Advice on Mounting Molts

[nugget]

Hey Friends!
I wanted to share my most recent mounting project and I wanted to open it for advice and comments.
If there is anything you guys see that I can do better please let me know! This is my 5th molt to work with, however, it is the first one that I am actually pinning down to dry.

Once it has dried, I am going to be placing it in a shadow box with a light (probably white or slight off white) backing so the molt "pops" with the color contrast.

 

[Hellblazer]

It looks good so far. I only tried once and I wasn't happy with how the abdomen turned out. I stuffed it with cotton and glued it together.

 

[nugget]

It looks good so far. I only tried once and I wasn't happy with how the abdomen turned out. I stuffed it with cotton and glued it together.
View attachment 232767

Unfortunately, my molt's abdomen was shredded so I am unable to actually stuff it.

 

[EulersK]

If this becomes a hobby, I'd suggest getting proper mounting pins. They're about half the thickness of what you're using now. Most hobby stores sell them, and certainly Amazon has them.

If you ever need to loosen a molt to keep it from breaking, give it a warm bath with just a drop of soap. Unfortunately this kind of makes the setae messy, but it's better than a broken molt.

 

[Rittdk01]

Unfortunately, my molt's abdomen was shredded so I am unable to actually stuff it.

Cotton ball with 50 cent paint from meijers. I have a shadow box with several different sized molts. There were two that shredded the abdomen pretty good. I paint a cotton ball to roughly their color and reattached whatever was left of the abdomen. I then painted the cotton ball with different shades of brown and dab of black here and there. My best mount to date is a little male g pulchripes, which was actually the last I did. For most t's you only need light brown, dark brown, tan and black. It's super easy to paint it and make it look convincing.

 

[Spidermolt]

Ive done a few before and once you get the hang of it you can easily do one in less than an hour. here's the technique I use.

Basically I do the same thing I work with a molt directly after soaking in soapy water. First I carefully spread the legs like you did in the pic. Next if the molt is intact enough (definitely no guarantee here!) I VERY CAREFULLY spread out the abdomen and dab out any access water with a cotton swab. Then I cut a piece of sponge into the shape slightly smaller than the abdomen and VERY VERY CAREFULLY superglue the abdomen around the sponge, If you get glue on the outer exo then it will leave a white blotch which you will have to paint in. Then you glue a small piece of sponge into the lower carapace and glue the top half on. Finally let dry and then hot glue the finished mount onto whatever you like and then display.

*Note the capitalized VERY CAREFULLY because... Well you get the idea.

GOOD LUCK!