In the spring of 2000 I shot my first bear with a bow . Wanting to preserve the scull I took the advice of my rocket scientist buddy and buried the scull (shudder). Needless to say when I dug it up in late August( as per the advice of the scientist and other "veteran" bear hunters I was treated to an oder I can place somewhere between a bait barrel and the bowels of hell. My wife still wont eat anything grown in our garden, and I will certainly never view carrots the same way again. Anyway, all screw ups aside I had my bear full sized and built a 30 square foot base for it. For the scull I did a small base with
moss and an ant pile. The problem is even after numerous peroxide soaks and a trip to the carwash, my otherwise very clean scull still has an odour to it. I'm told to boil it in a weak bleach solution and than neutralise it in a baking soda solution. Is this good advise or am I cought in another idiot parade. If the scull is ruined, perhaps someone has advise on the preping of rocket scientist sculls.
P.S. please don't tell me to check out the archives , I love this site and try to get on it as much as I can but I work 60-80 Hrs. a week and barely have time for my hobie let alone this machine.
Thanks for any help you can offer.
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Dont do the bleach or you will lose the SKULL. Use a mlid peroxide 3% for the drug store and let is soak for several days 3-5, once this has been done use Rittels Super solvent and give it a hot water bath 120 degreesfor about 3 hours and that should fix your problem with stink.
By the way, did you learn how to spell from John C.? Gotcha, Johnny!
use the peroxide like john c says just remember to keep it out of the sun light while doing this ,sunlight will kill the peroxide.
Give it a good long soak in plain ol rubbing alcohol! This will kill all the odor causing bacteria, and doesn't damage the skull. Bleach is too harsh and will break down the bone and cause a chalking effect. I have soaked many a skull in rubbing alcohol with no problems, sometimes I just do it as a preventive step in controling any odor before soaking in peroxide.
Give it a try, I think you'll be pleased!
send it to skulls unlimited www.skullcleaning.com