I have a question to all who have hippo tusks in their homes. I have a hippo skull with all the teeth still on,in my house and all the ivory is cracking up. I have only had if for 5 months now. Any solutions to prevent any more craking and spliting? Thank You

I had the same darn problem! They were starting to develop cracks after a few months. Some people suggest oiling them or coating them with wax, but it didn't work for me. I got a big bucket, filled it with sand and stuck the tusks in the sand with the cavity end sticking up, then I took some two part casting plastic which I ordered from a taxidermy supply, mixed it up and poured it in the end of each one. That pretty much stopped the cracking, it hardened very quickly. I then contacted a taxidermist who knew a jeweler that made brass caps for teeth and tusks to be made into jewelry. I sent him the tusks and he capped them with polished brass. Then I had a big shield made of African Bubinga wood and attached all the tusks to it with bolts epoxied in the back of the tusks. See how easy it is to fix the problem!

Oh, for a quick fix, wrap some masking tape around the tusks tightly, it will hold until you come up with a more permanent solution. Maybe smear a little Johnson's baby oil on them too. I have heard of people putting a cotton ball soaked in baby oil in the socket, then putting melted wax over it. Do something, the cracks will just keep getting worse. You might want to post this over on the Taxidermy forum.

Thank You RBHunt, I will try baby oil, as I live in a isolated town with no raods, and no taxidermy where I live. I am new to this site and did not know there was a taxiddermy forum.

If you can remove them from the skull you can fill them with silicon and them use car polish on the out side of the tusk and that should keep them good. thats what i did with mine and they are still good and I shot it way back in 2004

They will crack. The larger tusks that I have all have some cracks in them.

I have been told that good prevention involves filling them with an epoxy resin and coating them with polyurethane or some other such air and water tight coating.

I have not tried that, myself. Mine are banded and mounted on plaques, so the cracks do not show.

I think that, if I were you, I would check with a competent taxidermist and find out what they recommend to prevent cracking.

I hope that, for your tusks, it isn't too late.

A little Johnson's clear baby oil gently rubbed into the outside about once every 6 months will help and if you can fill the inside with molten wax (just chuck a candle or two into a cup and microwave it) should do the trick.

I'd recommend wax as a better option than something that dries really hard as the ivory will shrink and expand a little over time and a really hard core could make the cracking worse over longer periods.

The treatment for boar tusks is just as Steve describes and I am sure it would apply equally to hippo tusks.
You can use a more viscous type epoxy or casting plastic, but it is really hard to beat a white candle for ease, color matching, and cleanup.
I don't know why this isn't done immediately. It should be done as soon as the tusks are pulled, cleaned, and relatively dry.
Lion teeth also need to be filled to prevent cracking.

So forgive my ignorance, but why do they crack? I've heard that warthog tusks crack? so this wax procedure should be done to those as well before mounting?

They crack as they dry out.... the process is made worse by central heating or air con..... a bit of regular mouisturizing liquid/oil and or the internal wax helps prevent it happening.

If you use the oil on them, make sure you use the clear oil and not the pink one because the ivory absorbs the pink colour.

Some taxidermists add wax and some don't.

A taxidermist friend of mine filled mine with a bondo like material that he matched in color to the teeth. I didn't want anything fancy, so he just leveled off the ends and sanded smooth. I have them lying on a small display table, and they are fine. The 2 big ones had hairline cracks when I got them (but it took almost 2 years to get them back from Zim).

I too am curious about this. I have been told conflicting information. I have heard of filling them with baby oil and sealing the ends with wax, which would make real mess if the wax came loose, and my taxidermist recommended filling them with bondo.

Shakari,

Your method of filling them with wax and allowing it to harden sounds like the easiest and most staightforward. Do you think it would be a better method than using bondo?

Thanks.

Robert,

I'm not sure what Bondo is? - but would assume it some kind of (probably) 2 part adhesive of filler that dries very hard...... in which case I'd say wax is a much better option.

I'm not a taxidermist but as I see it, all ivory, no matter what animal it comes from naturally expands and contracts over time and the degree this happens will be dictated by factors such as heat and humidity. Any hard core inside the ivory will eventually cause it to crack if it can't contract as much as it needs to. Therefore wax, which will give way if it needs to has to be a far better option than any solid, inflexible core.

Shakari,

Thanks!

Bondo is a 2 part epoxy type substance that is used for body work on automobiles. It dries very hard and can be sanded and painted. I am going to try the wax method, it does seem to make more sense. I can buy boxes of paraffin wax at the grocery store, it is used here for candlemaking and canning foods.

Robert,

that's the sort of thing I thought it was and I reckon you're doing the right thing.

FWIW, I just called a buddy of mine who until the ivory ban was one of the biggest ivory dealers in the business and he agrees with me about the way elephant ivory can contract & expand and as warthog and hippo ivory are the same basic material, it stands to reason that it'll behave the same way.

Don't forget to oil them with a bit of clear Johnson's baby oil every few months.

Oh, and welcome to the forum BTW.

Shakari,

Thanks for the help and the welcome. I am going to do as you suggest.

I have mine display in special made table (display cabinet) which is covered with a glass box so they are not in direct contact with air.
Inside the cabinet there is always a pair of small white porcelain recipients with water, to keep their ambiance humid.
This is also a good tip for small ivory sculptures that are held inside any glass cabinet.

Shakari,

I have filled them as you suggested with wax and they are cooling and the wax is hardening. What do you think about now sealing the end with a plug of epoxy over the wax and then sanding smooth (the ends are irregularly shaped).

Thanks.

Tooth and Tusk cracking is caused by a combination of microscopic movements that occurs with expansion with heat and contraction with cooling, and or that which occurs with swelling and shrinking from change of moisture content. These 2 types of movements occur at different rates within the various areas of the tusk due to the varying thickness and hardness’s.

Most often the initial and main problems occurs when the tusks are initially cleaned. Boiling and excessively soaking and then being rapidly cooled and then quickly dried with heat, salts and other desiccants create major stress fractures. Since some tusks have a softer inner core and harder surface the cracks might occur internally or externally or initially at the thinner base areas where the nerve and root pulp had been and then continue to grow from there.

Thus banding or taping can help with one portion of the problem.

Next; filling the inner core helps stabilize the overall structure and also reduces the exposed surface area so it reduces the rapid loss or gain of moisture and slows the heating and cooling times. Substances like plaster of paris actually draw moisture from air and contacted objects and then moves more rapidly than the tusk and can cause problems. (plaster is also bad about attracting and supporting mold and mildew and should thus be kept away from all viable material, leather, skin, hair etc.)

Wax is stable to moisture and nearly inert to average heat and cooling expansion but it does not adhere well to tusk surface so does not add specific structural support. Silicone and silicone based caulks have mid to high adhesive and mostly inert qualities so is probably better. Bondo (auto body filler) has high adhesion is stable to moisture and inert to average heating and cooling and is rigid so adds specific structural support and is thus a better choice.

Sealing the exterior and interior both with hard substances can cause problems as the moisture content in the ivory medium will continue to migrate to and from the surface and can cause fogging or de-lamination (scaling) of surface clear coats and the ivory medium will still expand and contract with heating and cooling so the likely give will be in the exterior surface clear coat.

Sealing the exterior with oil or other substances can help stabilize the moisture content but the moisture in some sealers expand and contract with heating and cooling more than the actual ivory cell structure and aggravate that scenario. Others may cause discoloring due to chemical breakdown,(fats turning to fatty acids) and or uneven soaking into the ivory cell structure due to heavy viscosity. Glycerin is a very thin penetrates deeply and relatively evenly, is relatively inert odorless and colorless and does not evaporate very quickly so is a good choice.

Badly cracked tusks can be repaired, cracks filled and sealed etc. but this is an entirely separate issue and is probably not a home repair topic.

Best regards
Mike Ohlmann
Mike's Custom Taxidermy Inc.
4102 Cane Run Rd.
Louisville KY 40216
502-448-1309
Mike@mikescustomtaxidermy.com
www.mikescustomtaxidermy.com

Mine have done well sitting in the basement in Chicago. I do coat them with lubriderm a couple of times a year. Chicago is also humid and with the humidifier in the winter the house never gets very dry.

BigB

Thank You too all, for giving me some ideas. Now I can be better prepared next year with my Elephant tusks.

I think the real problem is the expansion and contraction of ivory after it drys. I took the masking tape off mine, because I wanted to measure them, and just didn't get around to putting it back on. It didn't take very long at all for them to start cracking. The two long straight tucks developed cracks first, long ones down most the length, tiny at first, but the cracks did get a bit bigger. The two part casting plastic is somewhere between bondo, that gets pretty hard, and wax that stays pretty soft. If you see an old car on the road with bondo repairs, they start cracking over time. Also, if you keep them in a trophy room with climate control, there is much less expansion and contraction, and less chance of cracking. I had a set of warthog tusks in my workshop in the garage that I took the tape off, and they split into little pieces.

quote:

Originally posted by RBHunt:
I think the real problem is the expansion and contraction of ivory after it drys. I took the masking tape off mine, because I wanted to measure them, and just didn't get around to putting it back on. It didn't take very long at all for them to start cracking. The two long straight tucks developed cracks first, long ones down most the length, tiny at first, but the cracks did get a bit bigger. The two part casting plastic is somewhere between bondo, that gets pretty hard, and wax that stays pretty soft. If you see an old car on the road with bondo repairs, they start cracking over time. Also, if you keep them in a trophy room with climate control, there is much less expansion and contraction, and less chance of cracking. I had a set of warthog tusks in my workshop in the garage that I took the tape off, and they split into little pieces.

Where are you guys wrapping the masking tape on the tusk? When they started cracking had you already filled them with something?

I stated earlier that I filled my hippo tusks with wax tonight. I hope this will arrest the cracking.

All of my hippo ivory and warthog tusks have always come back from Africa with masking tape already wrapped around them to prevent cracking.

quote:

Originally posted by RBHunt:
All of my hippo ivory and warthog tucks have come back from Africa with masking tape already taped around them to prevent cracking.

Thanks. Mine were wrapped in bubble wrap and already had some cracks when I got them. I poured oil into them and wrapped them in baby oil soaked rags a year ago and then decided to fill them with wax when I saw this thread. The cracking has not gotten any worse since I received them and I hope the wax will help to protect them.

That's a shame about your warthog tusks that split into pieces.