Help with 'euro' mounting deer skull

rocklobster

rocklobster

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Hey Nutters,

I buried my first buck (2013) skull last spring near the garden to get it all cleaned up. I just dug it up and this is what it looks like:

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It is okay, I am wondering if I just should have boiled it. But burying was very easy. How should I go about getting all the yellowing off? Peroxide hair dye, bleach, sun?


I just want to see how this works before I go and prepare my skull from last December. It is beginning to smell, and I am leary of boiling it now. But I want this one to look good. I would rather keep these antlers natural looking.

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Thanks for all the help guys!
 
scrub skull with a solution of lysol or pinesol to remove odour, dry in the sun and seal with spray sealer and spray with several light coats of Krylon satin finish in bone or off white. You can also use peroxide but you need to get the extra strong concentrate as in a kit form from a taxidermy supply such as McKenzies on-line. Staining such as you have now is difficult to change without boiling and peroxide. I've done many with the paint but you'll need several coats to cover bleed through of the stain. If you had boiled originally you wouldn't have the smell or loss of bone at the nose cartilage. good luck
 
I would give it a low rolling boiling for a while to make sure you get all the fat and oils out of it first. The antlers don't need to be in the water just the skull.
Then hit it with the peroxide and a bit of time in and the sun and you are good to go!
 
I guess that I was not too clear in my original post but I meant the bigger fleshed buck head is the smelly one! Actually I was very surprised that the buried skull did not smell at all. I think that I will boil both skulls now and use some peroxide or the krylon paint. Thanks for the tips guys.
 
Funny this topic has come up. Just the other day I was back at my folks house and was informed that my deer head in the shed was starting to stink (SH!T, I forgot all about it.). I went out to the shed and found the box that it was in just full of maggots and a bad stink. So I quickly washed it off, and cut the cap of the skull off (wasn't man enough to clean the whole thing). I brought it home today and put it to boil (it had the flesh and fur still on as well). I boiled for about 45min with some TSP de-greaser, pulled the flesh off, and gave it a scrub, continued to boil (more like simmer), gave it a scrub. Then I changed the water and added more TSP, and boiled for another half hour. Just about to put the peroxide creme to it. I really wish I had cleaned the whole skull now. I think it will come out great.
 
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I just completed my first attempt at a euro last week. Not perfect but works for me. Slow "boil" and picked and scraped. Degreased then whitened with peroxide.

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Both look great guys! I was going for the more white look with natural antlers. Oh well, we will see how the boiling gets the 2013 skull white.

Major Sights, I guess I will "man up" and boil the stinky 2014 head. I am a bit nervous that I smell up the town. But it was my own fault to let it decay, I was just too busy in the shop lately with our cars.

Major I am just up north of you in unit 60.

I will keep everybody posted of my progress.
 
I skin and get as much off as you can. Mine was in he shed all winter and the flesh and grisel was dryed and i thought I would have quite a time. Slow boil on the propane stove for about an hour.

Here's the trick a buddy told me and it works slick. Take it out of the water and take the power washer or your local car wash will do and blast all the crap right off it. takes all of 5 minutes. If there is any meat left back in the pot for half an hour and powerwash again. Dry and hang, no muss or fuss and no hours of trying to pick off the little bits left
 
You can also try the method that taxidermists refer to as "maceration". Basically, you drop it into water and leave it to rot. The smell is pretty bad...it's not something you do in a downtown condo...but it works great and is very low effort. Rinse thoroughly, wash with dish soap, whiten with peroxide and sunshine, use a bit of wood stain to touch up the antlers if required, and I like to put a coat of low- or semi-gloss Varathane on the antlers. I also paint the whitened bone with a diluted mixture of white glue and water, which soaks in and reinforces the bone considerably. I've done a bunch this way and they turn out beautifully.

I've also tried the painting method on the bone, but it always turns out looking like painted bone...i.e. not very natural or attractive.
 
Don't use bleach! Bleach destroys the bone over years. Use 3% hydrogen peroxide and let it soak for a few hours. This should whiten the skull and remove the grease. If there is still grease dawn dish soap could be used to remove it. Next time you get a skull that you would like to keep, don't bury it. Your best bet would be either to boil it or let it rot in warm water.
 
When using peroxide put paper towel over the skull then use a small paint brush to apply the peroxide to the paper towel. The paper towel will stick to the bone. keep reapplying the peroxide for 24 hrs and the skull will be white. Make sure you layer the paper towel everywhere...in the eye sockets and in the nasal passage.
 
rocklobster said:
Both look great guys! I was going for the more white look with natural antlers. Oh well, we will see how the boiling gets the 2013 skull white.

Major Sights, I guess I will "man up" and boil the stinky 2014 head. I am a bit nervous that I smell up the town. But it was my own fault to let it decay, I was just too busy in the shop lately with our cars.

Major I am just up north of you in unit 60.

I will keep everybody posted of my progress.
Click to expand...

I hit mine with the peroxide and some "dust free bleaching powder -blue" that my wife picked up and it did a awesome job. Just letting it dry now in the sun after I rinsed the peroxide off (the blue bleaching powder is a pain to get out of some of the crevices but the blue does come off). I did a 30 volume coat of peroxide last night. Let it sit over night, then rinsed, then a mixture of the bleaching powder and 30 volume peroxide slathered all over it (minus the horns). Then as per some instructions I found online I put it in a garbage bag and set it to bake in the 22C sunny day we had, and at around 3pm I took it out and just let the skull sit in the sun till about 5 minutes ago. Washed off the peroxide residue and let dry in the sun. Turned out nice I think, though I still REALLY regret not doing the whole thing.... :( Oh, well lesson learned.

 
Yeah looks really good major. I like the skull cap look and I like the way that the antlers will sit in a more natural position on the wall. I heard that the traditional euro mount has the back of the skull cut off so that it sits flat to the board/wall and the antlers are in a more natural position.

I have researched the maceration technique and it sounds good, it seems like the opinions of boiling vs maceration is about 50/50 on the internets. If you believe everything you read both methods will smell bad, get you dirty, piss off the neighbors, yellow the skull, break the soft bones etc...

Also as my buried skull is drying it is whitening up on its own.

I will get to this project soon but not before the work day is done, car is fixed, mothers day happens, kids are in bed, and my lady is happy!
 
Boiling smells bad...maceration smells unbelievably bad!

Boiling might make the neighbours wonder "What the heck is he cooking?" Maceration will bring the neighbours to your door with pitchforks and torches...it is out of the question in the city, near any neighbours, or near your own house for that matter. If you live on an acreage and have a barn, you do this behind the barn.

Boiling (overboiling) will soften and weaken the bone...you want only the mildest, slowest simmer, and for no longer than necessary. It's difficult to boil the skull enough to allow the removal of all soft matter from the nasal cavities without also beginning to soften the bone. If you don't mind the removal of the delicate nasal bone structures, boiling works well; you can literally pull all those tiny feathery bones out and still get a good looking, smooth/clean skull. Maceration doesn't seem to hurt the bones at all, and if done long enough will clean out all that nasal crap without damaging the bones, but that will take a while. You can speed it up by keeping the water warm (85 or 90 degrees Fahrenheit or so) using an aquarium heater, but it will still take time. Changing the water once in awhile will help keep the odour down and gives you a chance to monitor your progress. Be careful not to lose any teeth that may fall out using either method, but especially with boiling. It's easy to lose the small teeth on a bear or other carnivore skull when you dump the water.

I've done a bunch of these mounts both ways, and nowadays I never bother with boiling. I'm willing to wait for maceration to do its work, and I'm more than happy with the results. You can yank the skin off that head, drop it into a pail of water, stick it in an out-of-the-way spot and then when you have time to come back to it most of the work will be done.
 
After the de-flesh and boil, I had put mine under an upside down steel drum for a month. You can put a steel mesh underneath to keep out the rodents. The bugs cleaned it out nicely before the whitening process.
 
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