Submitted by Rebel on 9/7/99. ( Bugs@willard-oh.com ) 209.211.4.12
HELP!- I have a nice 8-point from last year and I can't afford a shoulder mount (because of a recent marriage to my beutiful wife). It's a very nice, thick, even set of antlers and I don't think just the antler mount would do it justice. I've seen big antlers on a skull mount and it looked liked something inexpensive and somewhat easy for me to do. How do I get started? Please give in detail. I have never done a mount, but I'm anxious to try this. HELP!
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This response submitted by Jim Tucker on 9/7/99. ( bigjims@wilkshire.net ) 206.68.132.250
Take a knife and remove as much of the meat as possible. Then boil the skull in a pot with sal soda in water. Sal soda can be purchased at any supply Co. Periodically check the skull and the meat should be easy to scrape off. Make sure and clean the brains out with a wire. Then put the skull in peroxide for a few days setting the container in the sun. Keep your antlers covered so they won't fade. Thats the do it yourself way. I personally prefer to send my skulls to a reliable skull processor like Skulls Unlimited or Remains to be seen. They do a better job and they really keep the nasal bones intact.
Your first step would be, to let the skull rot for about a week or 3, If you're in a hurry use some sal soda, it doesn't take much.
Keep close watch on the boil, making sure the skull isn't falling apart.
When you feel confident that the tissue on the skull is tender enough to pull off, then take the skull out and pull off as much tissue as possible, taking care to scoop out the brains with a wire brush, or thick pipe cleaner (to loosen the mass, then taking a hemostat to pull them out) then take the skull to the carwash, (If you feel confident that the sutures in the skull are going to stay intact)
wash the skull thuroughly.
You can try whitening the skull with a hair peroxide mixture available at Beautico. the best I've found is "QuickBlue" but the only drawback (with out spending hundreds of dollars from a chemical manufaturer) is that this peroxide bleaches clothes, and only lasts about an hour or so, But, it is strong, and safer than bleach for this reason.
As you probaly know, try not to get the antlers in the peroxide, but, since this is more like a paste, it shouldn't be hard to avoid this.
Incase you do make a mistake and the antlers get "bleached" you'll have to buy some Dark Walnut stain, and dab some on the "bleached" areas until the whitened areas match the natural.
Do that after the skull is rinced and dried from the whitening process.
Dry the skull again, and finish off the rest of the tissue remaining using some sort of tool.
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