We resently acquired a juvenile Caribou skull and antlers from some sort of kill(bear,wolf,?). However the skull and antlers have sat outside and are stained from the elements. How would i go about cleaning and returning these antlers and skull to original shape? A million thanks in advance to all.
Good Day from the LAST FRONTIER!
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This may be an example of nature doing what was thought impossible. You have a shed head? Sheds are antlers that drop off healthy male cervids at the end of the breeding season. Heads do not drop off, they are severed or remants portions of a dead animal.
You can remove the staining by cleaning with a variety of chemicals and then bleaching and putting it back into the sun to finish. The stains may have permeated the bond and may require soaks in degreasing agents or even mild acid solutions and then thorough washing in detergent prior to bleaching and placing back into the sun for a day or so to finish.
I recently removed some black drum skulls from a mesh bottomed crab trap that I had immersed to let nature clean. Time flys and I forgot the skulls and left them in the saltwater for months before I had that precious day to finish the job. When I retreived the baskets, I was dismayed by the blackened and poor appearence of the bones. I cleaned them in a halfhearted effort to salvage what I could.
The bones were first washed in ammonia and them dawn soap, rinsed and placed in acetone for an hour in the freezer and then washed again. After the final rinse, I wrapped each bone in surgical cotton and placed in a large tupper-ware container containing an inch of 3% hydrogen peroxide (standard drug store type) and allowed to sit over-night. After the time in the weak peroxide solution, the bones were light gray in color. Two days in the Texas sun and they were as white as snow, and ready for assembly.
One of the problems with aged and stained bone material is that it is sometimes host to a variety of organisms and staining materials. A single treatment with one cleansing agent may not remove all the agents and organisms involved. By using a variety or chemicals, the alkylids, protids and algids may be removed. In addition, some soils have mineral traces and ferrous and sulphur oxides (or worse) that cause a portion of the staining. Each may be removed in kind by using a variety of cleaners, dissolvers and other agents.