Home Forums Hunting & Shooting General Big Game Best way to clean Skull's?

Best method to clean meat off Bear/Whitetail,ect Skull?

I use to throw them in a ant pile, or hang them in a tree for a year. Any other quicker way besides sitting down with a knife and spending hrs picking the meat off? Ive also heard soak in Baking soda?

Dermestid beetles do a fantastic job.

Here is a place that will clean your skulls for you for a pretty good price.

http://www.webugwildlifeskulls.com/prices.htm

Here is a place to buy your own dermestid beetles.

http://www.bonesandbugs.com/purchase-dermestid-beetles.html

I'm too cheap to use the beetle guy, so I clen the skull as best I can, then boil it. Actually you just want it to simmer, as getting the skull too hot will crack it. It is not for the squeamish though. mtmuley

I have boiled mine in a solution of Sodium Carbonate that I bought from McKenzies Taxidermy Supply. The directions are on the box. http://www.mckenziesp.com/

First you have to clean as much stuff off as you can. Removing the brains and cleaning the cranial cavity is time consuming. Be careful not to boil it too long. You don't want the bones to start falling apart at the joints.

Then I bleached them in a solution of 1/2 cup Clorox in 3 gallons water. Dont leave it in the bleach for more than a few minutes.

KC

Good friend of mine just started a business called www.rockymountainbeetleworks.com

Give him a call if you need help with this kind of stuff. He's a hard hunter and a good guy and one of my best friends.

Dober

I asked Greenhorn about this a few years ago. He gave me a very good idea about how to do it.

Clean all the big stuff off.
Simmer for awhile.
Clean more crap off.
Repeat simmering/cleaning(beer drinking) until it meets your standards. It will take a long time but it will be worth it.

Simmering...


Bob checking progress.


Once you get it cleaned up(and becareful around the fragile nose bones/sinus area) you will need to soak it in some of the crap women use to lighten up their hair color. I think a guy wants to use 40% hydrogen peroxide? Correct me if I'm wrong here.
Regardless it works great if you wrap paper towels around the base of the antlers so that the liquid gets up there but not actually on the antler itself.



It will take a day or two for the skull to whiten up and should look fairly natural when it's done. I'm not into the super white fake looking, glazy skulls and using the stuff Greenhorn recommended this won't be a problem.


Long story short it takes alot of work to get the skull looking good. I would only do it on a nice critter(or kid's first deer etc..), which reminds me, my little 4x4 from last Fall is still sitting in the garage with the hide on!

I let them rot in the back shed for 3 or 4 years. Don't know what bug eats them, but eventually they get pretty clean and the rest dries up.

I soak them in a water filled tub all winter.

Leave them out by a red ant den for a while. They don't miss anything.

Fastest way is with a pressure washer. Use a coat hanger with a little loop on the end, chucked up in a drill motor to whip the brains up. Then go to the car wash, stand around the corner [it gets nasty at first] and blast the brains out. You can get lots of the other stuff off too but works better if you have simmered it first for about 30 minutes.

The peroxide you want is 40 volume, which is only about no where near 40% peroxide. If you can find food grade peroxide, use it but it is prohibitively expensive in less than 15 gallon barrels.

You can wrap cotton wadding around the bases to wick it up. Keep it off the antlers or they will bleach too.

Country beetle method........stake the skull over a fire ant bed, then stir up the ants and wait a few weeks. Clean skull can then be bleached until white.

The best way to clean skulls is to watch someone else do it!

I spent yesterday afternoon on these 2 winter kills. Nothing like liquid brains pouring out the back of a skull. Whew, you will run gagging.

The biggest tip I know is to let the post peroxided skull soak in the sun afterwards for a day. It really makes a difference.

Sal soda is almost mandatory if you want to get it clean quick enough. I also find that even using Sal Soda it helps to soak Antelope skulls in a warm bucket of Dawn detergent after popping the shealths. They are greasy. I would guess bears are the same but have not been around them much.

I leave 'em in the fork of a tree for a few months. Critters and insects will clean a lot of it off. Then Boil 'em and scrape then do it again.

You can bleach the skull like in the pics above with peroxide, just make sure the base of the antlers don't get in the stuff.

I guess it comes down to if you want to spend the money having someone else do it or if you have the time save a few bucks by doing it yourself.

I've done all of the above methods and without a doubt having the beetles do it was the most painless. A fellow by the name of ursus21 that hangs around here did a skull for me that turned out beautiful.

Lotsa ways to do it, but since the question was the best way...

beetles.

Beetles best +3

Pressure washer 2nd best, although usually gives me the drive heaves on an old one.

Boiling in washing soda and borax with either of the above or as the primary treatment. Change the water 2-3 times.

Follow with Peroxide and leave in the sun.

I"m mostly out of taxidermy these days....

You folks do what works best for you, but I'll tell you my years of experience.

Beetles are the best bet period.

Rotting them off is second best but change the water often enough and don't let it turn red or green on you..... you'll cuss that for sure.

Boiling is NOT a good method, it turns fat to liquid which gets into bone pores and turns it yellow and rancid...

IF you must use hot water, don't let it boil, and if you use sal soda follow the directions or you'll come back to no skull at all.

As to hanging in trees, takes too long for me.... ants I've never ever seen do a job worth a flip, and trust me, here we have big nests of red ants and tons of fire ants, neither will clean a skull worth a flip.

The rotting in water method was the only one accepted by the Denver Museum a number of years back...... if that says anything.

You do have to whiten some after done, either with hair bleach kit that requires heat on the paste for it to work, or soak in Hyd Perox..... I'm trying HP that comes from the drug store lately, very weak but soak it long enough and they come clean nicely so far.

Jeff

Send it to Skulls Unlimited, they've been doing museum quality work for many years and their prices are very reasonable....

I did the rotting in water trick on a mule deer once. I got a tip off here to put a aquarium heater in with it and it really sped up the process. I used the same stuff Sam did to whiten it. Wife was unhappy with the stinky head in the garage but all in all was pretty easy.

That said the last one I just took to be beetle cleaned.