ORIGINAL: retrieverman

I do several european mounts a year on both deer and hogs for myself and friends. I acknowledge that there are probably numerous processes used to clean a skull, and I have used a couple different processes myself. I am currently using the same technique that my taxidermist friend uses. I , first, skin the head and clean as much meat off as possible, then I boil the head in a stainless steel pot in a sal soda solutionfor about 30-45 minutes. I order my sal soda from Van Dykes taxidermy catalog usually in the 5# bag. Boiling in the sal soda makes most of the meat and tissue justfall off the skull. AFTER cooking the head, I use a long flat head screw driver to remove the brain matter. There will be some meat/tissue left on the skull after the boiling process. For what is left, I use a thin blade "boning" type knife to scrape the skull. After ALL the meat is off the skull, I bleach it in hydrogen peroxide (I use the cheapest hydrogen peroxide I can find at Wal Mart or the "dollar store"). I take alot of time on the bleaching process because I think this makes the whole "look" complete. I try really hard not to get peroxide on the bases of the horns because it will bleach them. I keep my skulls in the freezer until I am ready to boil them and hang them out in the sun after the bleaching process to completely dry the skull.
This process has proved to be the simplest and most odor-free method that I have found. I can do a whole skull in about 4 hours. One tip that I forgot to mention is do not freeze a skull before skinning it. My dad brought me a head from his cousin out of state that was frozen and I almost never got the hide off of it.
Our taxidermists around here charge from $100-250 for a european mount. I figure I have saved myself, friends and family SEVERAL thousand dollars by doing the skulls myself.