This manual is a companion reference book to any of the other bone-building manuals. Volumes 1 through 9 are step-by-step skeleton articulation guides to individual animal groups; the Bone Builder's Notebook tells the rest of the story. If you work with bones or desire to work with bones, this is the answer book to questions you may have about preparing bones or skeletons for use in collections, or for display. It details how to acquire bones, the different options for cleaning, degreasing, and whitening bones, the tools and materials used for articulating skeletons, and includes sections on identifying and siding mammal bones, osteology vocabulary, and reference books. Whether you are a bone enthusiast or a museum professional, this manual has the information pertaining to bone-work that has been virtually impossible to find in print – until now.
Watch a short introduction to Lee Post's work below:
A thirty-year veteran of bone-building, Lee Post's interest in building skeletons started when The Pratt Museum in the Alaskan town of Homer acquired a 17-foot beaked whale that the staff had collected and cleaned. This led to fifteen years of building up the osteology collection at the museum by salvaging, preparing, and often articulating animal skeletons.
In the mid-'90s, came a three-year high school/museum collaborative project in which Post worked with high school students on first articulating a 41-foot Sperm Whale skeleton they had collected and cleaned, then half a dozen other skeletons. Since that project, his focus has been working mostly with schools and students and creating written manuals that can help others who might want to do similar projects.