Skulls

I usually wash them down with clorox or boil them. Having the bugs do all the work is a lot nicer than doing it yourself... yuck!!

"Sniper1" wrote:Si i got 4 or 5 heads been buried in my garden for o heck a year now or so... Had someone tell me put them in the garden let the bugs eat away at them. Pulled em up so i could start planting the garden and now i need to finish them off. Never done this before where do i start? Thanks for any help

Sniper1,

I've only ever done one skull so I'm by no means an expert, but it seems to me that the bugs in the garden have only given you a head start. The skull still needs to be degreased in a water/borax solution or similar, and then whitened using a bleach or peroxide. The best way would be to get a euro skull kit form trufitt taxidermy or a vandykes kit from cabelas. These kits use a higher concentration peroxide than I used. The skull I did is slightly more yellow than I wanted it to be, but that is because I used the over the counter wound cleaning peroxide.

It was my first attempt and a learning attempt at that. I'll definitely buy a kit for my next one. Here's a pic.

Notenoughtags is right. You will want to degrease the skull and make sure that all of the fleshy material is gone. A slow simmer with some borax helps accomplish both at the same time. After we get the skull clean we dump the water and fill the pot and boil the skull again to get the pores to open up. Watch the heat through the whole process because the hotter the skull gets the more that some of the small bones and teeth start coming loose. Once the skull is warm again we pull the skull and spray it with the peroxide before the skull cools down. You will want to find the higher concentration peroxide to make sure the skull get extra white. We ge ours from a friend that works in a hair salon.

Hope that this helps in some way. Have fun and show us the finished products.

NotEnufTags, nice work, creative, I like that. :thumb

Thanks guys for the help. I will see what i can do. I know the smell is horrid. But like i said got a couple of em so got to do it. I will get pics up when finished thanks again

All you need to do is put em in water and mule team borax for a few days. No need to boil em unless your in a hurry. Put it down wind of anybody you don't want to affend. if you cookem don't let the water come to a hard boil keep it slow. If its a fresh head remove the face and as much flesh as possible and it'll take about a week for everything to fall off and turn the skull a bright whte.

I got a buddy who does taxidermy work and he ended up doing my wifes first deer for us. He boils them but then does not bleach them. He told me that by bleaching it, it will make them weaker/brittle in a couple of years. He says that they now have a type of paint that they use now instead of bleaching it and it will strengthen the skull. I have no idea where you would find that and the process of applying it. That's just what I was told so I figured I'd pass it on. The skull looks awesome that he did for us.