How to boil a skull for a euro mount???

[FireFlyFishing]

I had a guy that would boil deer skulls for $75-100 it's a quick turn in the past. It was such a good deal, I had to have him do it. Now that is no longer on the table, I called around town to different taxidermy joints. Highest was $200 and all of them that I called were many, many months from a completed product. Hence, me wanting to start doing my own.

Still waiting for that darn thermometer to come up to give it a shot. Unfortunately, it may not be till spring as our winter is setting in up here in the north country.

 

[FireFlyFishing]

I have been using oxiclean for a few years now. It works great. I don't bother bleaching when I use it. It does a good enough job for me but I don't like skulls that are so bleached that they look like someone painted them white. If you cook them a really long time like recomended in the video then I would wrap the base of the antlers. I normally cook them 45 minutes to an hour and did not bleach out the antlers. I put a skull back in after scraping and cooked another 30 minutes or so and the base of the antlers started to bleach out a little.

View attachment 515598

Looks easy enough to add a touch of stain?

 

[southpa]

Like most have said pressure wash, low and slow, beauty store bleach, wrap in plastic. Buddy uses coffee grounds around the bases to darken them back up if the boiling process cleans the bases of the antlers.

 

[Recon$$]

I will add, use a dremel and wire brush to clean up the skull before bleaching. Once I boil the head and get everything off the bone I don't bother with the super nit picky stuff. I just let it dry then hit it with the dremel.