bleaching skulls and caps questions

[willapawapiti]

Question, I've been bleaching out my and my family's skull caps and bear skulls for many years on my own.  I made a few mistakes in the past, started using bleach, learned my lesson!  Now using peroxide. But when I do my initial boiling of my deer and elk caps/skulls, I've always been VERY careful not to let the antlers touch the hot water when boiling.  I was watching some "how-to" videos on You-Tube.  They plunk the antlers right into the boiling water, won't the boiling water discolor the antler bases?

[BLKBEARKLR]

depends on how long you let it sit in there. Sometimes it will discolor them, will also take out all the sap, tree, bark it scraped along the burrs. I have seen it where you take clear silicone and coat the burrs and antlers first with that.

Good luck with it

Joe

[Michelle_Nelson]

Yes and No.  Depends on what types of chemicals you are using in your boiling pot mostly.  The boiling will remove shredded bark and dirt out of the antler burr's.  Best to just keep them out of the water if you are worried about it.

[lokidog]

My taxidermist boiled mine with the bases in the water, had to use a stain to brown them back up.  I wonder if a paint on latex like for special effects makeup would work, you could just peel it off when done?

Try to find someone with bugs, boiling damages the bone and you often lose the fine nasal bones as well.     We just leave our deer skulls out for a year or so to let the natural bugs and beetles do the work.  I haven't used peroxide to whiten any of them up yet but they look good otherwise.  We had my largest island deer skull go missing so now we tie them so the coons or possibly loose dogs can't haul them off.  A chicken wire box would accomplish the same thing for those skulls with no antlers.

[willapawapiti]

Thanks for the tips, let's hope I get to use them this season!