Well,
I finished My European Skull Mount of the moose I shot this fall.
Many thanks to this forum and its unselfish contributors for all the information I was able to pick up. This has been my first attempt at this
I think it turned out pretty good. It's actually more of a facial mount than a full skull mount as can be seen in the pics.
I would greatly appreciate any/all feedback and comments, either through this forum or directly to me at my email address.
Pics are available (both in thumbnail and full size) at http://web.stn.net/beach/Moose_Mount/
I want you to take particular note of the fit between the skull and the plaque as I did the skull trimming with my chain saw!
Bill
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-Realized I didn't include my full email address.
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Bill, I think if that was your first time you did an excellent job. I like how you cut the skull to lay flat on the panel. Nice work with the chain saw. Since there are a hundred ways to accomplish what you did, what were your methods? Maceration, boiling, pressure washing? What did you use to whiten the skull? Did you cut the panel to fit your skull? It looks to be a perfect fit! Nice job.
Ryan,
Thanks for the feedback. It's really appreciated.
I shot this moose this October. There was snow on the ground up there the next day, so maceration was not much of an option. I started the process of simmering up there in a big deep-fry turkey cooker. The skull fit in right up to the antlers. I got most of the heavy stuff off the first round.
I continued back home and would call it more of a steaming then a simmer. I did this with the skull base over a big pot, with the nose up and totally wrapped in aluminum foil.
This worked really great as about a half-inch of grease drained out of the skull into the water.
I used Hydrogen Peroxide as a whitener. I don't know the actual strength of the stuff. It was the "A) bottle from an A-B bottle wood bleaching kit. It was strong enough to burn in a couple minutes. I painted it on to paper towels on the skull, wrapped it in Saran wrap and left it over night. I then retouched where necessary. Doing it this way, I got nothing on the antlers and did not have to retouch them.
I did make the plaque. I punched a small hole dead center in the bottom of a soup can, stuck a felt pen in the hole and used it to trace around the skull. The can maintained a constant border while adjusting for variations in skull distance from the plaque.
I read somewhere that skull mounts were cheap and easy. Maybe cheap in terms of supplies but if I paid myself five bucks an hour on this job, no one could afford to buy the mount.
Again, I thank all the unwitting contributors to this effort. I found a wealth of information by researching the archives, various links, and reading the forum.
If anyone wants to know how I got the fit between the skull and plaque, Send me an email and I'll respond with a picture and description.