[Nhcoll-l] Fat leeching from Taxidermy bird skins

[Simon Moore]

Dear Vasiti,

This is not an uncommon problem which I have encountered many times.  Your specimen has ‘fat burn’ where a too-hastily-skinned bird has been mounted without proper removal of all fat bodies.
The fat slowly melts over the years and oxidises into fatty acid which burn the skin and cause feather loss.  The only way I can deal with this is to remove loose feathers in a swatch, cut away the fat-contaminated skin and replace it with a layer of Gampi tissue and PVA adhesive.  Once soaked for about 10 minutes in 70% acetone (diluted with water) - not too long or they will lose their natural oils, the feathers can be mounted back onto this tissue skin using the same adhesive.  Similarly burned areas of feet and feet webs can be similarly replaced, coating the layer of tissue with PVA once the tissue has been adhered into place; this layer is then ‘engraved’ to replicate the skin scales and then painted and textured further as desired.

In haste.
With all good wishes, Simon.

Simon Moore MIScT, RSci, FLS, ACR
Conservator of Natural Sciences and Cutlery Historian,
www.natural-history-conservation.com 




On 3 Dec 2015, at 04:46, Vasiti Palavi <vpalavi at aucklandmuseum.com> wrote:

> Hi All,
>  
> We currently have a situation with some of our historical taxidermied bird skin collections whereby there is fat leeching from the specimens. This is causing feather loss and degradation of the scales on the feet of the specimens which is of concern. Has anyone encountered this problem before? Are there any conservation methods that can be employed to halt this degradation process? Are there any relevant papers on this issue?
> Any help would be appreciated
>  
> Thanks
> Vasiti
>  
>  
>  
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