Larry's Elk MOUNT- UPDATE MOUNTED

I'm going to start a new thread to show a little bit about how to mount an ELK. As some of you know, Larry (Barb's husband) shot a beautiful ELK with his bow this fall and I was the lucky taxidermist chosen to mount it for them. So here is the start of Larry Davenport's ELK:

First thing you notice is I cut the nose off the form. I do this because it's much easier to carve the inner nostril detail when you can hold it in your hands.


Here is the nose after the inner nostril detail has been carefully carved. I would venture to guess that very few taxidermist take the time to put this much effort into something that the customer will probably never look at anyways but I feel it's very important to achieve a lifelike mount. The inside of the nostril area was rough painted with bright flesh tone and is by no means the finished look. It's merely done to save a few coats of paint later after the skin is on.


More to come soon. Stay Tuned!!!

In the photo you can see that by cutting the nose off you can also carve from the back making your detail inside the nose that much more accurate.


This form was simply huge and the manufacturer shipped it to me in two parts. I put bondo on the two joining sides of the form and took 4" coarse threaded screws and screwed the pieces together to hold it in place until the bondo cures. This alone is not strong enough so I drilled two 1" holes approximately 2ft deep into the form making sure the hole went into both halves of the form. Then I mixed up two part foam and poured it into the holes. When this cures and hardens it makes for a very strong bond between both halves of the form.


After seeing just how large this form was I decided to make the antlers detachable so that we would have no issues getting the mount into their house. In this photo you can see the skull plate has been attached to the form and mache has been applied over the skull cap. You will also notice two holes drilled into the skull plate and these holes will accept the pegs which hold the antlers on. One benefit to this system is it makes the sewing process go a little easier because you don't have the antlers in your way when your mounting.


Here is what the form looks like. It's almost ready for the skin.


There is only one more thing to do before I can start mounting the ELK. I need to cover the back of the form because this is a pedestal mount and it will be visible. I chose to use dark brown leather because it looks nice.


Probably the most important thing one needs to do before start mounting up the animal is to TEST FIT the skin to make sure everything fits as it should. As you can see here, the ELK cape fits like a glove.

It's great to be able to watch it in progress!

Plain and simply awesome!

Very cool of you Steve to take the time to show a Peace of art coming together. Keep them coming.

Thank you so very much Steve!!!
We are both so excited that you are sharing and explaining every step with us
( Its a good thing you live to far away , because I would most likely be knocking at your door every day to see him )
I am so thrilled that the hide fit like a glove , I know that was a big concern of your's in the beginnig .

I will be calling you soon

You really take it to that true art form there Steve, love the detailed work that you even pur into the nostrils. Keep the updates coming I can't get enough of them....

Been wondereing when this was going to start. Thanks for doing a piece of art online Steve, I think alot of us will be fallowing this one

Wow!!! This is going to be an incredible process!! Great work Steve! Looking forward to seeing this from start to finish!

Looking good so far !! Too bad the owners of that elk didn't think ahead and put some double doors in thier house !!!! Nice to also see some people actually care about the mount and not just pumping them out for the money !!

Just amazing the way the whole process goes....that bull is gonna look sweet....

You are the man Steve! I love these threads and I am stoked to follow this and see how Larry's Elk comes along throughout the process... Its going to be neat to see it on there and then see it in person.

Like others have said, THANKS FOR SHARING WITH US!

That is sweet!!!

Talked to Steve today and he promises an update sometime tonight.

We are not having this elk mount bugling- Not to many mounts I like with their mouth open
, Once again thanks Steve for the great communtication

Larry's ELK is mounted!!! I still need to attach the antlers and get the skin around the pedicals tucked but I'm done for tonight. I was going to take some pictures as I worked on the mount but I decided to just get it done and take some finished pictures. I will do some more updates later. Here is the mount (minus the antlers.)