So I have done a couple fork horn skulls for my dad and am working on my step-son's first buck as well. The way I have been doing them is kinda the redneck cheap way but considering otherwise they were just gonna get hung in the shop as a raw unwhittened skull. I had cut off as much off of the skull as I could and then placed the skull under a large bucket outside till mother nature cleaned it. The bucket was to protect the color of the antlers from the elements, and I put a bag of concrete on the bucket to deter the stray cats and such. When it was as clean as the bugs and such could get it I shook off and sprayed off whatever was left. I then dipped the skull in water with a little bit of bleach. Made the mistake of too much bleach too long on the first one and now the bone is so brittle and is falling apart. Then after that I let it dry. The thing about dipping it in the bleach water like that is I could never get the whole thing without getting bleach on the antler, so there was always some part of the skull that didnt get whittened there. So my finishing touch to the skull is to mask off the antlers and get a can of bone white spray paint and give it a couple coats. They have turned out pretty well as far as I am conserned since it only costs me a few bucks. So keeping in my theme of cheap redneck ways of getting it done I am hoping to try something new on the next one. Well, thats if the next one isnt worth it to me to have a professional do it. I thought about maybe doing a forest green, OD green, or maybe a solid black paint on the skull rather than the white but I cant find any examples of what it may look like. Any opinions on it? any other ideas in making my impomtu european mounts more unique?
