My dad and I finished our first European mount on a 8pt. he harvested right before Thanksgiving. It was really simple to do with a little bit of work, but I think turned out really nice. Doing it ourselves saved him quite a bit of money and was a fun project to do with my father.

That looks great. Y'all did a nice job. What did you use to get such white bone?

Norm

I'm getting ready to do the same thing. Did you bury it and let the insects work on it first, or boil and bleach it?

I do know that you have to be very careful not to get any bleach on the antlers.

You did a very nice job. As good or better than most of the "pro" jobs that I've seen! Congrats- nice work.

After we skinned the head and got as much meat off of it as possible we used Sal Soda from Wasco @ http://www.taxidermy.com and SIMMERED the skull for around 30 minutes. Do not boil the skull, try not to get the horns in the water as it will turn them darker. Then we used a pressure washer very gently to remove the rest of the meat off the skull. We allowed it to dry for a few days then bought some 40 volume Hydrogen Peroxide from Sally's Beauty Supply and used a paint brush to cover the entire skull, getting up in all the nooks and crannies. We kept that on the skull for 24 hours, re-coating occasionally.

I bought the wood mount off Ebay for $30 shipped. It turned out to be really pitched forward, but it worked well for this particular mount. What normally costs my dad $125 from his taxidermy cost him $50 total with only a couple hours work. We still have plenty of Sal Soda and Peroxide for other projects.

Having done more research, I think on the next mount we will use the Maceration method. It seems pretty simple with a bucket of water and a fish tank heater. Boiling, and possibly simmering, the skull really keeps the fat/grease in the bone and makes the bone a little more yellow than with maceration. The Sal Soda help keep that from happening, but if you want the whitest possible, it looks like maceration is where it's at.

Thanks for the kind words about the mount. It was fun doing it and was also a good project my dad and I could work on.

Here is a deer he harvested last year that he got his taxidermist to do. After looking online at how easy it was, we decided to do it ourselves.

GREAT JOB!!!
I remember hallway and stairway in my grandpa's house back in Europe - walls were covered with those...

Thanks! I'm just as impressed with how it turned out than the 1st deer he harvested this year. It took a few months to get his first buck from the taxidermist, while we were done with this one in little over a week.