Euro Mount Help.....
 

After reading and looking at all of the cool euro mounts that have been posted lately, it made me think about redoing an old euro mount of mine. So I dug it out of my crawl space and dusted it off.

I needsome ideas of how to go about painting it and bringing the antlers back to a more natural color.

I already got some great ideas from Quicksilver (thanks Fran) but I'd also like to hear other opinions.

Here area few pics, I guess we can use them as "before photos" I will post the "after photos" once I figure out what exactly I'm going to do with it and finish the job.

Ok, so the floor is open for suggestions, help me bring this back toa more presentable mount.

Pics...

RE: Euro Mount Help.....
 

Last pic.

RE: Euro Mount Help.....
 

wish I could help bigj...but i was gonna suggest frans input.. looks like he beat me to it... good luck, nice looking buck btw.. gonna make a nice addition to the man-room there!

RE: Euro Mount Help.....
 

How's this??

RE: Euro Mount Help.....
 

This looks like a fairly easy project. I might soak the skull in a strong bleach solution for a couple of days just to get it cleaned up - rinse - let dry out for a couple of days. I would tape off the base of the horns and "flock" the skull with antique white spray paint. Hold the can back several feet and just give it a light dusting of the off-white paint. You don't really paint it.

Then lightly dab some walnut stain on the antlers with a small artist's brush. You want to do this fairly conservatively - don't get the antlers too dark. A slightly blotchy effect looks the best.

RE: Euro Mount Help.....
 

Thanks guys for your input, please keep it coming!

Atlas,

Tell me more about that skull painting....looks interesting.

RE: Euro Mount Help.....
 

Do you really think I need to bleach it again? This skull is about 20 years old, I was just going to wash off the dust and have at it. I'm not as worried about the skull as I am the antlers. I don't mind (kinda like actually) the white painted skull, but I really want the antlers to look as natural as possible.

RE: Euro Mount Help.....
 

Might not be absolutely necessary to bleach the skull again. I was thinking that, after all this time, it might not hurt to get it real clean again before the light coat of paint. The flocking effect on the skull looks real good, and tends to even out the various tones of white.

The horns aren't real difficult, but require a little bit of artistic talent to look right. The stain is lightly dabbed on near the bases with a very small artist brush; and put on more in a light brush-stroke application on the main beams. I would leave the tips white.

RE: Euro Mount Help.....
 

I did alot of research before I did my Euro mount. The one thing most taxidermists said was to NEVER bleach a skull. Bleaching a skull is bad for it, and too much bleaching can turn it powdery and flaky.

To get it nice and white, I'd soak it in a hydrogen peroxide solution (20% solution from a beauty supply shop is best. You can use the 3% stuff from Walmart but it takes longer to work).

Place the skull in the peroxide, keeping the antlers out of it. Wet paper towels with the peroxide solution and lay them over the top of the skull. Keep the paper towel wet.

For the antlers, I'd use regular wood stain at the bases to give them that dark look. Or you can buy antler stain from a taxidermist. Wood stain works fine though.

If you are totally lazy like me, you can just spray paint it with a low gloss textured white paint. I did this on mine and it turned out fine. The textured surface looked very "bony" and natural.

RE: Euro Mount Help.....
 

Atlas, i like that ;)did you do that??