Post by: troyspinetar on December 22, 2016, 09:12:31 PM
Question for those with more experience, shall I continue on with same method or switch gears? I'm a little concerned that maybe my temp isn't warm enough. Not sure though.
Thanks.
Post by: dreadi on December 22, 2016, 10:38:45 PM
Post by: blindluck on December 23, 2016, 05:13:23 AM
Post by: buglebuster on December 23, 2016, 07:01:26 AM
Post by: troyspinetar on December 23, 2016, 02:39:52 PM
I thought my temp was a bit low. The heater I have is Aquatop 150 watt. It worked good for heating the stew but not so much for degreasing.
Thanks for the tips.
Post by: buglebuster on December 23, 2016, 02:47:50 PM
Post by: Smossy on December 23, 2016, 03:11:52 PM
Post by: buglebuster on December 23, 2016, 03:27:30 PM
Makes me miss my beetles </3 So much more efficient than maceration.I disagree. When using Beatles you end up with all the grease in the skull, therefore making it harder to degrease. Using maceration is actually pulling alot of the grease out in the process. Not to mention keeping your Beatles alive, and dealing with freezing the skulls to kill parasites.
Post by: troyspinetar on December 23, 2016, 04:23:50 PM
Post by: buglebuster on December 23, 2016, 04:49:09 PM
Is the acetone harsh on the skull? Any adverse effects or smell?No and no :tup:
Post by: BlackRiverTaxidermy on December 23, 2016, 06:03:11 PM
You need the temp higher than 90 degrees. Bears will take much longer than a month to fully get the grease out with several baths in acetone. Heres what I do for bears that have taken a lot of trial and error over some time of playing around with several methods...of course I have bugs clean the skull first but the rest is as follows....
1. put skulls in 120 degrees water in a bucket of water, 1/4 cup of Dawn Dishwashing soap, 1/4 cup per 5 gallons. Ive found the 'Power Clean' (blue) works really well. Don't use knock-off imitation soaps...they simply don't work as well.
2. change the water out at least once a week, the first week of degreasing you will most likely have to change the water in the first 3 days as a ton of grease will come out initially.
3. at the 1 month mark take the skull and lower jaw out, the teeth will have fallen out by now and possibly the lower jaw mandibles have separated, and put in an acetone bath at room temp for 24-48 hours...no need to add the teeth. **make sure to rinse the skull before adding back to the Dawn dishwashing bath.
4. keep in Dawn dishwashing bath for an additional month. Remove and let dry...the skull will be a yellowish tint overall but if there is still grease in the skull it will appear, most likely behind the eye sockets and back of skull. If it appears give another acetone bath and then another 2 weeks in Dawn. If not, glue in all the teeth and proceed to your whitening steps. ****DO NOT add any hydrogen peroxide to the Dawn bath...the heat coupled with the peroxide swells the teeth and eats the finer nasal bones out...this information comes doing this once and never again!!
The bigger the skull the longer it will take to degrease. Best of luck!
Joel- BlackRiver Taxidermy.
Post by: buglebuster on December 23, 2016, 06:35:17 PM
Post by: troyspinetar on December 23, 2016, 06:41:51 PM
Post by: klickman on December 27, 2016, 05:50:26 PM
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Post by: Eric M on December 27, 2016, 06:55:24 PM
Post by: BlackRiverTaxidermy on December 27, 2016, 07:36:34 PM
It will help but you will truly need to put it into a hot water bath for at least a couple of weeks to fully get it out. Here's the misnomer with acetone...it works really well to remove surface grease or thin boned animals such as the skull of a deer or small mammals but to get grease out of thick bone like a bear or elk you really need to heat the bone up with hot water. This process swells the bone and makes it more porrus, thus allowing the grease to be brought out by Dawn soap. That's why a good month in hot water THEN put into acetone removes grease really well; with the swelled bone the acetone gets into the tough spots and dissolves the grease, but this cant be done unless its porrus via the water bath. Acetone just itself will not fully degrease large bones/skulls in my experience but its invaluable coupled with hot water baths.
Hope this helped.
Joel- BRT
Post by: klickman on December 28, 2016, 07:47:09 AM
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