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Taxidermy information
 

Some taxidermy supplies that I used.
In making new heads, I decided to try using some taxidermy supplies to give realistic looking noses and teeth.  I had heard of Van Dyke's Taxidermy supply as a good source and so checked them out.  They have an extensive selection, but unfortunately, few pictures and no measurements to speak of.  After all, if you buy a coyote jaw set, you are expected to use it on a coyote mount, right?  So don't order a racoon jaw set and expect it to be human sized!  I purchased a wolf jaw set, two types of coyote jaw sets, and a wolf nose and coyote nose.  Here are the part numbers of what I ordered:

 

01510940 Painted wolf jaw set with tongue
01302282 Unpainted coyote jaw set
01302339 Mohr coyote tongue
01006152 Painted coyote jaw set with tongue
01001277 Wolf nose
01341308 Coyote nose

All of these were useful except for the 01006152 coyote jaw set.  It was a bit nasty looking (too realistic!) and was designed with a snarling tongue and the teeth set to be in an open mouth position.  There was no way to make it work in a furry head without lots of modification and so I decided that it was better to just use the other style.

 
 
 

Sorry about the fuzzy pic, I had already put these into heads before realizing how fuzzy they were.  But these are wolf nose on the left and the coyote nose on the right.  Identical except for size.  They are made of a cast resin and it is possible to drill them out to get air in.

The back of the wolf nose after I drilled it out.

Here is a view of the 01302282 coyote jaw set with ruler.  No tongue comes with this set, you must order it seperately.  To get the teeth to close this nicely, I had to grind on the back edge of the canines with a dremel tool, but this is easy to do. 

The same coyote jaw set with the 01302339 coyote tongue.  Notice that the backs of the jaw set is rounded and has pegs to fit the two pieces together in an open mouth position.  I simply cut these off with a hacksaw just behind the molars.

Here is the 01510940 wolf jaw set.  It is a bit "beefier" than the coyote jaw set but about the same length.  It comes with a snarling tongue that I did not use, I used the coyote tongue which gave it a bit friendlier look.

Here is a front view of the wolf jaw set with the snarling tongue.

And here is the wolf jaw set in the top row with the coyote jaw set and separate tongue in the bottom row for comparison.

Here is the coyote tongue sitting on the wolf lower jaw.

The coyote tongue has a rib on the underside that I shaved off to make it sit lower.  The upper one is the modified one, the lower one is the unmodified one.  These are soft plastic and this can be done with a knife.

Here is an experiment that I did with the coyote jaws.  I cut away all the material between the two sides to see if they could be flared out for heads that have a more triangular outline.  Yes it does work, a hair dryer can be applied to "reset" the plastic into the flared position.

On the left is the unmodified coyote upper jaw and on the right is the "flared" version.