Whitening Solution (heat)

Nope. And all you do is destroy the peroxide by making it oxidize faster. You could keep that same quantity of peroxide and run many skulls through it over months. Heat will make peroxide work harder but heating the whole quantity of peroxide is not the way to do it. Soak the skulls in peroxide and or paste them with peroxide and Basic White. Wrap with plastic wrap to keep them from drying out too fast and get the whole wrapped assembly into a heated area. Can be a small room with the heat cranked up or some use a heat lamp. Keep the skull heated for several hours and it will be as white as it can get. It isn't sunlight that makes it work but heat.

 

I've tried heating peroxide and I couldn't really tell the difference in the whiteness of the skulls. As Sea Wolf stated above, I think it deteriorates the peroxide. We use a few different methods, one is vol 40 liquid, full strength and let it soak for 24-48 hrs, and second is vol 40 creme with basic white or magnesium carbonate mixed, sometimes we wrap sometimes we don't. we'll leave this on 24-48 hrs, third is pool oxidizer such has baquacil or aquasilk...(this is high percentage peroxide so use extreme caution) Rinse well with hot, hot water and either set in the sun or under a heat lamp.

 

Yes, I've seen those videos and I've seen it posted in Facebook taxidermy groups. I'm sure it works for some, I just didn't notice any difference. Can you do it, sure, just be careful. What I've found over the last 3-4 years is you have to find what works for you. We've tried all different methods of cleaning skulls, degreasing and whitening...took a little info from here and there and kept working until we have a process we are happy with.

If you want to try it, go ahead and see how it works for you...then decide

 

Let us know how it goes. Most of the videos I've seen this done, they normally have several they are doing and want to get as many done at a time as possible. I believe the "big" advantage they tout, is it speeds up the whitening time...they heat the peroxide, which activates it quicker, and dries it quicker... Our process takes a couple days to apply, then a couple days to dry.

 

I was talking to a few people this past weekend about heating the peroxide. They said instead of heating the peroxide, they heat plain water to around 150, turn off the heat, then take the skull out of the peroxide and stick it into the heated water for a couple hours. This is their method.

 

LOL. Well, it is heating the skull but also rinsing off the peroxide. I wonder if that is a bastardization of an old post I did where I mentioned that dropping a skull from peroxide into hot water really set off a reaction (more like a huge amount of bubbles). Never said it increased the whitening power but, as things get spread around, they get embellished and added on to until the information is no longer accurate. Heat is what activates the peroxide to whiten better. Water may work but it will also be removing the peroxide at the same time. Better to wrap it in plastic wrap to minimize evaporation and get it under a heat source for a few hours. Heat lamps work as long as you don't get it too close. The water starts to cool off as soon as it is removed from the burner. A heat lamp will stay constant the entire time until you turn it off.

 

Not sure these folks ever visited this site, but who knows. I guess one thing I didn't elaborate on was, they didn't drop it into the hot water until after it was in peroxide for 24-48 hours. Not sure if that makes a huge difference but to them it did. Their thoughts behind this is to get instant heat for the whitening.

I personally don't do the plastic wrap any longer, it's just too messy...I use the clear liquid and soak the skulls.

 

After I macerated my skulls and degreasing their is no need to put them in peroxide,
I like the bone look colour, that’s my personal preference,

 

Those look good...occasionally I'll have a customer that just wants one cleaned and degreased without whitening. A few ask for "rustic" look like this.

 

Sometimes I do the whitened type, sometimes bone color. Once in a while I do an antiqued color using tea concentrate or packing it in old oak leaves and bark and soaking for a while. Depends on what the client wants. Been also tempted to try black walnut hulls to see what would happen.

 

When you don't want that anymore I'll take it.

 

I had sent you an email
How much you think is worth
15 1/5 X 9 1/2

 

Looks to be intact. Are all the teeth accounted for?

 

Yes all good

 

Take a look at the bison bleaching post if you want white. A short soak in iron out looks like it works great if you want white skulls after degreasing. The trick is getting rid of the grease first! I really believe boiling is about the worse thing you can do with skulls. I don't think heat really helps but likely speeds up the degreasing process. Just soaking in dawn without boiling removes a lot of grease.

 

That looks pretty cool, what do you do to give it that brown antique look?