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Euro mount maceration thread

thedutchtouch said:
Id suggest you put on a pair of nitrile gloves and pull the loose flesh off to expose what's closer to the skull, if you can get some removed it'll speed up, as the bacteria will have to move on to the parts of the buffet that are still present. Also looking at the back of the skull I can't see the hole- did you flush the brain out or is that still in the skull? Get rid of it and anything loose so the bacteria don't have it to eat and waste their time on.
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The photos show post plier job. I gave up trying to get any more off the back of the skull because it would only come off in tiny pieces. Very mushy.

The brain is pretty much gone. There is still some sort of connective tissue in there that is stuck to the interior of the skull. FYI I didn't remove it before the process.
 
thedutchtouch said:
Id suggest you put on a pair of nitrile gloves and pull the loose flesh off to expose what's closer to the skull, if you can get some removed it'll speed up, as the bacteria will have to move on to the parts of the buffet that are still present. Also looking at the back of the skull I can't see the hole- did you flush the brain out or is that still in the skull? Get rid of it and anything loose so the bacteria don't have it to eat and waste their time on.
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Or just drop it off and I can have it done, absolutely snow white, by tonight. I cant imagine waiting 5 weeks to get one done, guess I'm too impatient.
 
Week 6.5: This is going to be the last update, as I am leaving the country for a few months in a couple of days and really need to wrap this up. Had I known that this process could be screwed up and drawn out to 3x what it should have been, I would have done this a different way. For the last few days, I have been pulling the skull out of the water and going over it with pliers, a razor blade, and a wire brush. This is working well, but I would hardly call it "maceration."

Final thoughts: This was much more of a commitment than I wanted it to be. I say that with the full understanding that I probably screwed something up at some point. Whether that was not changing water often enough, or maybe too often, or using cold water, not enough heat etc etc...too many variables to pin the failure on any one thing I did. I would like to try this one more time in the future, just to see if I have a hard time again. If so, I probably won't be making this my method of choice for cleaning skulls.
 
cville_bowhunter said:
Week 6.5: This is going to be the last update, as I am leaving the country for a few months in a couple of days and really need to wrap this up. Had I known that this process could be screwed up and drawn out to 3x what it should have been, I would have done this a different way. For the last few days, I have been pulling the skull out of the water and going over it with pliers, a razor blade, and a wire brush. This is working well, but I would hardly call it "maceration."

Final thoughts: This was much more of a commitment than I wanted it to be. I say that with the full understanding that I probably screwed something up at some point. Whether that was not changing water often enough, or maybe too often, or using cold water, not enough heat etc etc...too many variables to pin the failure on any one thing I did. I would like to try this one more time in the future, just to see if I have a hard time again. If so, I probably won't be making this my method of choice for cleaning skulls.
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One of the nice things about maceration is you can always switch to something else with no chemicals or anything to was off-why not try the simmer method now to finish it off if you're running out of time?
 
thedutchtouch said:
One of the nice things about maceration is you can always switch to something else with no chemicals or anything to was off-why not try the simmer method now to finish it off if you're running out of time?
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I agree! I might do that, I just don't have the materials yet
 
I just started doing this myself in December. The 1st attempt went ok. I did it for my cousin. He pretty much had the skull cleaned off most everything except nasal passage and tissue. The skull had been sitting outside for a few weeks prior to me getting it, so everything was kind of dried out. I used a 5 gal bucket and an aquarium heater set to 88. Since its below freezing this time of year in Illinois, I put it in a 55 gal drum with lid to help keep it insulated. The 1st go took 3 weeks. The heater worked, but I could tell it was working constantly. I changed the way water out every 2 days with new warm water. After 3 weeks, the head was in good shape. The 2nd attempt went much better. I bought a 2nd heater, which really kept the water temp stable at 88 deg. I also used a fresh skull that I only removed the hide and brain from. (check it out, you wont regret it
https://www.pinterest.com/pin/675188169129522409/
). This head was completely cleaned out in a week and a half. It went so much faster. I've managed to complete 4 skull macerations since starting the 1st one on just before christmas.
 
I been doing it for years. First week or so the smell is pretty bad but after that it’s not bad at all. I used to do taxi and had the beetles and it was just a to much. Sometimes they want to eat and other times they don’t. The water always works. I use a fish tank heater to keep the water around 90 degrees. Once all the heavy is gone I start adding dawn to the water to degrease at the same time. It will take a good month to complete one or longer.
 
thedutchtouch said:
I thought you were a blacksmith, not a taxidermist! That one 4 back is heavy looking, how large are the bases?
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Mounted deer heads for several years but got soo busy. The last yr I had 52. Just too many late nights in the shop. Started beating money out of steel. When you get tired, just shut down the fire and quit.
 
Coming back to this...

I was out of the country for a few months, but I'm now able to pick up where I left off. Back in January, I let the skull dry out as best as it could then wrapped it in a few trash bags and threw 'em in the freezer. A couple days ago, I pulled the skull out of the freezer, let it thaw, and it's back in the bucket with a heater (although it is probably plenty warm in VA right now). The plan is to leave it in the bucket until everything comes off...hopefully not too long. A little worried about the lack of bacteria growth because there is so little meat on the bone, but there is not much I can do about that now. All of the remaining flesh is toward the back of the skull and a little around the eye sockets.

Here are some photos of what it looked like going into the bucket. Also, I was looking through from cell cam photos from last summer and found this photo. I think it could be this same deer, although there is no way of knowing for sure...
Screenshot 2023-06-09 at 17.01.05.pngScreenshot 2023-06-09 at 17.01.45.pngScreenshot 2023-06-09 at 17.02.17.png
 
I recently skinned, cooked and pressure washed a hog head…nasty and kinda pointless as teeth go flyin and, more importantly, the brains and other internals were still in there…maybe I didn’t use the right technique, but any more involved and I’d need a hazmat suit…

Put it in a tub of water and it instantly started cookin/growin stuff and cleaned up very nicely in about a week to a week and a half. Last time though it had something growing on it, shown in pic below. I left it out in the sun for a few days to dry out and haven’t tried scrubbing yet. Same thing grew all over the inside of my tub too. This didn’t happen with the deer skull I did over the winter. I don’t think it was too hot here in coastal GA, as we haven’t really hit summer temps yet. Kinda strange. Y’all ran into this?
 

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FrankNess14 said:
I recently skinned, cooked and pressure washed a hog head…nasty and kinda pointless as teeth go flyin and, more importantly, the brains and other internals were still in there…maybe I didn’t use the right technique, but any more involved and I’d need a hazmat suit…

Put it in a tub of water and it instantly started cookin/growin stuff and cleaned up very nicely in about a week to a week and a half. Last time though it had something growing on it, shown in pic below. I left it out in the sun for a few days to dry out and haven’t tried scrubbing yet. Same thing grew all over the inside of my tub too. This didn’t happen with the deer skull I did over the winter. I don’t think it was too hot here in coastal GA, as we haven’t really hit summer temps yet. Kinda strange. Y’all ran into this?
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I have never messed with hog bones, but from what I've heard, they have way more fat in them and need to be degreased...it looks like the "corpse wax" I've seen mentioned in regards to maceration
 
This one took 3 hrs. of Boil, Pressure Wash, Bleach, Seal.
 

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gcr0003 said:
You have an aquarium heater right?
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I do yeah. The last two I just left em in for a lot longer and they still end up getting 100% cleaned off. Since the weather is getting colder I may need to throw a heater in this one, I'm going to check on it in a week or two to see what progress has been made. Or maybe I'll move it inside and throw a heater in the bin.
 
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