I ordered some stuff out of van-dykes to do some antler repair on a couple of sheds and racks I have. I have been looking up as much information as I can about makeing repairs. I'm still a little puzzled as what I should do when I go to staining them. I will be using the metal rod, drillin the hole, then useing apoxie sculpt to make the point. Do I need to do any prep work to the point, like roughin it up? Also when I go to apply the stain (antler stain #2 out of van dykes) I heard some people have difficulty matchin the colors up, so they spray the entire antler with KILZ, would this be a better way to go? Also if I'm doing a bleached antler do I need to spray the KILZ? Thanks for any help...Yea I'm a rookie but hey we all were there sometime. Thanks again.

Big - I don't like using Kilz, I think it makes them look fake. If it were me I'd stain them and then if you don't like it Kilz over top of it and start from scratch. As far as the repair, unless I break it I don't repair it, but that's another story. Just drill your hole and do your repair. I haven't repaired many. 2 infact. Hope it helps

The best stain to use is Potassium Permanganate which you can buy from Jonas Supply 800-525-6379 Add water and apply it will start as a purple color and as it drys it will stain the horns, keep adding more to make it darker.

Rich