Green River Knightia Prep

[Pagurus]

I was pleased to be the winning bidder on this unprepped Knightia in a rolling auction by  @Meganeura this past
August. Thank you, Daniel. it was quite generous of you to offer it, along with all your other fine items.

 

 

 

I was in no hurry to complete the prep and greatly enjoyed spending an hour with it now and then, or even a quarter-
hour as it sat patiently on my kitchen table. While I envy our members with air-abrasion setups, I do appreciate the
quiet convenience of pecking away at the Green River matrix whenever the spirit moves me.

 

I began work on the skull soon after I opened the auction package from Daniel and soon found a lovely coprolite has
been sitting on the fish's head for the past fifty million years or so. I'm afraid I found it rather amusing, and while the
poor animal might find my attitude besmirching to its honor and an added insult to its injury, I decided to leave the attachment right where I found it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Not surprisingly, I found more fossil fish dung as I progresssed, and I've left them as found as well. I did uncover a
small mass of fish bones near the top of the rectangular block, sliced by the trimming saw and mostly unrecognizable
by me. I'm tempted to keep digging away at the block to see what else might be hiding there, but I'll probably just
leave it as it is and move on to another awaiting project.

 

 

 

 

It's not one of my best prep jobs but I'm satisfied with it and appreciate it as a snapshot of a moment in time.

Edited November 10, 2023 by Pagurus

[Randyw]

Wow! Really nice knightia! great job!
What did you use for the prep? I used to use picks but I’ve moved to using an x-acto knife along with my picks.

[Fossildude19]

Great fossil and prep job, Mike. Thanks for showing us!
Well done, sir!

[Tidgy's Dad]

Nice work.

Nice fishy.

[mr.cheese]

Lovely chilled prep job. I like alot!

Good job.

[jpc]

nice work.  

[Pagurus]

14 hours ago, Randyw said:

Wow! Really nice knightia! great job!
What did you use for the prep? I used to use picks but I’ve moved to using an x-acto knife along with my picks.

 

Thank you. I mostly used an x-acto knife for this fish, along with a simple scribe tool for some of the deeper areas. I hone the x-acto blades on a stone every few minutes when I'm working on the details and I change the blades now and then too. I use mostly #11 hobby blades from NicPro.  I will sometimes use sewing needles in a pin vise, but for this fish I pretty much stuck to these fine x-acto blades. Sometimes I peck away at the rock, pushing the blade, and sometimes I scrape with it. It works for me as long as I don't try to do too much too soon.

[Ptychodus04]

Good job @Pagurus

[RJB]

Probably the most common fossil fish on the planet, and I still enjoy seeing these fish.  Good job Pagurus.  and the poo is a bonus. 

 

RB

[fossil35]

Looks great