These are the before and after pictures of my serval pelt's face. When I got it, the pelt was split into a rug cut up to its lower neck but everything above that was uncut which was cool since that had kept the chin intact, however, this resulted in an extremely odd shaped face and head.
I carefully cut along the underside of the neck to the end of the chin and, after testing a small piece of the hide elsewhere for dry rot, soaked the head and ears in a bowl of water for a couple hours to get it all softened up. I was then able to gently stretch the face into something more presentable as well as give the same treatment to the ears.
This was going along pretty well until I realized that the skin had separated from the ear cartilage in all areas save for where some "genius" had glued it. The glue probably seemed like a good idea at the time, but in the pelt's current state and with me trying to restore it to something presentable, the glue made the job rather hellish and ended up adding more damage to the ears.
After removing much of the glue and putting in several hours of intensive care and reshaping, I am now very happy with the outcome.
And just as an FYI, please don't ever use standard glue while repairing a taxidermy piece. This will spell doom for your critter down the road. Instead, use rubber cement. You can get it at the craft store and it's easy to use and has given me great results.
Also, after soaking the head in water, I applied some taxidermist's leather oil to the skin that I had gotten wet and gently worked it as it softened so that it would help prevent it from drying out and becoming brittle.
The full pelt can be seen here:
[link]"Before" photo taken by The Corner Shoppe antique store.
"After" photo taken by me.
Disclaimer: I did not kill this animal and disagree with the killing of animals for sport or fashion. If you do not like what you see, don't look at it! Also, don't bother wasting your time leaving rude or pointless comments here, they will be ignored.