Getting beetles out of skulls

If you only want to dilute it down, you won't lose anything by mixing it with water that is whatever temp the peroxide is. The temp remains the same so the rate of decomposition remains the same. At room temp it is degrading, but it's a process and won't turn to useless for a while. It will last longer if kept cool, almost sealed, and out of light.

Only ? I would have is what the intent of diluting it is. If you just want a larger solution, you can be money ahead by buying more of the lower stuff than by buying the better and cutting it in half. Just have to do some shopping to see which is the better deal for you. I pick up cheap 3% for .50/bottle and use it for a prelim soak before final degreasing and I reuse the same tub over and over again. Then I use 12% to do the final whitening. I could probably go cheaper, but that's what I'm set up for this year.l

 

i always use rubbing alcohol, soak the skull in it for like 1 to 2 hours and they die then just use an air compressor or "canned air"

 

Aside from all the soaks and boils, that kill the bugs, I just started my colony and wanted to 'save' as many as possible. When one skull was done, I put a second in, and suspended the first over the colony. As they crawled out, they'd fall back into the colony. Got rid of most before the 'dunk' in alcohol.

 

Basically lets me see where the skull is at in the process. Places with grease still left are pretty obvious when the 'dry' bone is white. Either will get bone more or less equally as white, the greater concentration will just do it faster. If I was going to do 1 skull, I'd buy the cheapest stuff I could and let it soak for a week then wrap and heat or put in the sun if it wasn't 20 degrees outside. Even with the 12% (40 volume you find at hairdresser supply) I wrap in plastic and let sit a couple days. Then a couple hours in a box with a hair dryer to heat the peroxide and then a hot water wash. After drying, it's as white as it's going to get.

 

Haha so, your saying if I just boil the skulls in pure water, I will get the whitened results of my skull, just as if I mix with peroxide? I boil to remove grease and whiten skull... Now the skulls turn very white and grease free, but my question is... If the peroxide that is destroyed... Is not doing anything, why does the skull boil as though almost carbonated. I always thought it was the peroxide/water reacting against the skull pulling grease and whitening the bone?

I was taught this way by a local taxidermist a while ago.... am I doing something really wrong? wasting money? lol.... I have skulls that are years old and still white so, i'm curious.

Thanks ndindy.

 

p.s sorry if this is off- topic.

 

I just put the skull under water and use low air pressure to blow the beetles out, they can't hold on with the flowing water and air.
Gismo

 

I've never boiled a skull in water or anything else so I'll have to speculate short of experimentation. Bone is pretty porous, I would assume it gives lots of spots for nucleation so lots of little bubbles forming there as opposed to large bubbles on just the bottom of the pan. I would have to do a side by side boil and see what one does that the other doesn't. Assuming you add a skull prior to heating the water you should have the peroxide interacting with the bone, then being heated which should whiten. Peroxide + heat = oxidation, which is what the bubble is whenever you do anything with peroxide. Strength of the solution should decrease rapidly as the heat increases, but peroxide loses strength every time you look at it funny.


Got to run, work beckons.

 

i ve boiled skulls and boiled with perixode
and perixode definitely whitens it even if it is boiling
dont know the science but do know the finished results !

 

I agree with science, but gotta admit the peroxide works pretty slick. I'm going to try and do a low simmer with peroxide and see how long it takes to whiten. Boiling takes a straight 20-30 minutes.

Will update when I get the chance, thanks guys. And happy new year!

Morgan.

 

Back. Figure peroxide whitens by oxidation which releases the bubbles. You should be apply to apply peroxide, wait 10 seconds and apply heat and see whitening occur as the heat speeds up, drastically, the oxidation. But as with any catalyst the solution will be exhausted quickly, after which there is nothing left besides water which should continue to pull garbage out and allowing what has been whitened show through. You can see the exact same thing happen in slow motion by applying peroxide, sealing it, and letting it sit in a cool area for a much longer period of time. The same oxidation will occur, but without heat as a catalyst it happens a whooooole lot slower. I don't know the exact rate at temps that degredation happens, everything I can read up on just says "very rapidly", "very quickly" etc. I know with the right catalyst you can exhaust a whole lot of peroxide in about 1/10th of a second. Looks cool, lots of steam.

Personally I brush on the 40 volume and let it sit for at least a day, usually 2, to allow the peroxide to soak into the bone instead of sitting on the surface (gel w/white). Then it goes into a sealed box with a hair dryer for an hour or 2 to crank up the oxidation rate. After that they get rinsed in hot water and then air dry at room temp. What *should* be happening is oxidation throughout the entire skull and whitening as deep as the peroxide soaked. If I did the same w/out the wait time I *should* get a white skull as well, but basically surface or just sub-surface as no oxidation would occur where the peroxide did not reach. In all likelihood the results would be fine. I would think that doing both methods side by side, 1 would be visually whiter, but without the comparison you wouldn't see it and it wouldn't matter.

Personally the only thing that takes any time for me is degreasing. I can do 3 at a time hot and it still takes weeks. If I could do that in an hour and get the results I get, I'd switch. The day or so to whiten doesn't affect me in the least, but I def. don't have the time to monitor something so even if all else equals I will stick to the passive methods. And I'm a science geek at heart, so there ya go :laugh:

 

And the only way to truly know how much of your solution is peroxide and how much is water is by weighing the solution. As the extra O comes out of solution the mass will decrease. But I don't have that kind of sensitive equipment floating around in my basement.

 

hahah Cool, thanks for the infor ndindy. You know a lot more about science than I.... Taught me something.

Happy New Year.

Morgan.

 

x2 on the freezing. if those suckers can survive that we may have bigger problems.

 

????? you all aren't signing in and out each single bug as it enters the skull for the workday??? how on earth can you tell if they are all out??? lol

 

after coming out of the bug tanks i use a hair dryer on mine and they run like hell, any that stay in die in the degrease progress, then after the whitening i blow out the skull using an air compressor and air head , make sure to wear eye protection as the dead Lil critters come out like bullets..

 

Depends on how much room I have,if I have freezer space they go in the freezer. If not into a bag, quick spray of raid and seal for a hour, then into hot water for degreasing.

 

Wen I take a skull out, I use a soft paintbrush to brusk off exterior buis, then pound on skulls and lots fall out over the containmer thru foramen. I then allow the skull to sit in a plastic tote for a day and repeat process. I recover several hundred beetles that would otherwise have been sacrafaced. By the third time, I seldom have to worry about stray beetles in the skull.

 

Dat post iz a grama scool nimare ....LOL