for all you guys who have done or tried to do thier own european mounts, how did you guys do it? I put the head right on top of an ant pile for them to eat away at, and leave the bone. i have done this before on my first buck i have ever shot, and it worked out great. but for some reason now on this buck the ants are just using the head as like a home and not even decaying it at all is there another way to do this on your own? i know you can boil it somehow, but im not quite sure how to do that? how have you guys done this in the past?
I have always done the boil method and it can be a pain, especially if not done right away. I always mixed a cap full of bleach with about a gallon of water and put the whole skull in and boiled for awhile. I would remove the skull and use a sharp knife to cut away as much flesh as possible, then repeat the process. It takes awhile, but it does work.... just a warning though, it stinks pretty dang bad, I usually use the grill outside to do this!
ya idk i had it on a pile last summer too, so i think im gonna let it sit on more summer and if that doesnt work, i think im in for a smelly afternoon. ill do it in the fall tho so the smell wont linger so much around the yard thanks for the advice
ya but then id have to pay for it, which i dont really want to do if i can do it for myself. being a student and working part-time at a gas station i gotta save the money when i can.
If the skull has been in the elements since last season then it should be all cleaned up by now. The work you do on the skull after the kill really makes a difference. You need to get off as much as you possibly can...then you can let it rot away completely and naturally or you can set it in a 5 gallon bucket of water and soak for months and then let it hang or boil it off. What I do is set it in a 5 gallon bucket of water with lime salt and leave it for a few months, stirring occasionally. Then when the weather turns warm I pull it out and let it rot really good for a week and then put it back in the bucket for 24 hours...then boil and it falls right off. I then take a shallow dishpan with 1 parts bleach and 3 parts water and in a couple days you have a beautiful bleached white skull and mount. Hope this helps.
Boil the skull. But I do know that there are skull cleaning kits out there. I have not use any, but I have friends that like them.
aight, i shouldve done that already, its gotten to the point where the skin is like leathered onto the skull so hopefully a summer long soaking will do the trick :d i heard if yo bleach it tho it leaves a yellowish color to the skull afterwards?
Until it dries it does have a yellowish color to it. Once dry it looks white as white can be, just beautiful.
