Have done several European mounts over the years using Clorox bleach to clean and whiten the skulls but the bleach weakens the skull causing "chalking" of the bone, so decided to try boiling the skull on this gemsbok instead.
After removing everything possible from the skull, it was placed in a 5 gallon bucket with enough hot water to completely submerge even horn bases 3-4" then added a cup or so of dish detergent to help de-grease. One advantage of boiling versus bleach is that the soap/water do not discolor the horns/antlers.
Lacking an outside gas burner, I purchased a single burner electric hotplate with hopes that it would be capable of brining the "stew" up to a slow simmer. It was, and in fact, once water started to roll/bubble slowly, I had to cut back the thermostat and let 'er cook overnight.
Next morning, most of the remaining material on the skull fell off or was easily removed and the horn sheaths were loosened sufficiently to twist and remove from the bone cores, which were sawed off at about 3".
The stripped skull was then submerged in 3% hydrogen peroxide for about 30 hours to whiten. If I ever do another, I will probably do this step differently. Understand that stronger (40% I believe) peroxide is available at beauty supply stores and wrapping the skull w/strips of old towels allows saturation w/peroxide for faster whitening. Happy with my results, but it took a lot of the 3% to submerge the skull; fortunately the 3% is quite inexpensive.
After whitening complete, rinsed well and set in bright sunlight for a day or two to dry. Decided best option to mount skull plate was to fill brain cavity with epoxy with a 1/4" bolt embedded since there did not seem to be enough solid bone to hold the weight with wood or sheet metal screws.
The next step proved to be the most difficult, but again, if I do another, I'll do it differently. I soon learned that even a 1/16" error in "squaring" the skull plate on plaque really shows up at the end of the 38" horns!
Next time I will clean off my work bench to provide a large enough area to mount/square the skull & horns rather than trying to eyeball just the skull. When I was satisfied that it was squared up, I put a wood screw through the plaque to keep it from moving.
Once skull mounted, I boiled a cheap cigar to make a nicotine solution which was sprayed inside the horn sheaths to discourage insects.
Regards,
hps
After removing everything possible from the skull, it was placed in a 5 gallon bucket with enough hot water to completely submerge even horn bases 3-4" then added a cup or so of dish detergent to help de-grease. One advantage of boiling versus bleach is that the soap/water do not discolor the horns/antlers.
Lacking an outside gas burner, I purchased a single burner electric hotplate with hopes that it would be capable of brining the "stew" up to a slow simmer. It was, and in fact, once water started to roll/bubble slowly, I had to cut back the thermostat and let 'er cook overnight.
Next morning, most of the remaining material on the skull fell off or was easily removed and the horn sheaths were loosened sufficiently to twist and remove from the bone cores, which were sawed off at about 3".
The stripped skull was then submerged in 3% hydrogen peroxide for about 30 hours to whiten. If I ever do another, I will probably do this step differently. Understand that stronger (40% I believe) peroxide is available at beauty supply stores and wrapping the skull w/strips of old towels allows saturation w/peroxide for faster whitening. Happy with my results, but it took a lot of the 3% to submerge the skull; fortunately the 3% is quite inexpensive.
After whitening complete, rinsed well and set in bright sunlight for a day or two to dry. Decided best option to mount skull plate was to fill brain cavity with epoxy with a 1/4" bolt embedded since there did not seem to be enough solid bone to hold the weight with wood or sheet metal screws.
The next step proved to be the most difficult, but again, if I do another, I'll do it differently. I soon learned that even a 1/16" error in "squaring" the skull plate on plaque really shows up at the end of the 38" horns!
Next time I will clean off my work bench to provide a large enough area to mount/square the skull & horns rather than trying to eyeball just the skull. When I was satisfied that it was squared up, I put a wood screw through the plaque to keep it from moving.Once skull mounted, I boiled a cheap cigar to make a nicotine solution which was sprayed inside the horn sheaths to discourage insects.
Regards,
hps
. Power washing will get the trophy nice and clean. Put trophy in a shallow plastic container and cover with kitchen paper pushing kitchen paper to all nooks and cranies. now wet the kitchen paper with the peroxide. you only need to wet the paper not flood it. Result nice with trophy. 
I have seen others that turned out great, though; maybe my pest control is service doing too good a job?
