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Once he saw people in action duplicating pieces of history, however, he was instantly hooked.

“I got all excited about the mould-making and how they were doing it,” May said in a telephone interview. “I was dressed as best I could — good pants and a sweater. I came out filthy. I probably would have volunteered.”

May, who landed the ROM job on the spot, spent five years there before moving to Alberta to help set up the country’s best-known dinosaur museum. His years at the Royal Tyrrell Museum in Drumheller, Alta., got him familiar with the intricacies of both preserving original dinosaur bones and creating realistic replicas out of materials like fibreglass or bronze.

When May returned to Ontario, he brought his newfound love of dinosaur casting with him and began producing models in his spare time.

When the number of orders piled up to total $1.2 million, May took his enterprise full time and has been stocking the world’s museums ever since.

May said Research Casting’s output largely helps take paleontology exhibits to the next level by producing models fit for public exposure.

While the company is often hired to help preserve original bones, the unique specimens are too rare and fragile to be part of most regular museum displays.

The moulds and casts produced on the factory floor allow the museums to get more creative in the way they stage their exhibits, he said.

Peter Root, director of facilities operations at Amhurst College in Massachusetts, said preservation techniques allowed the school’s Museum of Natural History to completely reconfigure its one-of-a-kind collection of fossilized dinosaur footprints.