After much experimenting I have come up with the approach I am using for Pottie Mouth's teeth. As I learn more I will modify this post to reflect what I learn.

1. Start with a $9 box of 500 unsterilized 3/4" x 6" tongue depressors
2. Soak a few depressors overnight in water Jun 17 - I tried just boiling dry depressors and it worked fine so I no longer presoak.
3. BOIL them in water for 5 minutes - What I do is put the depressors in a pot with water. Then I bring it to a full rolling boil and turn the burner off. Then I let it sit for 10 minutes.
   The boiling weakens the hard wood's lignin bond, which makes them pliable
4. Return them to the jar with water.
5. Remove one from the water and towel dry the surface.
   This prevents diluting the glue
6. Select a cut piece of 5/8" dowel
7. Cut off the rounded end of the depressor so that it will be flush with the dowel
8. Cut the sides to form sharp tooth
9. Add Wood Glue (not white glue) to the depressor where dowel will join
   Wood glue is sand-able when dry, white glue is not
10. Place a piece of wet tongue depressor below between the clamp and the tooth. This acts as a guard against the clamp marking the tooth.
11. Tighten host clamp over end
    By placing a piece of hose or popsicle sticks over depressor you can minimize damage from the tight clamp
12. Place in the jig
13. Let dry
    It needs to be bone dry. Exposing to a fan or air flow helps speed the process
14. Remove from jig, remove clamp
15. Sand any glue clumps or rough areas
16. Fill in side between the depressor and dowel with a mixture of Sheetrock 20 and acrylic paint
17. Paint balance of tooth

June 15. I love tuning a process as I work. Today I decided to use an end of wet tongue depressor to protect the tooth from the clamp.
I added step 10 to put a piece of wet depressor between the clamp and the tooth. I also predrilled the dowel so that I can arrange them on my tooth stand.

I made several variations of teeth. Here are some of them.

• 7 - This is one of the originals. Note the use of a square cut 1/2" dowel and marks on the face from the hose clamps.
• 6, 5, 4 - These show the tooth front of variations on 7 where I tried building a transition on the back with paper mache. The problem is the paper on the front hurts the appearance of the tooth. The backs shown below aren't very appealing either.
• 1 - This is a 5/8" dowel with a sloped cut at top. The clamp marks have been minimized with a piece of hose
• 3 - The side is just painted. White glue was used so the extra clumps of glue could not be sanded or removed
• 2 - The side is filled in with acrylic paint thickened up with some Sheetrock 20. Sheetrock is a sandable drywall compound. The 20 means that mixed with water it will harden in 20 minutes. You can also get 5 and 90. As most of my drying is dependant on the drying of the paint, 20 was a good compromise

Here are the final teeth in side and front view.

Next technique to develop is creating the teeth. In Wilburine, I worked out an approach of bending wet wood coffee stir sticks. For Pottie Mouth, I need much larger teeth. Coffee stirs would be too thin.

I decided to use 3/4" x 6" tongue depressors. A box of 500 unsterilized sticks was $9. They are hard wood, and when, soaked in water become pliable. Using nails on wood, I could bend them, but this still creates a flat tooth. I call my next idea a "Monster Tooth Maker."

I modified the jig setup from Wilburine. First, I used finishing nails and drilled holes just a tiny bit smaller with a drill press and then pressed in the nails. This gave me perfectly vertical nails. I put some tubing over them, as finishing nails are steel and leave a rust spot on the depressor.

As I tried making teeth, it became apparent that the end needed to be rounded. To create the round effect, I bought some 1/2" copper plumbing fittings and 1" hose clamps. Then I found some 1/2" dowel. Now instead of the copper fitting, I used a short length of dowel as the core with two host clamps. I also cut up some split vinyl tubing to use as shims to tune the bending. Be sure to towel dry the tongue depressor where you are adding glue for the dowel to avoid thinning the glue. My intent is to paper mache over the base of the tooth once formed to give a solid shape.

Once dry, the ends can be cut into a point for the tooth top. It is better to cut the bottom before drying, as the curved wood tends to split when cut curved and dry.

This image is of a dried tongue depressor, glued to the dowel, bent into shape and cut to form the point. The surface is raw, but a thin layer of paper towel paper mache will fill in the back, as well as smooth the surface.

The top image is of the jig with a finished tooth, including a thin layer of kraft paper towel mache to smooth out the transition.

This is the maximum full-sized tongue depressor sitting on the lower jaw of the toilet seat. This would be suitable for the fangs, but most will be shorter. Once I have several formed teeth, I will work on the paper mache layer.

After just over two months work, Wilburine is finished. The past week has been very busy for me so she had to wait. Angler fish are not visually very exciting so the paint job is basic. I used Naples Yellow for the base with touches of yellow and red oxide. The inside of the mouth is several reds. I added titanium white to the spines to make them stand out as more dangerous. The story on the braces is funny. After creating the top teeth, a friend on Facebook commented that she needed braces. I thought support she (actually he at the time but that is another story) was a teenager and needed braces, not to straighten but to make them more crooked. Adding the braces was an interesting challenge.

I learned so much creating her. Now on to the next model. Not sure what it will be. I have been studying several fish including frogfish.

There were two websites that inspired me.

• Gourmet Paper Mache One of my favourite sites
• Ultimate Paper Mache Great ideas on unconventional paper mache

What surprised me was the variety of materials and glues available as well a paper mache clay.

List of the posts about constructing Wilburine.

• Wilburine gets gessoed
• All about fins
• Wilbur is a girl
• Operculum (gill covers)
• Adding eyes
• Adding "braces"
• Lower teeth
• Teeth
• Tongue and mouth lining
• Creating the Paper Mache Angler Fish Body
• Angler Fish

Here are the final shots of Wilburine.

Wilburine has a coat of Gesso now. This creates the blank canvas on which I can now start the fine details work, as well as painting. I am working on a "brown with red oxide, yellow oxide and accents in red" colour scheme.

The coat of gesso gives a good base for paint as well as highlighting areas of fine tuning needed.

In the top image, you can see small gaps around the eye where lids do not exactly meet the eye. The other area needing touching up is the end of fins where gaps in the two sides of paper around skewers are. I use an artist grade titanium white for two reasons.

1. Artist grade titanium white has maximum opacity
2. The paint is thick so I can fill in small gaps.

A Tip

One thing I learned when painting Wilburine was that paint applied over gesso looks different than applied over titanium white. The gesso gives a flatter finish to the final paint, the titanium gives more of a gloss. One tip is to apply a final coat of gesso over the titanium white when it is dry so that you have a consistent finish to paint over.

The images below show the eyes and fin ends after touchup. Now it is time to start applying colour.