Thanks for all the good comments on the buck. The hardest part of doing your own mount is picking the skull clean. Getting the brain and naval cavity clean takes some work. All I do is fire up the bbq pit, add some tide detergent to the water, and sit the skull in without submerging the antlers. Usually takes a coupleboils at about 5 hours to get most of the flesh and membrane off the skull. The rest is just elbow grease, lots of scraping and wire brushing.... Once the skull is complete I dip the head in bleach for a few hours, make sure you tape the base of the antlers no to expose them to the bleach. The bleach help whiten the skull but also gets some of the stuff you missed. Don't leave it in to long or it'll eat away at the skull. Once its all clean and ready for finishing I spray the skull with a coat of flat white paint. If you want you can use some wood stain to detail the antlers.

Thanks again

Terry