Outside looking in, at the final touch-up being done to the Cape Buffalo in the 'Water Hole' diorama, at the International Wildlife Museum at SCI Headquarters in Tucson, Arizona.

Much of our work is done on the collections of private individuals. They generally have a smaller number of mounts than those found in the average Natural History Museums. Our rates are calculated accordingly. Museum work is based on volume, therefore we can charge considerably lower rates for our museum services. Occasionally, if we felt some particular project was a challenge, of great importance to the museum, or both, we have even donated our time! The most important thing is the museum mounts receiving the professional care they need, not us getting paid for every little thing we do.

My first museum work was at Seattle's Museum of History and Industry in 1963, helping set up some of the wildlife dioramas, putting in part of the "landscaping" in some of the habitat scenes and even painting in some of the background scenes under the watchful eye of an extremely talented artist, Charles Liedl. It was great fun, and quite an education. Even in my work today I occasionally use things learned way back then.

In the course of my work at Jonas Brothers (see Experience), I worked on a number of mounts and habitat scene bases that eventually ended up in various museums around the country, including some mounts now on display at the Roy Rogers Museum in Victorville, California. Unfortunately, at that time, I did not put much importance on such things and so I do not have any corresponding photos.

My first "on location" museum job was in summer, 1970. Jonas Bros. of Alaska Museum in Anchorage had been been sold and all the mounts damaged in the '64 earthquake had to be put back in tip-top shape. Including the life-size mounted World Record Pacific Walrus. The real tusks, badly broken, were bolted and fiberglassed in. Much of the face was torn up prying out and installing new, artificial tusks. Quite a job! Then I had to sculpt in new "skin," paint on a new face and reinstall all the whiskers.

Most of 1971 was spent in Norway working for A/S Bio-Prep, the largest taxidermy studio in Norway. They were just starting a project for Norsk Skogbruksmuseum (Norwegian Forestry Museum) which included a life-size display of an Elg and Elghund. (Norwegian Moose and Norwegian Elkhound, actually "Moose Hound.") I had worked on several life size Moose here in the USA, so I was hired to act as advisor on that and several other mounts for the same museum. They started the process by using the skull, along with the actual leg, feet, shoulder and hip bones. These they suspended on 2x4's at the proper angles and height, covered it all with Styrofoam, ("Scumgummi" they call it) and sculpted in the shape of the body. From that they made a fiberglass form to use for the actual mounting. They had never mounted a life size moose before but you sure couldn't tell it from the finished product! Their way of doing their finish painting was a bit archaic so I was delighted to teach them more advanced finishing techniques that would bring their mounts "back to life."

After leaving Klineburger Taxidermy for the last time, in 1992, we immediately launched Trophy Care International as a full time Business. In the fall of 1993 we began negotiating with SCI's International Wildlife Museum in Tucson, AZ., to clean, repair, and do some much needed restoration work on all 400 plus specimens on display there. In July, 1994 we cleaned all the mounts for the first time. Most of the mounts had been donated to the museum and none of them had been cleaned for at least 5 years. Some of the mounts, more recently donated, had obviously never been professionally cleaned.

Summer of 1995 found us back in Tucson doing some contracted repair work on four badly damaged mounted Penguins collected in Antarctica in the early 1920's.

Finished with the Penguins, I donated my time to restoring a set of Megaloceros (Irish Elk or Giant Deer) antlers. Not fossilized, these are an actual set of ancient antlers buried from 10,000 to 30,000 years somewhere in the British Isles. For years they had been all broken up and literally laying in pieces in a back room of the museum. When the restoration project was complete the antlers measure an astounding 13 feet from tip to tip!

The restored antlers are now part of a brand new Prehistoric gallery of the museum that features full scale replicas of an Irish Elk and Woolly Mammoth, made with artificial antlers and tusks. I did some restoration on the actual Mammoth tusks, also on display, as well. What fun and what a challenge! (for more information and photos see Unique Projects)

In 1996, under contract, we were back in Tucson again to clean all the mounts at the International Wildlife Museum for the second time. This time I was able to restore a Snow Leopard and a Glacier Bear, both of them previously in too bad of shape to display.

Spring of 1997 found me in Fillmore, CA.. I had promised to donate my time to restoring a shoulder mounted African Elephant head to be displayed at the new Fillmore Wildlife Museum! I had figured on maybe 3 to 4 days to complete the job. The head was in ghastly shape. The artificial tusks were broken in many places and the ears were literally in tatters! It took me almost two full weeks to complete the job! I then went on to clean and repair all of the mounts now on display at the museum.

Elephant Head restoration at the Fillmore (CA) Museum of Natural History. About to be thrown out as totaled, we donated our time to restore it. Picture on the left shows partial restoration. Picture on the right shows the finished mount before the habitat scene was built around it.

We are presently in negotiations with several other museums, both here and abroad, to do their cleaning and repair work.