If I were to take a fresh fish and put it in epoxy what would happen? Would the color stay? Would it shrivel up? Just wondering…actually it is surfboard related I just can’t say how yet.
this might help you…
i know as a kid in elementary school we took fish and put them in poly casting resin to see if it would stop them from decomposing and preserve them. but there were so many air bubbles and discoloration due to the poly reacting with the oils in the skin and fat of the fish that if was hard to recognize that it was a fish. we had to throw it away 2 weeks later because it stunk up the whole classroom.
epoxy might be different though…
Maybe dry it out first??
I think you should do this…only because I want to bear witness to the ensuing hilarity.
Wayull - you could smoke it, salt it, pickle it or irradiate it.
The first will change the color, the second and third will change the color and mebbe the chemistry of it. And irradiating it is prolly out unless you’re near either Hanford, Oak Ridge or Los Alamos. In addition to making life Real Interesting taking the board through airports and the like.
Freezing is out, unless you have a good source of, say, liquid nitrogen handy. Let alone making the deck awfully slippery from the permanent ice floe on top.
So, you can do what taxidermists do to piscine trophies these days. Make a female cast off the fishie, cast a fiberglass replica of said fishie in that, then airbrush it for color before setting it under the glass or whatever else you have planned.
I’ll also note that flatfish would be the ideal candidate. Say, a sand dab or a yellowtail flounder
On the other hand, a halibut would prolly be a leetle oversized
Unless of course you’re planning on putting a coupla fin boxes in it and surfing it as-is. Stranger designs have most definitely been proposed of late.
bon appetit
doc…
Go get one of those do it yourself taxiderm kits. Practice on the neighbors cat, or maybe a small pigmy goat. When you feel confident enough then you can tackle the surfboard hood ornament.
I’m just bubbling with ideas now, …maybe you could kill & stuff a Bald Eagle then glue it to the nose of an American made longboard…How fricking patriotic would that be!!!
DO IT!!!
Funny you should mention this as I’ve done it before for work/graduate research.
Dehydrate the fish in 95-100 EtOH (alcohol) for a few days first, allow to air dry (or dry in a drying oven), then cast it in the epoxy. Do your best to get the bubbles out (microwave beforehand and/or utilize a shaker table).
A few additional tips:
This works best on small, thin fish. Bigger fish require more time and sometimes a few changes of the EtOH before casting.
For larger/thicker fish, inject the EtOH into the body cavity to dehydrate and preserve the organs. If you can gut the fish and fill it with some sort of filler material (even EtOH-soaked sawdust), results will be better.
The fish will want to curl up as it dries, so do your best to flatten it out as it does so. Cheesecloth over the fish with a stack of newspapers (change the newspaper pile a few times to wick away the fluid, the cheesecloth keeps the print from staining the fish) can be used to accomplish this. I’ve also done well with window screen pulled taught ove the specimen.
To preserve the color better, you can preserve the specimen in Formalin (10% formaldehyde) for a day or two before dropping it in the EtOH for a few days to a week.
HTH
Quote:
Funny you should mention this as I’ve done it before for work/graduate research.
Dehydrate the fish in 95-100 EtOH (alcohol) for a few days first, allow to air dry (or dry in a drying oven), then cast it in the epoxy. Do your best to get the bubbles out (microwave beforehand and/or utilize a shaker table).
A few additional tips:
This works best on small, thin fish. Bigger fish require more time and sometimes a few changes of the EtOH before casting.
For larger/thicker fish, inject the EtOH into the body cavity to dehydrate and preserve the organs. If you can gut the fish and fill it with some sort of filler material (even EtOH-soaked sawdust), results will be better.
The fish will want to curl up as it dries, so do your best to flatten it out as it does so. Cheesecloth over the fish with a stack of newspapers (change the newspaper pile a few times to wick away the fluid, the cheesecloth keeps the print from staining the fish) can be used to accomplish this. I’ve also done well with window screen pulled taught ove the specimen.
To preserve the color better, you can preserve the specimen in Formalin (10% formaldehyde) for a day or two before dropping it in the EtOH for a few days to a week.
HTH
WOW…Is there nothing we don’t know about here on swaylocks!! That was great Hackey.
Hey resinhead think about a seal pelt patch for knee paddleing,lol
oops, made one little mistake (or at least I was not clear).
As far as using filler to fill the body cavity- it should be EtOH soaked during the drying process if you are trying to preserve the muscular “back meat” from the inside, BUT once you go to cast it in the resin, fill it with dry material (EtOH, when wet, will impede the curing of the epoxy).
Additionally, when casting the fish, best to do it in two parts- fill your mould , let the risin get viscous, then “float” the fish in it while still gel-y (or at minimum, tacky), let set a little more, and then fill the rest of the mould with resin.
As always, you are going to have to manage exotherm through all this. Good luck with that (I’ve gotten a handle on it, but sometimes the resin “behaves” in a manner other than expected!).
Isn’t it great we have our own consulting marine scientist to help us stick fish in resin?
Maybe he can move up to seals someday, just need a bgger vessel to cast into. You’re in charge of prepping
the catch after you bring 'em in on the Seal Slayer 2000. Just gotta get past those pesky wildlife officers…
I figure that if I gut them right after I catch them I can stack them up twice as high? I mean from my limited experience of of gutting seals I’d rekon there is about 1/2 the weight in guts. I usually just fin em on one side, and throw them back…it’s fun to watch them swim in a circle.
think you could use seal pelt for stomp pads?
Wow. Thanks Hackey.
Is the EtOH denatured alcohol or rubbing alcohol, or do I have to go to some special kind of store to purchase it? Maybe the same place that sell formaline? Also, will I be put on any FBI watch list when purchasing said products?
How well does the formaline hold the color?
The stuff I have used is pure (100%) or 95% Ethyl (grain) alcohol, no methyl (wood) or other ingredients, but you might be able to get away with some other forms of alcohol as long as the concentration is up there (I’d recommend at least 90%, but it is possible you could get respectable results with lesser concentrations as long as you get good dehydration after the fact). This has all been through work (Rutgers University, so we are have all the permits and are approved for its use) so it I really can’t tell you how restricted or (un)available it is offhand.
I think that you might even be able to substitute some sort of consumable alcohol such as Everclear (190 proof, so it is some potent stuff). Really, you are looking to 1) kill bacteria that can rot the flesh and 2) dehydrate the tissue.
Formalin might be trickier to get your hands on and is likely more restricted (it is considered a carcinogen), but it keeps the pigments much better than just immediately preserving in Alcohol. No matter what you do, the fish won’t appear truly life-like, but it definitely looks much nicer if pre-treated. It also plasticizes the connective tissue, which provides better “structure” when you move onto preservation with the alcohol (which basically dehydrates the heck out of the tissue). Alcohol-preserved samples that are pre-treated with Formalin look plumper and more life-like because they stand up to the ravages of dehydration by the EtOH; those treated with alcohol shrivel up and their colors are more washed-out.
If you know someone who works in a funeral home that does their own embalming, you could probably get your hands on some Formaldehyde, but you did not hear that from me 
Dilute Formaldehyde down you have Formalin (I thought it was 10%, but Wiki has it at 40% http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Formaldehyde .
HA HA. Never thought I’d be visiting funeral homes for surfboard supplies!
You don’t have any missing old girlfriends or anything, do you? Just asking, Nah, Nevermind.