Fox skeleton articulation (attempt!)

[MrEd]

Havent updated this in a while as I have been busy moving house Abs renovating the new house. It’s still a building site but I am just stuck waiting on other people now. So back to some hobbies!

I prepped, drilled, rodded and glued the left hand ribs to the vertebrae. Took a surprisingly large amount of time….

They aren’t in final locations yet as I need to attach the right, the fashion the sternum (half of which is missing) and then get it all aligned and final glued….

Laid out in the right order. Drilled and rodded.


Vertebrae drilled


And insitu

 

[Jay131]

Amazing! Am loving this.

 

[FerlasDave]

Wow. Those ribs are a lot shorter than I expected them to be!

 

[swyn]

Great to see the progress! Thank you.
S

 

[MrEd]

Yeah and

Wow. Those ribs are a lot shorter than I expected them to be!

they angle back far more than I was expecting, there is a surprisingly large range of movement where they join to the spine so there is a lot of expansion in the rib cage. Will be interesting to see it all as one object

 

[FerlasDave]

Yeah and

they angle back far more than I was expecting, there is a surprisingly large range of movement where they join to the spine so there is a lot of expansion in the rib cage. Will be interesting to see it all as one object

Yes. Definitely! Right now that pelvis looks way to huge. But it does go to show how small the vital organs must be compared to the stomach, which imo is the more important part lol

 

[MrEd]

Yes. Definitely! Right now that pelvis looks way to huge. But it does go to show how small the vital organs must be compared to the stomach, which imo is the more important part lol

i should have weighed the bones, but guesstimating the whole pelvis is second largest after the skull in term of volume, but it doesnt feel hugely 'dense' - the leg bones feel a bit more solid if that makes sense so may weigh more?

 

[FerlasDave]

That’s really interesting.. although when you think about it it totally makes sense. I’m sure I read somewhere that canidae bones are 40 times stronger than ours, so how that relates to density (which you’d expect density = strength) Id be curious about. Don’t suppose there are any biologists here? :-D

 

[MrEd]

Haven’t done much with my pet fox recently due to various family pressures, but now I am off my feet recuperating from an operation I have had some time to pick it back up again!

So I got the ribs mounted. I thought this would be fairly straight forward but god no it wasn’t. Much harder than the feet bones tbh. Really hard to get them aligned and symmetrical and look *natural* - especially as the rib cage is not that big….

I used a hot melt glue gun and had to melt it all and take all the ribs off a total of 3 times before I was happy. I mean I am not 100% happy but it’s as good as I can do to be honest…. This is my first time after all….

Photos below. You want any more info or specific photos just let me know!

1.
Ribs pinned and in place. I later clipped off the wire on the ends of most of them as it wasn’t really needed (the rib age is to small to wire the entire sternum up - a Wolf or large dog would need them but a fox ribs are light enough to be supported with wire from the top only.




2.
I supported the skeleton from the ceiling with string and then hung weights at 3 points the get the vertebra into an anatomically correct orientation so I can do my best to get the ribs spaced and aligned…. (They are pre-alignment here!)


I have left it like this to set up properly overnight and will tidy up the glue tomorrow.
I have found cutting the end off a metal clay shaping tool and putting it in my soldering iron works well to smooth out and remove excess glue gun glue to try and make it neat and look like cartilage (sort of)

I am off work for a month so hoping to get this finished this summer

Ed

 

[gg012]

I only just found this thread but it is amazing. Great work there, well done!

Sent from underground

 

[MrEd]

I only just found this thread but it is amazing. Great work there, well done!

Sent from underground

Haha thanks!

A house renovation, a new baby and various other things have got in the way, so it’s only 2/3rds done! I will finish it one day!