23 replies to this topic

[PALLBEARER]

.....Human skulls that is ....work for the coroners office...its legit..lol......i may want to whiten my skulls........they are a few years old........is that gonna be a problem...?????..............you dont need to be 6 feet under......

[eddie-shakem]

Ranger said:

I have been cautioned by some who use beetles who say if they get loose they could eat up the hides on any mounts you may have in the vicinity. It would depend on how your mounts were preserved, I guess, but if you have mounts around, I would be leery of bringing in any kind of insect that might eat hide or hair. That is just my personal thoughts about it.

I would boil them. After you get all the meat out, mix 50/50 peroxide and Clairol hair bleach from beauty salon store. Use a brush and put it all over the skull. DO NOT leave it on there more than 40 minutes or it will start eating off the outer layer of shiny bone. Rinse it off and you are done.

I have a picture of a bear skull done this way I need to get off my other computer in the shop. I left one part of the jaw bone unbleached to show the difference in it. I will try to get the picture on here in a day or so.

Also, like Bucknbill said, if you just let the skull sit outside it just turns into a mess. Several years ago, I hung a bobcat skull up outside with a piece of wire and left it to see how it would turn out. It came out nice and black with some green in it.

it has to be a lot of beetles to get out to eat the hides. some get out of my tank once and a while. its the babys that do the large amount of eating. what i cant stand is the smell after about 5000 beetles it gets smelly.

[Cajun Executioner]

I have only done one mount this way and it came out really good. It was only a small 6 point and I let the meatles have it for about 2 weeks which pretty much took most if not all of the meat off. I then took a large plastic container and filled it up with hot water just high enough to get to the base of the antlers and I took some chlorine that I use for my hot tub and poured a lot of chlorine in it to practically make bleach. I only had to soak the skull for a day or two and changed the water and chlorine out and soaked for another day. I ended up flipping it and doing the antlers also. I still have it on my shelf in the office and it is still in great shape.

[Razors Edge]

you should just use a high pressure washer, it will remove all the meat from the skull in about 20 minutes.
Wear rubber boots and full rain gear.
To whitten the skull, use 30 Volume or 40 Volume Hydrogen peroxide , health food store or pharmacy. Rub it into the bone, it will make it white. You should not use bleach for this, it will comprimise the bone structure.
good luck