I have a set of caribou antlers that were in full velvet( tight, not loose) when shot. They are 5 years old. I stripped the velvet off right after the kill but there is a little bit of blood staining on them. How do I go about cleaning them and staining them a natural antler color? Do I have to paint them first, then use a special stain? Will a wood stain work? I already have a caribou in full velvet so I wanted this one to look rubbed and polished.
Thanks for the help, Joe Nowak, Green Bay WI
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I guess as to why anyone would wait 5 years before worrying about it, but anyway, here goes.
You have two choices. (1) throw them in the lake or (2) paint them with flat white latex and then stain them. Personally, I always opt for the first to allow the blood to slowly dissolve, then bleach the antlers , then sand them with 400 grit paper,and then stain them with potassium permanganate and my 50/50 mixture to fade them out somewhat.
I have yet to see a set painted and stained that didn't look like a yard sale decoupage job. I'm sure there are some artisans who can pull it off, but it has to be done meticulously so as not to lose the continuity of the veins on the beams of the antlers.
Gotta disagree with Georges method of colouring antlers on this one. Actually I'm in the process of refinishing a large shed antler done by a 'well known' reproduction guy who uses this method. Get it down to bare bone, then either add your tinting shades directly on to this, or first paint a base coat that closely matches the natural bone colour. Flat white is TOO white. When you add your colour on top, do not use stain.. use paint. Stain is designed to penetrate into porous material. If you use stain - use it on bare bone only. Painting provides far superior results however and gives you an incredible amount of control over the subtleties inherent in antlers that stain cannot touch. I keep seeing people say stain willwork fine, but I also keep having people send me pieces that were stained to be refinished.
I do agree with George that the overwhelming majority of reproduction antlers out there look fake and plastic and are easily distinguished from real antlers. Learn to understand how paint colours work and understand tints and washes and TAKE... YOUR... TIME... Do the job right and you can achieve awesome results. If you dont like the look - wash them down with acetone and do it again until you are happy. The practice can only help =)
My vote without doubt is to strip it down to bare bone, spray prime it, paint a closely matched base coat then apply your deeper browns n reds n grays to create the final finish.
Hope that helps =)
The method I described has been the staple of this industry since the early 60's. That's FLAT white paint which has a lot of talc in it. The white talc accepts the stain readily. I've seen a lot of caribou and nearly every one is somewhat different in color. The ones I saw last month were almost solid red as they were just shedding their velvet. I guess if someone is truly and artist, tinting paints would work well, but for commercial production work, I doubt it's very feasible.
I've yet to see a single stained repro that looks real. I've seen painted ones that do... but stained ones you can tell. The finish is different. Putting stain on top of paint is just... well I won't say 'wrong'.. but it's weird.. you paint over paint and you stain bare, porous material. Staining over paint just looks icky. If it's been the standard since the 60's, then no wonder I always have such a hard time convincing people that repros can look 100% real... Theres 40 years of icky looking work to erase from peoples memories and conception of what repros can mean. Technology and techniques change.. to think that a technique that is now nearly 50 years old is still the best way of doing something is very limiting. It is often said "don't try to reinvent the wheel" but by jimminy we sure have improved on it since that slab of log in a neanderthals cave! I put reproductions in the same class as skull cleaning - there are a lot of widely accepted ways of doing it that have been standard for far too long and it's time to shake things up and improve on it. Both can be done a heck of a lot better than what the accepted norm is.
yep raven is writ ,at 15 foot the painted ones look great but up close in my opinion ther crap . I also like potassium permanganate for doing antlers.
Their may be some people that can paint a set that looks better or as good as stain ,but i have yet to see them; perhaps raven will send me a set,hehe I'll wait in line behind bill.
Raven put a pic up on the chat so maybe we can see the finished job. btw just yesterday i recieved 4 repo. antlers that were painted; yes they looked good but painted.
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