Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Elk Hunting Deadhead restoration

Felt like sharing this during the offseason. Found a nice deadhead this past year. It was "in the white" from, I suppose, two or more years out in the timber. However, it was not "chalky" at this point and surprisingly, no critters ate on it; I had a good set of antlers. When found, It had a good bit of hair and mummified tissue on it, as you would expect. I've Euro'd a few animals here and there and was familiar with the process. I boiled the skull with laundry detergent for a few hours and then loaded it up in the pickup, heading to the local car wash. Once there, I pressure washed all the crud off (pressure washing is the way to go....makes a crappy task easy) and later treated the skull with peroxide to whiten it.

Then came the task of darkening the white antlers. I use a product called Briwax from England. Just buy it on Ebay or Amazon. Some hardware stores carry it too. Its a beeswax based wood stain used in the antique industry. Many shades are available but "light brown" gives the most natural look. I daub it on with a bristle paint brush and wipe off with a towel after a minute or so, leaving the tips in the white of course. The Briwax dries/cures to a dull finish that looks entirely natural. I found out early on that the antler chandelier folks use this stuff religiously. I can see why!

I was pleased with the results and felt like sharing. For what it's worth, he scored 338 5/8". I suppose I'll keep him in my shop. I wouldn't want to display him in the house with my bulls.

Looks good.

Good work. Dang pretty one.

Nice work.

Great work, need to do the same with one I found last year.

Good job

Look'n good. Darkening sun bleached antlers is pretty difficult from what I have been told. Never tried doing it, myself.

I found this dead head a few years ago, that had died in the shade and still had a fair amount of color left. I told a friend about it (I couldn't care less about them, personally) so we went and got it the next week. I snapped a pic with this guy packing it with the sun directly in front of him so you really couldn't tell it was a dead head, and proceeded to text it to EVERYONE I knew as this was during hunting season and in a general unit.



My god that was funny.

Nice job! Must’ve been a helluva nice bull alive

That turned out great. A guy I work with has re-colored quite a few deer and elk dead heads with wood stain, I don't know what make he uses but they look good like yours when done.

Those look awful nice Godogs! Excellent work.

that is sharp . a guy i know did a deer like that with coffee grounds . turned out good

Nice work GoDogs! Looks natural. Antlers can vary in color quite a bit so there is no single correct color. That color looks really good. Two seasons ago I left a set of antlers waaay up in an area and considered seeing if they were still there. Couldn't bring myself to make the hike from where we were camped last year.

Hank- that looks great - nice work.

Assuming multiple applications toward the bases for deeper/darker color?
I found a pretty good whitetail in similar condition as described above and wouldn't mind giving that a go.

Looks good, but depending on state, it may or may not be legal. One can own legally taken and tagged heads in Oregon, and folks are now encouraged to retain their tags for such. We may also pick up shed antlers. We cannot, however, bring home deadheads. Seems some folks were dropping trophies either in or out of season, and then about December, coming in with "look what I found."

The only incidents of prosecution I'm aware of though involve folks that are maybe 24 years old, and have 20 some untagged deadhead trophies in the house.

We can now harvest road kill in Oregon. One must register his find, but those magnificent heads must be turned in. Even though I have great roo guard, I shy away from using the truck to score a good rack.

If not legal where it was acquired, I'd not boast of such online. I know our wardens score lots of pinches from social media.

the guy i know had to get a tag or some thing for the one he found in Ohio .

Yeah that looks great

Yep. He came from New Mexico and I stopped by the NM game and Fish office about 10 miles away, but on my way home, and got a "permission slip" to carry with me all the way home. For the last three years I've found dead heads and always stop by G&F to make sure I'm legal. NM, like other states, can be funny about pick ups. If you see a dead bighorn you, legally, cannot even pick the dang thing up. I had a guy offer me one side of a bighorn that was shed (popped off?) for free....thought about it and said "thanks but no thanks".

G&F wants to know everything about where I found em each time. In particular, if I found them up in a tree. Dumb ol flatlander me asked why, once they determined I wasn't a bad guy. They said I could have killed one last year, hid the antlers in a tree, kept hunting and killed elk #2 and tagged him. I come back next year elk hunting and kill a nice bull and low and behold I "find" a deadhead in a tree and bring him back. Rinse and repeat....in effect, killing two each year.

That’s a nice find, very nice rack.

Scott you are observant. I’ve seen a ton of elk colored up like that, so I mimicked it as best I could. I had some dark brown Briwax left over from other projects and applied that to the bases and up a ways. Then I switched off to the light brown Briwax stopping before I got to the tips, leaving them in the white. Got him hung up in my shop....takes up a good bit of wall space.

Super cool