I am getting ready to do my first mount and it is going to be a pheasant.. I have read some and watched a few videos on the mounting process...One of the videos I watched uses some sort of "tanning" like preservitive and borax...He washes the pheasant in dawn, then lets it soak in something else...Is this step needed...He does this and covers it in borax before mounting...I thought you just needed to defat, degreese in dawn, and use borax as a DP...Thoughts please...
Chad
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When I do phesants I follow your procedure. Skin, defat on a wire wheel bird flesher, wash in cold water to remove blood, short soak in a degreaser, wash in dawn then rinse, and rinse, and rinse util all the soap is out and the feathers just float and flutter in the water. Tumble or blow dry the skin and rub it with borax. You are now ready to mount.
Just use borax and has far has washing goes do you really think you should I hope the pheasant doesn't end up on your toe from farting around too much?There isn't that much fat on a pheasant I've did a few there pretty clean..easy to clean
In addition to the above washing in "Dawn"...which is a Degreaser...I then immerse the skin in Leon L Pray's BORAX Pickle. This sets the feathers (and fur and hair on Squirrels, Weasels, etc)...and turns the skin white...preserves and moth proofs at the same time.
I have just Borax mounts from 60-years ago with no problem of feather, fur, hair fallout, bugs, bad odors that others have complained about...who don't do a complete job of skinning and prepping.
If you haven't done it...don't knock it.
There is more fat on a pheasant than most people realize. If you cover the skin in borax and have not degreased it the fat will "melt" and turn into oil. Carefully scrape away as much fat as possible and then soak in dawn until the skin is clean of all fat. Dont worry about feathers falling out. I have soaked pheasants in several fresh washes of dawn that have lasted for a few hours and never had a skin damaged. The worst part is drying it back out if you dont have a tumbler a blow dryer takes forever.
just defatting, degreasing in Dawn and applying borax is enough, or do I need to also place it in some sort of tanning solution?
It sounds to me like if you get ALL the fat off, borax is fine, right?
Chad
Yep...but I use the BORAX PICKLE formula of Leon L Pray. Here's the formula.
Add 1 - Medium Handful of Powdered Borax into each Quart of Water. This makes a Borax Saturate Solution.
Add 12-Drops of 37% Formaldehyde per Quart.
This makes the Borax Pickle. You can use "BALMEX" as replacement for the Formaldehyde (from VanDyke @ $6.49 Quart). The pickle solution will set the feathers (and hair and fur oin small animals...Squirrels, Weasels, etc)...and turn the skin white...but will not affect color of the feathers.
Fluff dry the feathers...apply your dry Borax and mount the bird.
IF you use the 37% Formaldehyde...be sure to wear rubber gloves because it's poisonous...that's why I substitute the non-poisonous Balmex.
along with the ways of curing and defeating that the others say is good and each have a distinctive way of doing things, nothing wrong with that. in the path thow u can try and throw some lysol concentrate in there sometimes u can find it as a degreaser too which is good for fat issues. i like it cause on all hides and birds it aks as a bacteria killer! cold wash in lysol and dawn will work goood, try it out and good luck i know were your coming from i have only 10 or so mounts under my belt and still learning :)