THE LAZY SUSAN MOUNT

FEATURE Dave Novak

I’m not one to be wasteful, so when a mate asked me what I could do with the heads of a couple of sheep that he was butchering I took it as an opportunity to figure out something different that I can use on some of my future mounts.

I got onto Google for ideas but couldn’t find anything that was inspirational or different, besides maybe a backpack mount and I’ve done a few of them already. I was still searching and wanting to do more for him than just a skull hanging off a nail or, even worse, sitting in a box in the shed.

I ended up mixing a few ideas and with a little sprinkle of fairy dust it was ‘Lock it in, Eddie’. I wanted to European mount the heads on a stand, have them lifted to improve the angle of viewing and secured onto a lazy Susan – yep one of those spinning things in the middle of your table that holds your soy sauce at the local Chinese restaurant.

It took me a bit to figure out how to get the skulls at the best angle but a squirt of black paint on some gal fittings from Bunnings had it glued and secured just right.

I did the first one nice and plain on a lump of waxed timber. Simples! The bigger head had to be a bit fancier so I tried to replicate what would be potentially a bighorn ram or Kiwi Arapawa ram on a high-altitude scree slip. I individually glued and positioned small pieces of slate until I eventually got the look I was after.

As an experiment, I think both heads turned out pretty good and it allows you to spin them around without picking it up or moving it around which is a cool feature. There is no reason why you can’t try this on other skulls like pigs or even smaller deer. I have started doing the same on a fallow deer head of mine but haven’t locked-in how to finish the base.

There is no right or wrong way of displaying any of your heads so have a crack at it. For us hunters, get your trophy heads out of the shed and do something so you and your mates can see them and share the stories that go with each one. As for these sheep mounts, my mate was stoked – and that’s what it’s all about.