Dinosaur Sue being prepared at the Field Museum in Chicago, Illinois
“Dinosaur Sue” is an historical find of a nearly complete Tyrannosaurus Rex (T-Rex). It was discovered in South Dakota and purchased by the Field Museum of Natural History, along with support from McDonalds®. While most of the bones were recovered intact, between 10 and 20 percent of “Sue” needed to be restored. The Field Museum fossil preparators chose to use Aves® Apoxie® Sculpt to fill in cracks, and to fabricate or add to parts that are missing or incomplete. They chose the Brown color, so as to be able to differentiate what is natural and what has been recreated. The method of this restoration differs from many past exhibits. These bones were individually placed in a frame set up, allowing them to be individually removed by scientists and scholars for further examination. Apoxie® Sculpt is very durable and will easily withstand any handling of these historic bones.
The pictures show Jennifer, a fossil preparator, at work on “Sue” using Apoxie® Sculpt.
Aves® is honored to have Apoxie® Sculpt chosen to be part of this historic restoration!
Building Strong Bones
If you look closely at Sue's bones, you will see areas that are a brownish-red color. This material isn't bone, it is Apoxie® Sculpt synthetic clay. It starts out soft like putty but dries hard as bone. The preparators push it into the cracks in the bones in order to fill in and strengthen the gaps in them. They also use it to re-create bits of bone that were missing. This makes each bone look more like it did when Sue was alive.
Holly, daughter of Apoxie® Sculpt inventor David Brummel, is pictured visiting the Museum’s fossil preparation areaalive.
