I just finished this mount and I thought that I would share a pic with you all. This buck was taken in brown county Illinois at Hunting Unlimited Inc. This buck was taken by my friend and guide and he is a big fan of turquoise if ya cant tell
It is done with deer leather, Sterling Silver, Turquoise, Turkey Feathers, Mink Fur, Carved Antler Base. Had a good time working on this nice buck

Wow! That looks great. How you you clean the skull when it still has all the flesh on it? Any tips?

Very nice ! I like it alot.

Thanks for posting the pic Lady Forge, that really looks great. I don' t know if I can do nearly as good a job but, I have 4 racks at home(skull not with them). They were not big enough that I wanted to pay out to have them mounted(have 3 mounted already), but I might try to come up with something using your ideas.

I prefer to remove as much flesh and tissue as possible and then boil the skull to remove all remaining flesh and tissue from a fresh skull, and a thin bladed fillet knife into the skull cavity to cut up the brain tissue so it will then just fall out of the opening in the back of the skull.
As for some of the not so fresh skulls I prefer to bury them and let mother nature and her bugs clean it, then wash and soak in a solution of water and a small amount of bleach, dont let the antlers come in contact with the water or the bleach will BLEACH OUT WHERE IT TOUCHED THE ANTLERS , AND NOT TO MUCH BLEACH OR IT WILL BEGIN TO EAT AT THE BONE AND I ONLY SOAK OVERNIGHT AT A TIME.
I dont use beetles at this time because I also do some hide tanning and Im afraid that if even one beetle was to escape it could make a meal out of the hides or capes.
Now this skull when I recieved it had been left out in the sun and the flesh that was left on it had dried like petrified Rawhide and it took alot of soaking and pulling to remove all the mummified skin, had to soak and pull, soak and pull etc over and over again. This is how it looked when I got it. Sometimes it takes alot of elbow grease

Cougar Mag ; You should take a look at some of the skull mounts that Bowdascious has done they could also give you some great ideas, he does some really nice skull mounts [8D]

Nice job, thanks for sharing

Thanks for the play by play Lady Forge. I think I might try to do a skull mount with the buck I took last week. I better get after that head before it starts to smell.

Nice job! I believe European sportsman prefer to mount their trophies this way.

Very Cool [8D] I think I will do that to mine when I get one this year.