Was curious if anyone had any ideas. I'm doing a European mount on a pretty good buck for a friend from last November. Problem being is they left it out and asked me to do it about 3 weeks ago, so the antlers are like 85% bleached out, the bases up passed the brows still have some dark color on them. I had messed around with a dead head and a shed I found, staining them with wood stain and they both took the stain great and turned out good. Twist comes when I go to try and stain this deer, the antlers hardly take the stain and it doesn't do much. I'm thinking it's because the others sat out in the sun for probably another year. Any Ideas? Thanks ahead of time!
http://www.tinesup.com/tu-gear.html#!/Wild-Antler-Magic/p/35258716/category=9029235 I've seen a couple videos on this stuff but never used it.
Antlers are probably still saturated with natural oils that's why they don't absorb the stain. Try removing the oils with a solvent first (on a small protion that does not show...) then dry it up and apply the stain. The longer you leave them out in the elements, the more oil gets washed out and the more porous they get, that's why old shed take on stain better. Good luck
thats what I was kind of thinking choppersk61, the ones I practiced on definitely had more time to weather than this one did it, i'll look into some more seeing what i can do to speed the process up a bit without hurting the antlers
