been absconded by the same little demons who steal socks from the dryer. Six hours of work gone. So a few days later I decided to prep my way through that disappointment in completing a trilobite I had prepared before, but not to the full extent. This is another Eldredgeops rana from the Penn Dixie site, and measures on the upper end of the size they appear at this site. Before and after. I had prepared this halfway months ago, but it still needed more work. When I initially found it, the rock had split right through it, resulting in the loss of some segments. I glued it together in the field. In this round of prep, I applied acetone to get rid of some excess glue, performed some restoration of the missing parts, scribed and abraded a bit more, and this is the result. It may not be perfect, but it is a lot better than how I found it! This one measures 47 mm (sag.).
My next task is to complete prep on one of Deb's finds -- another prone E. rana. Comments are closed.
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Kane Faucher
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February 2024
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