Skull bleaching/whitening
Whitetail Deer
I have a skull that I want to clean. What is the best process and how do I get it nice and white?
What state is the head in as of now? Once you get it boiled and free of everything, oxi clean does a darn good job. Just add it to a clean pot of water and slowly boil the skull. We did my buddies bull and mine last year this way and they are very white and still look good. Just takes a BIG pot to do a bull head, and lot's of propane. Haha.
Powell
I have a bull elk I want to do. (It was dead for ~ 1 year when I found the carcass) It has some "stuff" left on it, but is clean for the most part. So I don't think I will need to boil much for meat removal.
Could I move straight to the Oxi Clean treatment?
I actually have 2 frozen heads that I want to do. Boiling might be a no-no with the wife.
I have a 7 pointer head under the deck (I'm not a trophy hunter) that is almost clean of flesh.
I thought I heard someone say to just dunk it in 40% hydrogen peroxide and it will clean it. Is that true?
Z Barebow You probably could go straight to the oxiclean, but personaly I would make sure all the meat, brains, and what not are gone before I started the process. It would still probably do a good job whitening, but I don't know what it would do for smell. We skin the skull, cut off as much meat and what not off the skull, boil the head until ALL the meat and brains are completely gone, start boiling the head with oxiclean and a fresh batch of water. Then we usually leave them outside for a week or so to dry out completely. They turn very white, and don't stink at all. Oh and this is NOT a job for indoors. You need a big pot, a propane burner, and a back yard to do this in. Your wife will not let you ever go hunting again if you try and do this inside. lol.
CTCrow Note sure on the peroxide. I've heard that it works, but I have no experience with it.
You need to remove all hair/meat/brains ect. by boiling and scraping first, before you dunk in peroxide. All the peroxide is going to do is turn the skull from yellow to white. It will not remove anything from the skull. Once it's clean and ready to whiten, I set it in a pot for about 48hrs full of peroxide. Be careful not to soak the antlers or they will also change color. I usually wrap old rags over the top of the skull that is not under the peroxide. Then I wet the rag with the peroxide water multiple times a day.
To be honest, the absolute BEST way to do skulls is to simply let them soak in clean warm water. Every day or 2 take it out and spray it clean with a house, maybe do some light scrubbing, then return to a fresh bucket of clean water... google "cold water maceration"
the downside is that this takes a long while. However, the bones are ALL intact and come out super super white.
The skulls I've boiled have been hard to get all the stains off, plus you risk losing some of the more fragile nasal bones/cartilage stuff.
I've found that boiling and cleaning, then using a nice coat of ivory colored Krylon spray paint gives a really nice look as well.
I'm going to try to post my self done euro mounts here... the buck with the broken antler was fresh water only, the spike (wife's first kill) and other euro were boiled then painted...
I should add...the one I left in fresh water was outside during the process, so the antlers also bleached out white...If you can do this in a garage or something that would prevent it, but there is a bit of smell... you could also wrap the antlers during the process to keep them from getting bleached...
I boiled mine and got off all the flesh etc. Be careful of the nose piece that come out. Once it dried I spray painted it with Kilz white. Ten years and looks the same.
I boil my skulls. After boiling them, I sometimes have to glue the top nasal pieces back on. Maybe half the time this is necessary, generally its an easy pricess. After fitting the pieces, remove one and apply glue, reattach; remove the other half, glue adn reposition. Wrap the snout area with some sort of tape for a day, then remove..
After the skull dries from boiling, I use a powder that I bought from a taxidermy supply house - potassium something. I mix it with drug store hydrogen peroxide (not hairdresser 40% stuff) and make a paste. I use a small brush to apply it and leave it for maybe a day. I rinse it off (hose or sink), it comes off easily. Let the skull dry. If not white enough, I repeat the potassium stuff process again.
Works very well...
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Be careful of the soaps you use when boiling. I boiled an elk w/ the oxi-clean and it cleaned off the bases of my horns. Now I have to re-stain them.
If you boil, simmer it w/ dawn.
If this is an old pick-up skull that has been laying around I suggest just letting it soak in water. Cover the horns w/ bags and tape or find good shade (that is if you want to preserve the color). Change the water periodically or just freshen it up w/ some fresh water.
The older the head the less likely you'll be able to make it white, but after this process it should look decent enough.
If you want to bleach it use hydrogen peroxide paste from hair store. Wrap up the horns and apply liberally everywhere. Wrap the whole thing up in syran wrap, depending on the temperature it won't take long before it is paper white.
I've posted this serveral times, I've cleaned over 100 heads, including bear, hog, pronghorn, buffalo, elk and caribou. Same basic method for all and mine come out perfect. I use the maceration method, which gets speeded up by maggots and beatles that eat the tissue as the water evaporates.
Let them sit in a 5 gallon bucket of water or large bin for elk, caribou or buffalo. Make sure the antlers or horns aren't in the water otherwise they could stain. I use long pieces of different thicknesses of wood under the antlers. I have an out building for this as you don't want the buckets in sunlight, otherwise you'll get algae in the water and it will get on the skulls. I have also used this method when the capes haven't been removed prior to soaking. After 2-3 weeks remove the skull and see how much of the hide has been removed from underneath the jaw and near the nose end. You can pull off in large pieces, or pop the eye balls out underneath the eye socket and possibly pull of the bottom jaw. Wear rubber gloves or your hands will reak for a few days and nothing will wash the stink off. Remove what you can and empty the bloody water and put the skull back in with fresh water. Check it again in another 2 weeks. By then most of the soft tissue will be removed, but this time make sure none of the teeth from the top row have fallen out or the V shaped nose top jaw bones. You can also flush the brain cavity, but don't use pressure around the nose, you want to keep the nasal cartilage.
At this point you can either put the skull back in fresh water or if most of the soft tissue is gone, you can simmer the head in Sal Soda or A&H laundry boots. Both have sodium bicarbonate and will remove the stink as well as cartilage in the top of the skull. You only need to simmer for 15-20 minutes, otherwise the bones will begin to shrink and break down. Don't let the antlers touch the bubbly film on the surface while boiling or they'll start to whiten.
By this time there is just some white chalky matter left in spots on the skull and I use a large safety pin to pick it off. I then let the skull dry for few days. Afterwards I brush on a 50 volume peroxide cream. This is much better than mixing perixode and Basic White because it doesn't evaporate and by remaining liquid form the pores stay open allowing the peroxide to penetrate deeper. After 24 hours I rinse it off with warm water and let dry for a few days.
The final step is spraying the skull with Polycrylic satin finish, just one coat. Most of it will get absorbed and the skull will not yellow over time. You don't want it to look like a clear coat or varnish, but it will give the skull a slight sheen instead of a dry chalky look.
This method may seem lengthy, but it requires very little man hours of work and mother nature does all the work. By soaking instead of just letting sit out or wrapped in a bag, the blood will stain the skull since it's dilluted in water. This method even works if you have a skull with dried hide on it. I've cleaned up a lot of freinds skulls who had them sitting outside under a porch for several years.
For horned animals, once all the hide is removed and water no longer turning any colors, you can submerge the horns and after several days, the caps will pop right off because they swell. After the skull has gone through the whitening process, I brush on a light coat of gun stock oil while they are off the skull so as not to run down onto the skull. After a day the oil has been absorbed and it will keep the horns from drying out like wood. For tan or gold colored horns I use a linseed or lemon oil, but any light colored oil will work.
I think that covers it.
There are two ways to properly clean a skull. Dermestid beetles or maceration. Boiling is not a good way to clean a skull for several reasons, the main one being it damages the skull and you'll loose the delicate nasal cavity bones. Are you trying to clean and preserve it the way it looked or damage it beyond repair. There's tons already written on both of these methods here and on other websites. If you need a detailed description, go to Taxidermy.net and you'll find some excellent narrative in the beginner section.
don't overheat when boiling......just barely simmering or even just below a boil is fine....you won't hurt anything if you do it right....I agree maceration is best, but not everyone has a place for that kind of smell.
then coat with 40 peroxide GEL and wrap with saran wrap and let it sit for 24-48 hours....hose it off, let it dry and your done.
this really easy to do and they come out pretty good.....but there are better ways if you have the time and resources to do it.
Thanks All!
The one I had under my deck had no smell. I had it there over a year and it was in a plastic bag for about 6 months. It really stunk when I took it out 6 month ago. I put it in a bucket with water but I'm sure I can just vlean it with a brush.
I'll post a pic once completed.
This is how it looked when I took it out of the bag.
Finished product! Love doing these!
2 Antelope, bear, elk and whitetail!
Whitetail:
Thaw
Summer for 1.5 hours
Take to car wash blast brains etc out
40% peroxide for 12 hours directly after car wash when pores are open.
Total time investment like 2 hours if work picking stuff off after boiling and brushing peroxide etc.
All the good stuff and cartilage always stays inside the nose for me never had an issue and never seen a euro I liked more than my own. Personally I don't see the upside to weeks of work and stink
I don't have the patience to deal with any process other than simmering, picking and using the volume 40 to whiten it up. I'll even hit it with a very light coat of spray laquer after its completly dry.
Here is my Idaho elk from last year.
My process is definitely a spring-fall ordeal, so simmering/scraping/picking is the only way to do it in the winter. Nobody, but taxis or skull cleaners on a large scale will keep stinky beetles indoors which require food year round. I paid to have my first bear skull cleaned by beetles and they even over boiled it after removing from the beetle pen and the canines cracked in half over time and was not seemed in any way. Mine turn out much better.
Boiling a skull is ok for most people. The downside is that if the water gets too hot then it will ruin the bone. It will get chalky or flakey. If you want really white skulls and want them to last without painting them or turning yellow then there is two tried and true ways. Like fullcryhounds said, beetles or maceration. I use the maceration method. I have barrel heaters for the cold months to keep the water warm and a skull usually only takes about a week to get everything off. It stinks like crazy so you better have a little bit of space around you. The next step is to degrease the skull. Use water with some type of aquarium heater with a thermostat. The water needs to stay at a steady 110-115 degrees. Use dawn soap as your degreasing agent with some ammonia to help get rid of the smell. change out the water when it turns murky and keep changing until it stays clear for at least a solid week. Rinse off and let it dry to see if you have any grease left in it. Repeat degreasing if you see yellow or a kind of "clear" sheen. If not then whiten with peroxide. Most use the beauty salon stuff which is not 40%. It's called volume 40 but is about 15%-20%. Anything higher than that you will have to purchase from a chemical company which I don't recommend for those with inexperience. After the whitening then let it dry to check for any grease spots. If no grease appears then seal it with a polyacrylic satin or Paraloid 72. Doing a skull this way is a long process but you will have very, very nice skulls that will last a long time.
I have two deer heads that I have done myself that came really nice. I submerged the skulls up to or slightly below the antlers, boiled the skull for several hours on the side burner of my outside grill in a stainless pot, scraped off the remaining flesh and then brushed the skulls with a commercial hair dye peroxide solution. I then super glued the teeth that fell out back in. Really easy, maybe one or two hours of actual work. Certainly much easier than killing a buck with a bow and arrow. I do not recall the name of the peroxide dye solution but I do recall it was real cheap, maybe a couple of dollars. I do know that I would never pay $125 to $200 for another European mount.
Beetles and Hydrogen Peroxide... Ed F
Boil, pressure wash to clean, mix powder bleach and peroxide lotion, paint on with a brush, leave sit in a plastic bag for 24 hours, wash peroxide/bleach mix off, done!
One process that never gets mentioned is the degreasing of the skull. A lot of skulls like bears and hogs have a lot of grease in them, especially the lower jaw that needs to be removed. This is a skull that was cleaned with beetles. Zero damage to the skull, no flaking, no cracked teeth or teeth that fall out. 100% of flesh removed including every one of those tiny holes that are throughout the skull. If you're having to spray paint your skulls, something is not right. The natural bone should be left with only a clear, Matt spray coat applied. This keeps dust from penetrating the bone and discoloring it. The term Bleaching is often used to describe the whitening process, just like the title of this thread. Bleach should never be used. Bleach weakens and actually decays bone material. It is extremely damaging to bone. The proper whitening chemical is a mixture of 40% peroxide and magnesium carbonate. Both can be purchased through any taxidermy supply company.
Found this guy about a month ago.
Skinned it, boiled it, and used concentrated peroxide. Took a half bottle of propane, a pick, pliers, knife, hose, peroxide and a 30 pack of Bud Select.
We have a bug box at the farm... Rat wire cage that lets the bugs and flies in without letting in the rodents and scavengers. The beetles will clean it pretty quick once they find it if its skinned first. We usually leave them in there until spring and then wash them out. Oxy Dawn works to my liking and looks more natural. If you want to bleach it use peroxide rather than bleach. It does a good job wont make it as brittle. Wrap up the horns or you end up with white bases.
The only way fir water to get hotter than 212 is to put it under pressure. 10 pounds boils at 240.
European mounts are so easy and I cant believe people pat for them! Heres the trick get as much meat off as possible boil for about 20-30 minutes run it to the car wash and spray it with the soap really quick ie. a few minutes turn the rinse on and hammer it! done deal...super easy. If you want it whiter paste it for a day and wash that off. I truly cant believe people drop over a hundred bucks on them!? Ive often thought about throwing a website up and doing them for $50 a pop... I could easily to 10 a day no problem. Funny thing I paid a guy once years back to do a coues for me and he boiled the whole thing antlers and all! I stained them and it turned out great after but I refused to pay the guy because it looked like a bleached head that sat in the desert sun for a few years when I picked it up. After that I do all my own and my friends....the only money is the propane and whatever a small amount of your time is worth but for an hour my time isnt worth $125 unless Im hunting! haha
On point here if it hasn't been mentioned yet. Use beauty salon peroxide it's a lot stronger than grocery store peroxide. I did a nice Elk skull and it turned out real nice.
I was going to do a deer last hunting season until I found a local taxidermist who does them for $50. All he does is skulls and woodworking (makes the plaques and such). He also has the big tank that he does the camo skulls or just about anything else someone wants camoed. Total price was $65 including the arrowhead plaque. With the total mess and time it was worth it. He simmers them then uses a power washer to clean, then some final picking. He uses the potent peroxide and basic white powder. Came out perfect.
