My Second Attempt:
For my second attempt, my woodshop teacher gave me a small buck to try and see how I could do on it.

This deer was a little harder to do. He had left the skull hanging in a tree from December through June, so the hide was all dried out and didn't come off very well at all. After cutting and pulling for a couple of days, I got the hide off and was ready to start boiling. Because this skull had antlers, I couldn't just drop the entire thing in the pot like I had for my skull. I went and wrapped aluminum foil around the antlers and then tied them to the sides of the pot so they would stay at a constant height. Then I filled the water up to that level and boiled the skull to remove all of the flesh, membrane, and fat that was still on the skull. After working with that for a couple of days, boiling with just water, and then adding dishsoap again,I had it cleaned and I was ready to bleach it. Instead of using bleach on this one, which would weaken the bone, I used ordinary peroxide that I dumped over the skull that was wrapped up in cheesecloth to absorb the liquid. Leaving that out in the sun for a couple of days and bringing it in and letting it dry out at night, I got the skull pretty white.
Improvements Over First Attempt:
[ul][*]I didn't throw out the nose pieces.[*]I used peroxide instead of bleach.[*]I didn't burn the skull by letting the water get to low.[/ul]
Problems I Encountered:
[ul][*]The bases of the antlers lost some of their coloring, due to boiling water coming in contact with them.[*]Not all of the skull became completely white, some still stayed a darker whiteish/brown color. Could be that I didn't get enough peroxide to the area, or the skull was stained from the nasty hide staying on for so long?[*]The hide was extremely difficult to remove.[/ul]