Not a monster, but my best deer yet. Considered a shoulder mount, but couldn't justify the cost.
Good news was that I din't have to worry too much about his antlers bleaching out. They were WHITE to begin with.
Out of the freezer
Starting maceration here
Eight point is done and drying as we speak.
I dried it out about a week ago after degreasing and it still had a coule spots around the sutures. Back into the degreaser.
Last night i put in some 36% (yes... 36% H2O2... bad stuff) before bed around 11:00. Got up at 6:00 this morning and D-O-N-E. If you every chose to use this stuff, be sure to wear eye protection and good gloves. I was wearing flip flops last night adn one drop fell on my big toe. I washed it off imediately and flushed with water for a good minute or so. By the time my foot dried, it looked like this... (yes, my grody toe, but I just want to talk about safety for a minute and this illustration proves it)
The long scratch looking deal that runs the length of the toe is where I kicked an oyster a couple weeks ago, but the round one is from the H202. One little tiny drop. If you use this stuff, be careful! Would hate to think what this stuff would do to an eyeball.
Back to skull... so, out of the degreaser it came yesterday. I soaked in hot sink to wash all soap and amonia off. Also, with hot water, it helps dry the skull because the bone is warm is steams all the moisture out. Being the impatient son of a gun that I am, I still wanted to speed up the drying process before whitening. Figured why not keep the bone warm in order to keep pushing the water content out of the bone... SO, you guessed it... periodic 10-15 second hits with the microwave. About 10 of those over the course of twenty minutes and my skull was boned dry!
Yep... whitetail skull in the microwave. You know what, though? She's the one that said yes. Yes to mariage, that is... not yes to skull in microwave. She should have known stuff like this is going to go down every now and then!
Here it is in the H202. I was concerned about H202 on the burrs. Really din't want to have to re-stain them, or bother with silicone deal (messy and tedious). So, I cut up an old T-Shirt and wrapped two pieces around the bases. I also cut a flap to lay over the top of his head and over the back. That flap had two little wings on it and I used the pieces around the bases to grab those wings to keep the flap over the top of the head in place.
Check it...
End result, and this is still wet from rinsing skull in warm water to kick remaining H202. I expect it will whiten a bit more once good and dry.
Sorry, couldn't help myself. 