I was fortunate enough this year to harvest a nice buck being I have several deer mounted the conventional way (and I didn't want to spend the money) I though I might do it myself. (If I did it right, and I am not sure I did), it really wasn't too bad, I first fleshed the head and tried to clean out the eye sockets and brain area as best I could, and then it was boil-scrape-boil-scrape-etc, I did wrap the lower part of the antler with foil, I have not used any bleach or whitener product on the antlers, I might hang them on one of the shed this summer and let mother nature do its thing. I wish I would have taken more and better pictures, anyone thinking about doing this, I say- go for it!! pretty easy, It only took a few hours, kind of fun, Den
After fleshing "The Boil"
After some scrapeing
Just about done, just some final scrapeing and WALA!!
Crutch, being it was my first time I didn't want to ruin anything so I checked it about every 10/15 min, and would scrape what I could off, and then put it back in the water, I did this repeatedly, I think the longest I left it in the boil was 20/25 Min. I did get a little worried when the lower jaw literally fell off, but I think that is normal
also the "Lower part of the nose is "Cartilage" and just kind of boils away, If you are thinking of doing one I would go for it, as it all seems to fall into place, grab a couple of beers and have fun, You do have to cut the back of the skull to get at the brain area, I just cut it at what seemed to me to be a natural angle, This was my first one and I am very happy with the way it turned out. Good Luck Den
I cut the lower jaws off first thing, get 'em outta the way. I also cut open the base where the spinal cord would enter so there's a larger hole--helps to clean the brains out and gives you a mounting place easily. I, too, boil it multiple times--get things heated back up so they come off easier. Also, if/when whitening it by soaking it in peroxide, the small pieces of meat you couldn't get to should fall off rather easily with a hose and take away any bad odors.
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Big Z, Good advise on that Jaw, having that out of the way makes the scraping a lot easier, but being my first time it was "trial/error
Not sure just what I am going to as far as the whitening goes, I think I am going to hang it on one of the sheds for the summer and see what the sun will do to it, Thanks for the tips, Den
Here's mine. A buddy of mine made me a solid walnut plaque but I haven't mounted it yet. My method was skin, scrape, boil, scrape, boil, scrape, boil, scrape, boil, scrape, boil, scrape, soak in hydrogen peroxide. I removed the jaw in the skining process. Now it's just sitting in my library slowly drying out. After x-mas I'm going to spray some clear polycoat on the skull then mount him on the plaque.
European Mount
