Sea Wolf

Heat. There is a post I did on fat and it's melting points. Buried now but I can bring it back. It's the reason that I tell folks to heat your degreasing solutions to 120 degrees to work with deer. Deer fat is a tallow, like in sheep. It has a higher melting point than a bear. Problem is, you can't heat gas .. and most other solvents. Heating in detergent works.

You can also try ammonia. Heating ammonia makes horrendous fumes though.

One thing I’ve noticed is some people mentioned they have really high (500$) electric bills but I can’t figure out how.

Thank you for letting me know. It will be of a big help. I hope it comes out even a little bit as nice as yours. .. Right now, it is still in the freezer.

Unfortunately, that is Photobucket and not the taxi site. People used Photobucket to host their photos for free. That site now charges money and prevents anyone from seeing the users pictures unless the user pays money. That is the message you see now on photobucket accounts. The Taxi site is fine. :) It isn't something you can fix but if you contact the poster with the broken pictures they might be able to fix them.

That's a bummer, lot of photos Id like to see on the old forums.

I built my degreasing tank, works great but the water temp is 20 degree difference between clean heated water and the bucket w skull. I got 122 in the bucket steady, but 140 outside in laundry sink I converted. It works and holds nicely so no complaints there, just didn't expect that big a difference. That normal?

Are you circulating the clean water? Insulating the top of the bucket can help too. You can use bubblewrap, small plastic balls for sous vide cooking possibly even small ping pong balls. Anything to hold the heat in.

It is an aggressive reaction. Did the label on your package state "Stainless steel"? If so, the whole element should have had a very thick layer of stainless. If the package said chromed, that might have been the error. Ammonia and a few metals can be just evil together. Copper is highly reactive with many things. Galvanized steel is another one.

After I had a bucket heater go south like that I took high temp silicone and put a heavy coating over all parts of it making sure there were no thin spots and every weld and junction point was well covered. No more issues after that.

Just seeing this now. Not sure when you sent this. Mouse over where it says "Search". A drop down will open and you will see "More". Click on "More" and that brings you to the Advanced Search. Try good search terms like Maceration tutorial, maceration skulls, maceration cleaning .. etc.

I'm pretty sure that at least two of my own posts have "tutorial" in the title to help make them easier to find. Try checking "search titles only" to help narrow the results.

Use it straight. It burns so don't get it on your skin. If you do rinse well and curse until it stops hurting. Don't splash it or get it near your eyes either. Put the skull in something like a plastic shoe box or small container that it fits into without a huge amount of extra space.

Pour in the peroxide until as much of the skull is covered without getting it on the antlers (will turn them white). Take white paper towels and tear them into strips. Lay the strips up and over the part of the skull that isn't under peroxide. Tuck the strips under the antler burrs. The paper towel will get wet with peroxide and bring it up and over the top of the skull.

Yes. Called Taxachusetts just for fun.

By "smell" I assume the head was starting to decay before you cleaned it? How did you remove the flesh? If you cooked it off, bits of rotted tissue are still going to be trapped in tight areas inside the skull. Try soaking it in peroxide for at least a day if not two or three. The peroxide will do a lot to sterilize it and dissolve out bits of tissue. When you go to do this, if it is foaming a lot, it isn't clean.

How long did you degrease it for? Ammonia will help if it is grease but the fumes from it are horrid to work with.

I did not see this till today. The tans I work with are dry tans and that would be a no. Once tanned the ears all become one and it's next to impossible to try and remove cartilage without ruining the skin. Possibly can be done with a wet tan but again, toss this out to the other guys and ask. The ones that work with the other tanning methods could answer better than I.

Hi, To be honest, I do little fur work. My forte is skull and bone work. If you toss that out as a question in the Game Head section or one of the taxidermy sections you'll get some good answers from some great people.

Hi, Not sure if this is old or new. Still getting used to this new forum. .... 27% peroxide has several brand names. Baquacil Oxidizer and Pool Mate are two that I know of. It is VERY important to specify a shock for **Non Chlorinated Pools**.