#bone articulation

The 3.74 meter reticulated python is finally finished, I am extremely proud, I feel like a peacock

There were probably more than a thousand pieces and I still have a 2.5 meter burmese degreasing and two other snakes in the freezer waiting to be cleaned and articulated

Finally done with the rattlesnake skeleton articulation, after yrs of sitting as a pile of bones I had since 2012 I finally put it together.

Wasn’t in the best shape as the person who dispatched it used a shotgun, plus I’m assuming I lost some over the yrs of moving around, but it’s finally done. I’ve had to replace some of the missing parts using wire. But it’s finally done!

I hope you like him, he came all the way from the outskirts of Amarillo tx and was a male diamondback rattlesnake, and my first ever skeletal articulation!

Im thinking of naming him Jake after the infamous rattlesnake Jake

Thank you for your kind words. 💕

So I got two coyote carcasses a while back from a local hunt event. Skinned them down, let them decay, then soaked them. I’ve never done anything really intentional with bones, so even though I encounter them everywhere and have a stack of bleached cow skulls and antlers, this is my first time attempting to go from full carcass to clean bones.

Heyo!

So! I have to ask because im not sure, are you talking about where the ribs connect to the spine itself, or the sternal cartilage that connects everything at the bottom?

You can do both when it comes to the rib connections! Depending on how big what you’re working on kind of determines that though. If its a small enough animal you /can/ use oxidization to keep them on there. Personally, i would just let the skeleton completely rot down and then connect them later on, i just like to make sure theres nothing left on the bones.

Though, i do understand the benefit for sure. It eliminates the irritation of having to do squint at tiny rib heads to figure out what’s going on.

Here’s a little more about oxidization for you

If you’re talking about the cartilage at the bottom of the ribcage, its kind of the same as above. You can oxidize that as well on smaller specimens. When it comes to a bigger animal i’d definitely just remove it and make sure you take the sternal bones out. You can reconnect those to a skeleton either by recreating the sternal cartilage with the medium of your choosing (clay, molding foam, epoxy, etc.)

As far as the disks in the middle of the spine go, if you’re talking about the connection themselves, you can again leave those alone if you’re going to oxidize. You can also just let them rot off if you’re going to fully or partially clean the skeleton.

If it’s actual parts of bone, like the end caps you see on younger animals that haven’t totally fused, keep those on hand and try to match them back up with their appropriate vertebrae. It’ll make it easier properly fit the bones together, drill/glue/mount them.