# Self Sufficiency/Living off the Land or Off the Grid > Making Stuff > How-to Tutorials Only >  European (Skull) Mount

## Ted

So you shot that monster trophy and don't have the cash to pay a taxidermist. All you need is a big pot, some baking soda, and a fire!

Just cut the hide off your trophy, cutting close to the skull around the ears nose and lips. Put it in a pot of boiling water with the baking soda. Half a box will easily do a deer skull, so I imagine this is enough for anything that fits in the pot.  

After a couple hours carefully lift it out.  If the lower jaw falls off it's done. If it doesn't wait another hour or so till it does.

Once the jaw falls off, take it out and let it cool enough to be handled. Don't throw out the water. You mat have to fish through it for teeth or muzzle plates, and such that fell off.

The meat, eyes and such that are left can easly be removed with a toothbrush. Poke a srewdriver into the brain cavity and swish it around till all the brain is removed .Running some water in the cavity after each swishing helps. Then do the same thing to the nasal cavity, but more gently.

If any muzzle plates, teeth or bones in the nasal area fell off ,strain the soup and fish them out. Figure out where they go and glue them back on with superglue.

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## rebel

Nice job!  I made a wire cage and let the bugs do the work.

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## your_comforting_company

Nice work Ted. You gonna tan that skin? Looks like a real nice one!
I see a lot of folks just hang them on a post and lose all the extras. Do you have to sterilize it with bleach or peroxide or anything?

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## Ted

Thanks guys!

YCC, My BIL arrowed this and wants me to do a full mount with it. No he didn't save the rest of the hide....whatever! But yes, the cape is being tanned of course. 

You can buy 12% hydrgen peroxide from taxidermy supply places and other things that will make them snow white, but I never have. You can also leave them out in the sun to bleach them more but I never have...LOL! As for disenfecting, no thier good to go as long as you have all the soft tissue removed.

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## RCKCRWLER

Ted I have a method I think you should try.  I too used to boil skulls until I heard about maceration.  

It is so much cleaner looking than a boiled skull.  The problem with boiling is the plates in the skull and around the nasal passages swell and split apart.  Macertation takes time to do, but you let the bacteria do the work for you.  
You can google it but it's pretty easy to do.  
Cut off all excess meat, hide, eyes, tongue etc.
Put skull in water 
Put in fish tank heater and set to 78-80 degress and let it simmer.
When the water is cloudy and nasty, change the water.  Becareful as you said above watch out you don't lose any teeth.  
Keep changing the water and macerating until the water stays clean on it's own for a couple of days. 

Now to further the beauty of the skull, if you wish... 
Let it dry and check for grease spots.  If the skull has any grease spots make sure it is dry and then put it in a metal can with acetone.  Did I say make sure the skull is dried out!!  If not the moisture will rust the metal can and then you have a rusted skull on your hands...
After a couple of weeks in acetone remove the skull and let it dry.  After it's dried yet again take a plastic container, insert the skull and fill the container with regular hydrogen peroxide, and let it sit for another couple of weeks.  be sure to move the skull around so air is not trapped in the cranial cavity.
After this stage in the game you can let the skull sit in the sun for a couple of weeks to whiten the skull.  (I don't because I like my skulls the natural bone color.)  Before I let anyone touch the skull I make sure to glue the teeth in with elmers glue and let dry.  Then, I take rustoleum clear coat matte finish and give the skull a couple of light coatings.  This keeps greasy fingerprints off of them.  

Long winded but after I found out about maceration I will never boil a skull again.  I used to have my own dermestid beetle colony and they cleaned skulls like nothing else.  After they cleaned I still did the above acetone and peroxide treatments.  

Just my .02 and preference.  I'll take some pix of my skulls tonight.

Nice 9 pointer BTW!

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## hunter63

I'm kinda thinking about doing the skull this way if I get lucky enough to bag another decent rack.
SIL just puts them on a fire ant hill with a cage around it, seems to work pretty well, but I'm liking your idea better

Thanks for posting.

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## LowKey

maceration? You didn't mention the stink. I can't stand that smell.

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## Ted

> maceration? You didn't mention the stink. I can't stand that smell.


LOL!!! Never done it but I can imagiane it aint perty!

 Boil in the baking soda is pretty odorless and a whole lot faster! Plus you don't have to cut anything off before hand. Well the hide, it all just falls off after a couple hours.

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## RCKCRWLER

Sorry  :dodge:  I wear a mask.  I did boil my rams head and my now wife, girlfriend at the time came home and let's just say not a good idea to boil a head in the house. :EEK!: 

Here's the ram head I boiled and it started swelling the bone and causing seperation.  I also peroxided this one, clear coated the skull and the horns.  Here is a Bbuffalo head that I did too.  The guy that shipped it to me said it was clean but cartilidge, tendons and brain yuck in the head isn't "clean" to me.  I macerated the head and then just did the peroxide.  Didn't need to acetone it.  Anyways, I can't find my bobcat head my beetles did.  Still packed somewhere, when I do I'll post up.

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## flandersander

This is what I wanted to do with my deer this year. I don't think I could macerate it tho. YUCK! I'll probably do the bugs thing this summer. Maybe give it a boil, then peroxide or a tiny bit of bleach. But we'll see what happens this summer...

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