While I continue to remove rock around the braincase of Samson, Dan has begun making molds and casts of Samson's teeth. There were a total of 22 of Samson's teeth that were collected around his skull and skeleton. All of these teeth will be cast before being reinserted into Samson's jaws.

Dan builds a flange out of sticky wax that will form a two-part mold and separate the top of the mold from the bottom of the mold. A silicon rubber is then poured over the tooth and flange. Once the rubber sets, the sticky wax flange is removed, a separator is applied to the set rubber and more silicon rubber is then poured over the other half of the tooth. Once set, the silicon rubber easily peels away from the tooth leaving an exact mold. This mold can then be filled with various materials to make an exact cast of the tooth. Here are a few images of how Samson's teeth are being molded and then cast.

A wax flange being built around all sides of the tooth (from above).

A wax flange being built around all sides of the tooth (from the side).

Cardboard set around tooth in preparation for pouring the silicon rubber.

Notice the wax pyramids set all along the margins of the wax flange. These are used to help the two halves of the silicon rubber mold match up when a cast is made.

A tooth in one half of the silicon rubber waiting for a seperator (a spray that keeps the rubber from adhering to itself) to be applied and the other half of the silcon rubber to be poured.

Half of the silicon rubber mold of one of Samson's teeth.

The palate is almost completely exposed. There are a couple of openings in the palate about midway back along the vomers that extend up through to the opening seen just in front of the orbits (eyes). I have exposed one of these and partially excavated the other.

Palate region of skull with openings appearing on either side of the vomers midway along their length.

Close up of openings with one excavated all the way through (appearance of tin foil indicates the opening was prepared before the skull was turned over).

Preparation continues on the palate with the vomers becoming more and more exposed. Now you can see how they change from a diamond-shape in the front of the mouth to become rod-like bones that extend towards the back of the mouth. Also, I am exposing more of the bone along the sides of the teeth.

...on to the palate. I have not yet worked my way down to the top of the skull yet. I have shifted my focus to the palate. Samson's palate or the roof of his mouth is composed of the two upper jaws which partially extend inward and a few other thin bones that articulate with the upper jaws to meet in the center and effectively form a roof. Here are a few images.

View seen from the back of Samson's skull.

Closeup of view of the palate area (area between teeth).

View from the front of Samson's skull showing the palate area. Notice the large diamond-shaped bone in the center of the image between the teeth. This is one set of the bones that make up the roof of Samson's mouth and are called the vomers.