Skull Degrease

I use a couple aquarium heaters, but this heater works so much better, and i love it. Just have to remember its in Celcius, so you only need to turn it up a little bit.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00OYEABG...7ac5225383a00d2c47343cac3ddb87&language=en_US

 

A hot plate is going to be too hot. You are going to ruin bone by cooking it. Unless you can find one that maintains a temp of 120 degrees. That is the maximum temp you really need for degreasing. No aquarium heater is going to be warm enough unless you tamper with it. Even then, expect some of the ones you get to hit a high temp to have a shortened lifespan. There is at least one tutorial on here about wiring a bucket heater with a thermostat that works well. The rubber strip heaters like above look promising. I would still use a small circulating pump in the container to keep the temp of the water constant. Barrel heaters like that that I looked at a few years ago were much more expensive and I never tried them.

 

The bucket heater works so well. When i open my buckets that have aquarium heaters in them, i always second guess if they are even working. With the bucket heater, i open the lid, and it smells like a dish soap sauna, you can feel the heat off the water on your face when looking in the bucket. Keeps the temp perfectly wherever you want it.

 

Wiring a water heating element and thermostat to a black sterilite tote, you can fill the tote with water then put skulls in buckets and place them in the water. Works great. I now have a big tank that holds 20 buckets.

 

That is something ive been wanting to do also. Just have to wait until i have the room for all that.

 

I have I works fine you just have to temp check the water so it doesn't get too hot.. and mark the knob so you have an idea of where to set it.. only problem is replacing the water that has evaporated.. need to check every 8 hours or so and if you run more than 2 need to make sure the circuit can handle the load.. does use alot of electricity I've switched to a suvee cooker.. in a cooler for degreasing heads you can aet the temp and walk away do not use anything other that Dawn. If needed you can put a bucket in the cooler to separate clean water and dirty

 

Do you wrap anything around your suvee cooker before submerging it the water and dawn soap? I would think the soap could penetrate the cooker and damage it internally? I ask because I was thinking about doing the same thing.

 

I have been running it for a couple months and have no issues so far.. shouldn't damage anything since it's just a fan spinning and a metal heat element

 

I went to my local hardware store and got a water heating element and mounted it in a plastic tote with a hot water heater thermostat mounted on the side. The heat transfers through the plastic and the thermostat monitors that and shuts it of a the set temperature. That seems to work good. I usually degrease my deer skulls up to 4 to 5 weeks. I also use dawn ultra degreasing dish soap.

 

Sorry for going off topic but I wanted to put in my two cents, I use acetone and leave it in a 5 gallon bucket for two weeks. Great thing about this method is I can reuse acetone over and over again without damaging the bone. I've used the same 3 gallons of acetone for three months and I'm at my 40th skull. works great with bear and wild boar skulls, where grease is usually hard to dissolve.

 

Is this your only method to degrease? No heat?

 

You do not ever want to heat acetone. Treat it like gasoline. It is even more volatile. Acetone can be used alone for delicate things and thin bone. It can also be used with animals that have tough grease and cycled between acetone and detergents to help break it up. By itself I find that it takes longer than just a couple of weeks.

 

Appreciate the information!

 

I have 2 of this work like a charm have been on for 2 years know

 

I have been eyeing those myself. They have come down in price considerably from when I first saw them several years ago. The other thing I have tried, when I had a lot of work to do, was to build a "hot box". Heated inside to 90 degrees with a smaller ceramic room heater. Held a lot of containers and worked really well.

 

i did this but put the element and thermostat in a 20 gal metal tub and then put my heads in buckets. i insulated the tub and made a top so the water won't evap and it's been fine for 3 months so far.