Can anyone offer any advice on boiling skulls, I would like to try european mounting a couple of skulls, one deer and one antelope. The deer has been skinned as much as possible, but the antelope has not. Is there anything I can put in the water to speed the process. Then once the skulls are clean, would anyone have any suggestions on how to bleach the skulls. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Return to Beginners Taxidermy Category Menu
Boiling skulls isn't really a good thing!
It should be more of a "simmering" skulls. Trimming all excess meat away will help speed up the process along with sal soda added to the water. What I'm trying to get at is boiling them can damage them. I've had great results with my simmering so I stick with it!
"Bleaching" is a realative term. Actually bleaching with chlorine bleach will result in damage to the skulls. Chlorine bleach is just too harsh.
Hydrogen peroxide (regular 3%) works very well. Just soak cleaned skulls in a container of peroxide. If it seems to need a boost you can mix up a paste of peroxide and magnesium carbonate. Brush on the paste mix and let it dry on skull. Place in direct sunlight or whereever. After a few days rinse and put back in sun for a day or so.
*** I also soak my cleaned skulls in rubbing alcohol, rinse and then whiten using peroxide or the paste.
I'm not sure if what I typed is easy to understand but I hope it might help.
Fat Back
unless you are in a hurry or you live in an area where there are a lot of neighbors close by. I like the maceration method better, where you soak you skulls in a tub of water for several weeks. If you choose this method be prepared for some stench (henceforth the mentioning of close neighbors LOL). you will have to change the water out every so often. But the skulls come out very clean and the horns on the antleope will have slipped too. Once the meat is off of the skull, rinse them off with clean water and let them dry and air out for several days. After that bleach in peroxide overnight and then let it sit in the sun for several more days. Glue in back any teeth that came loose and that's about it. Oh yeah forgot, bondo the horns back onto the horncore.
Try your pressure washer. Does a great job.
See my resposne to a post on 10/01/2002 for sum more tips. Not in the archives yet - go to "Mammals" Its down near the bottom so it may not be long before its in the archives. Original post entitled "Greasy Bear Skulls"
there - thats better - hehe =)
Simmering not boiling! very important unless you like fractured teeth
you got great advice .
simmer, clean excess meat, sal soda, Palmolive, (I use Dawn)
I don't care for the bleached white look, but prefer a clean Bone color look.
Cheap powdered laundry detergent can be substituted for sal soda. Causes the meat to jell and roll up off the bone. Works great. Good luck.
HH
Do a rough job of cleaning skull then lightly boil for one hour then seperate both halves of skull finish cleaning let dry later you can paint some skull whitener on it to turn it white,taxidermy supply cat. should have it try WASCOs
I've boiled and simmered and ended up with cracked teeth, tho less so with the simmer method. I've not had any since I've started steaming them. I usually steam my skulls first (after removing the bulk of the flesh) and peel as much meat and such off, then put in a 10 gallon aquarium with a fish heater on high and let soak for about a week. After a week I clean em up a bit more, then soak em for another week, etc until everything is off. Then they go in peroxide to whiten and get the last little bits off that I missed. Depending on the type of skull I can have it clean in 1-4 weeks.