The neonate orca skull is out of the beetles, degreased, bleached, and reassembled! This was a very interesting build. After the process, the skull was in about 16 pieces and required a lot of puzzle work to get back to a skull-like shape. A lot of epoxy, polyurethane foam, and putty is holding this girl together. A mistake I made was that I glued all of one side together first rather tightly, forgetting the fact there would be a thin layer of cartilage beneath that would eventually ossify as the animal grew. When reassembling the other side, there were some bigger gaps that I would have liked, due to this oversight. However, it is relatively minor and unless you know to look for it, it is not all that noticeable.
I was able to clean the rest of the skeleton, however very little is left due to the age of the orca. I am hoping to create a very unique skeleton, that helps people visualize exactly how much of newborn skeletons are not actually bone. It will be quite the challenge, but if successful, I do believe it will be the smallest and youngest orca skeleton ever articulated. Wish me luck!