Euro Mounts

[ncturkey]

Michelle and Huntress give us good advise on how to do a Euro Mount.From start to finish.This skull in my trophy room was natural Euro Mount.I found it outside on gameland one day.God had skinned it and made it white.It is a great job he did on it.Ok girls show us how to do it.

[taxidermywoman23]

Well..... Their realy isn't all that much to it... Remove all the brains and meat that you can from the skull.... boil in water, salt and Sal Soda as directions indicate. It will gell up the meat and then you got to scrape off all the gelled up meat and let it dry bac out and put the skull in some peroxide.....Walla you have a Euro Mount.... Did I metion scraping meat off....thats a pain in the rear.... LMAO... Thats why we charge what we do for them...

[Huntress]

"Boiling" Method
-Remove hide, eyes, and as much meat as possible.

Solution can be
-plain water
-salt water, 1c./gallon
-salt and soda ash, 1c. salt 1/2c. soda ash (sal soda) per gallon.

To any of the solutions you should add a degreaser. For a home recipe Dawn dish soap will work, 1Tbsp./gal.

Place skull in solution and SLOWLY raise the temperature until the water is ABOUT to boil. Simmer until the meat can easily be removed. Check often, remove as much meat as possible then put back in the solution again. Keep checking until all soft tissue is removed.

Everyone (including me) calls this the boiling method but there should be NO boiling involved. If the water gets too hot the teeth will crack. Cooking for too long will cause the teeth to fall out and the bones may come apart.

Once all the soft tissue is removed, rinse well. Mix a new solution of hot (not boiling) water and Dawn dish soap. 1/2c. Dawn/gal water. Soak skull for 24 hrs. The more grease you can remove from the bone the whiter your skull will be. For bears and boars a commercial degreaser should be used. Check after 24 hrs---if there is grease floating on top of the solution mix a new batch and soak again.

After degreasing rinse and let dry 12hrs.

Soak in hydrogen peroxide--3% is available in any pharmacy. Stronger concentrations can be found in beauty supply stores or from your hair dresser.

Soak only as long as it takes to whiten the bone. Drying in the sun will also help make the skull white.

[Huntress]

Maceration Method

This is rotting the meat from the bones and can be done a couple different ways.

You can-
Place skull in a kettle of warm water and let sit at room temperature--change water when you can't stand the smell any more, but remember that it's the bacteria in the smelly water that clean the skull so every time you change it you're starting over.
Or-
Place skull and one cup water in a plastic bag or bucket with a lid. Seal bag and keep warm till meat falls off.

Once you have all the tissue removed continue with the steps for degreasing/whitening as in the boiling method.

Beetle Cleaning Method
Pretty much self explanatory--let dermestid beetles clean the tissue from the skull and then degrease/whiten as in boiling method.


If you have a potential record book animal that needs the skull cleaned in order to be scored i.e. bear, or mountain lion I would NOT use the boiling method to clean it as it WILL shrink when dry. I would use the maceration method or send it out to be professionally beetle cleaned.

[HighTechRedneck]

huntress said:

Maceration Method
You can-
Place skull in a kettle of warm water and let sit at room temperature--change water when you can't stand the smell any more, but remember that it's the bacteria in the smelly water that clean the skull so every time you change it you're starting over.

How good of a job does this method do if the head is not skinned before it is placed in the water? The guy who rents the house on my parents farm saved a nice head last year planning on taking it to get mounted as soon as he had a little extra cash, but his freezer quit working. Everything was prety nasty by the time he realized it because the freezer was out in one of the sheds and he had not been in there for a few weeks. It was just a few days ago when he noticed it. The head is currently in a 55 gal barrel that is sitting outside full of rain water.

[Huntress]

The skin needs to be removed. Then try to get as much meat off as possible. Remove eyes and tongue. Then keep checking it every few days. As it rots keep scraping off the bits of meat till it's good and clean. If it soaks too long the membrane that holds the bones together will rot and the skull will come apart and the teeth will fall out.

I prefer the plastic bag method as the skull is just damp and the bones aren't absorbing all that water. I think there's less chance of it falling apart.

[duckboy007]

And if the teeth do fall out, just a tad of superglue will hold them in there.

[mtman]

This is the method I used for years before I got my beetles and started doing between 40-50 game heads, and literally hundreds of small skulls. I could do a dozen a year easy. Its a great method as long as you:
1) Are not in a hurry.
2) Protect the horns/antlers from rodents, dogs, and the sun
3) REMEMBER YOU BURIED THEM!!!

If you can, wait until the ground thaws and warms, then dig a hole and follow directions below. Be sure animals can't get a them to dig up the skulls or chew on the horns.
Skull cleaning, with beetles or boiling out, burying in ground is the only alternative I know of. If you have a garage or fur room that can be heated to about 80 degrees- or a room off a basement? Then, get a large washtub, or low sided barrel, and fill it about half full with good rich garden soil. It must be black dirt- sand or clay won't do. The dirt will be frozen at first so put it where it is warm and thaw it to where it does not feel cold when you stick your fngers in it. A 100 watt light shining down from about 2 feet will coax small weeds to sprout, and then you are in business. Don't let the ground dry, but don't let it get soggy.
On skulls, cut off all skin, and all meat you can without spoiling the bone. Take out tongue, eyes and brain through the hole where the spine fastens. Taking out that stuff will speed the clean-up. Plant them over at least 3 inches of ground, with the same over them, but do not have skulls touching. DON'T let a cat or dog get into the box or barrel to dig! After about a month dig up a skull and slosh it in a pan of water to clean off the dirt stickin to it. If white and clean, put it on a shelf to air dry and then check teeth for loose ones, ones that can be fastened by putting a drop of clear glue into the socket, then shoving in the tooth(as stated by duckboy007). If you want an open jaw, glue the back of the lower jaw to the sides of the head, and put a small prop in the mouth until the glue has set. THIS ATTACHMENT WILL NOT OPEN OR SHUT. When you dig up the skull, be sure the lower jaw is there and that you get it. Missing teeth can be found by sifting the dirt very carefully. Clean only one layer of skulls at a time in a tub.
If you have more skulls that need cleaning, get rid of all the meat as above, and then let the skulls dry. When the first batch is clean, soak the second 24 hours in water and then plant them the same as you did the first. They will clean up just as fast. AGAIN, DON'T LET THE GROUND GET HOT, FOR THAT WILL KILL THE BACTERIA DOING THE WORK.
Buffalo is the largest skull I've done. With antlers or horns, the ground must come just to the bottom of the horns- where the big boss is. And with buffalo, cows, antelope, the black outside of the horn is a sheath which will work loose, not be harmed, and can be glued back. These must be done outside when the ground is thawed.
Weasel, mink, muskrat, beaver, coon, fox, coyote all can be cleaned this way. And if you get a possum, fix it with the mouth open-- it has the darndest array of teeth you ever saw.
If the skulls come out rusty, there is rusty iron near them. "Whisk" from the laundry section of the grocery store will clean that off.

Hope this helps, it sounds complicated, but it really isn't and works wonderfully.

[Mobe]

I tried to do the "boiling" method but the book I read was vague on just how it was done. I let it boil and the bones all came loose. It held together, but you can shake it and it sounds like a turtle shell rattle.

[brokenarrow]

I recently did one of these. The first thing I advise is set up "OUTSIDE"! This ain't a indoor game. Whew! Now, I did "boil" mine, however the boil times were not lengthy and just barely boiling. Also, the hotter that water is in the pot, the more important it is that you DO NOT take the project straight from the hot water and rinse in cold. That will crack teeth, skull bone and antler. Folks, this is a lot of work. Keep it frozen until you can dedicate at least one full non-stop day to the task. You will need small bristle bushes, like a tooth brush and one larger and stiffer, screw driver or similar tool, a few limber green sticks of different sizes (1/8", 1/4", etc). Oh yea a knife. When removing meat from parts of the skull that will be visible, be careful to avoid gouging the bone. It's easy to do while hot and soaked. Nasal bones and cavities, to me are the toughest. If the tooth brush is one of those small really cheap ones, it will likely fit right up in there. Boil, Toil, Boil, Toil, Boil, Toil, Boi.........well you get the picture, right? To me this method is better than the natural methods. I've tried ant hills but lost the project to other critters. Tried hanging in trees to let rot and it works good but you loose a couple of your nasal bones this way and if you don't remove the hide first, it takes forever. One more note. Consider whether or not your gonna clean the antlers in the beginning. If you're gonna leave them natural and/or with rub bark in them, you'll have to protect that from your boil water and scrubbing.

[brokenarrow]

brokenarrow said:

I recently did one of these. The first thing I advise is set up "OUTSIDE"! This ain't a indoor game. Whew! Now, I did "boil" mine, however the boil times were not lengthy and just barely boiling. Also, the hotter that water is in the pot, the more important it is that you DO NOT take the project straight from the hot water and rinse in cold. That will crack teeth, skull bone and antler. Folks, this is a lot of work. Keep it frozen until you can dedicate at least one full non-stop day to the task. You will need small bristle bushes, like a tooth brush and one larger and stiffer, screw driver or similar tool, a few limber green sticks of different sizes (1/8", 1/4", etc). Oh yea a knife. When removing meat from parts of the skull that will be visible, be careful to avoid gouging the bone. It's easy to do while hot and soaked. Nasal bones and cavities, to me are the toughest. If the tooth brush is one of those small really cheap ones, it will likely fit right up in there. Boil, Toil, Boil, Toil, Boil, Toil, Boi.........well you get the picture, right? To me this method is better than the natural methods. I've tried ant hills but lost the project to other critters. Tried hanging in trees to let rot and it works good but you loose a couple of your nasal bones this way and if you don't remove the hide first, it takes forever. One more note. Consider whether or not your gonna clean the antlers in the beginning. If you're gonna leave them natural and/or with rub bark in them, you'll have to protect that from your boil water and scrubbing.