Bleached Skull Mount?

[Jim-Iowa]

I have yet to tell my 29yr old son, I don't know it all. :grin:
Bailey has a Deer Skull he has burried all summer and it is now pretty clean, but natural bone color. He would like to bleach it and with winter coming on laying it in the sun probably won't work. How do we go about this?

 

[bob1961]

give this website a look see....ya can get whiteing powder from them to do the job or send yer skull to them....or buy the whole beetle kit and go from fresh deer skull to bleach white.........bob

big sky beetle works

 

[Halftail]

After it's dry...why couldn't you paint it?If I ever get another big one I'm going to do it up that way too.

 

[crockett]

I did a skull mount on an 8 pt I got a while back. I soaked the skull and then just scraped off all the gristle, etc and washed it down and that was that. The skull mount is popular in Europe from what I hear. In any event it's pretty fast and simple.

 

[Birdman]

Plain ol hydrogen peroxide n sunshine will do it up just fine. Try the best ya can to keep the actual antlers out of the liquid, I usually wrap a paper towel around the part of the skull that won't fit below the surface of the HP, it wicks up enough HP to bleach it out right nice. Ya can leave it in over night or several days if needed. ya want to check it come mornen. Don't leave it in too long or like bleach it will start to eat at the bone itself but that takes days at a time. You can use the cheap 99cent stuff from the dollar store. I use it on my turkey bones when making wingbone calls n bones from fowl are a whole lot softer then deer for sure. hope this helps some YMHS Birdman

 

[J.M.]

I have a coyote skull which was bleached and to be honest I thought it was too white, almost looked fake to me. I ended up rubbing in a couple of coats of Watco Danish oil and it gave it a nice aged patina, to my eye it looks a lot better than snow white.

 

[nuttbush]

Jim-Iowa,
What ever you do, do not use bleach on bone it will eat it up. I went on the net and found several sights on how to bleach a skull and did exactly what the previous post said. Used the mild solution of Peroxide that you get at the store. I had three Buffalo skulls to do and I put a rubber tarp in a large box i had to make a vessle to hold the skull. I had bought about 20 bottles of peroxide which still did not cover it. I poured all the peroxide over the skull then dipped some old washrags and towel pieces in the liquid and laid the wet towels over the face of the skull. Six or eight times a day for two days I would take a small cup and dip out some liquid and pour it over the rags to wet them. After two days I took the skull out and hosed it off, put it in the sun to dry and it came out pretty and white. Even with peroxide you do not leave it more than 48 hours and use the 3% solution. I did call one fellow and he sprayed his skulls with Kilz primer. Search the net under Skull bleaching and you can find some good info.

 

[TAC2]

Jim-Iowa ,
I have found that bleaching
bones makes them brittle.
Hope this helps.
TAC2. :v

 

[renovato]

If you poke around online a bit, you can find higher percent hydrogen peroxide than the household stuff. It bleaches bones nicely. The household stuff is weak and takes forever and I've never had it do a great job. Chlorine bleach might work also, but I've never tried it. The heavy duty peroxide does a good job.

 

[Jim-Iowa]

Thanks All! I'll pass this on to my son.

 

[Birdman]

Jim the stuff Plink mentioned can be found in a "beauty supply store. Yes it is a stronger percentage and works well but again ya need to be more careful with it. Birdman

 

[nuttbush]

Jim.
The pards are right about the stronger peroxide solution you can buy at a beauty supply business but here in Georgia you have to have a license to buy it, they will not sell it to the general public. It will damage the bone like bleach if you leave it in to long. I think what you get at the pharmacy or wally world is a 3% solution and it worked fine for me.