Dead head cleaning

[jolemons]

I've got a few dead heads to clean that have dried hide covering them. The hide is hard enough that a sharp knife can barely cut through it. Anyone have any tips for softening and removing dried hide?

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[Idaho_Potato]

Drop them in a big bucket of hot/boiling water with a 1/4 cup of dish soap and let it soak for 24 hours. That's one way taxidermists bring a hide back to life when they are in the tanning process. Should be able to trim it off easier afterward.

 

[huntsman22]

or forget the dishsoap and let them soak for a couple/few weeks. they'll be clean when the bacteria eats all the junk off'n them. When clean, then degrease with the dishsoap....

 

[Fatcamp]

I soaked mine for a week in a odor eliminator/cleaner. I will post the name later. No smell at all.

 

[raptor16]

Hot/boiling water or let nature eat it off.

 

[mattferg84]

Heat up water with Oxyclean - not to a boil, that will split the skull. Let the skull simmer for a few hours then use a knife, pliers and powerwasher to clean the rest off.

 

[jmez]

Put in a bucket with water up the level of the antlers. Put said bucket a long way from the house. In a couple of weeks, or when the teeth are loose, go wash it with a power washer. Then soak the entire skull in white gas for 2-3 days.

 

[rklein]

if its separated but just too tough for a knife I've successfully used tin snips a couple of times

 

[jolemons]

A river runs thru the ranch i live on. I'm thinking of soaking in river to soften up.

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[jolemons]

See pic

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[Sccritterkiller]

Heat up water with Oxyclean - not to a boil, that will split the skull. Let the skull simmer for a few hours then use a knife, pliers and powerwasher to clean the rest off.

This ^ plus a straighten length of coathanger to fish the brain out. The pic is before bleaching with hair peroxide. Good Luck!

 

[Fatcamp]

Zep Odor Control is the product I soaked my deadheads in.

3 weeks? Not sure, but they don't smell.

That Whitebone Creations guy on YouTube suggested it.

 

[ColeyG]

After paying for a couple of clean and bleach/euro mount jobs a few years back I started trying to do my own. My first attempts were on a hunting trip to Montana. My uncle had a few deadheads collected in his shed. We didn't wind up making it halfway through the mule deer collection, and there are as many if not more elk heads to be done at some point. Quite a project. This chance to experiment over the course of a few days was a big help in getting going in the right direction for a simple, repeatable process that seems to work really well.

After looking at a bunch of stuff online and then getting into the process, I have a layman's recipe that works very well for me for DIY clean and bleach euro mounts. I've used this method on un-skinned heads that have sat around for years, as well as freshly killed, skinned, and carefully picked heads. The results are good with both.

The way I've been doing involves basically 5 steps:

1) Peel and pick the skull as much as you can before boiling
2) Initial boil, 1-2 hours or until everything is soft, not so long that teeth fall out and skull plates get loose.
3) Pick, clean, and powerwash the skull
4) De-greasing boil with oxiclean, 30 min to an hour
5) Whitening boil with peroxide, 30 min to an hour

I haven't paid close attention to boil times, water to oxiclean ratios, and water to peroxide ratios, but rather just winged it and kept an eye on progress as things went along. With 3% peroxide, which is what I used initially, I think I was at about a 1 gal to 3 gal ration of peroxide to water. More recently I've been getting the larger qty, higher concentrate peroxide from beauty supply stores, 40vol is ideal as you don't have to use as much. I have had the best luck adding the peroxide to water and doing a whitening boil to finish. I have tried the cream form in higher concentrations, painted the skulls in cream and letting them sit, but I wasn't quite as happy with that method.

There are lots of other little tips and tricks that help like wrapping and taping the antlers or bases, etc. I almost always have to wind up touching up the bases of horns and antlers with some stain which is easy to do and easy to get right.

I don't have pics of the finished products handy, but I can add a few later on.

I've used the process above on goats, sheep, and mule deer all with similar results





Deadhead collection




Brain soup

 

[npm352]

Soak them a few days...then boil and scrape....boil and scrape....boil and scrape....then change water to water with dish detergent to degrease......boil and scrape....rinse...put in hydrogen peroxide 3 hours...rinse...dry (preferably in sun) .. that is my go to method.

 

[Wirehair]

Thanks for the tips

 

[Waterboy]

Old thread revival but what do y’all use to seal or clear coat the skulls? I was thinking of poly acrylic. Hopefully a satin or egg shell finish if it’s available.

 

[NorCal Mixed bag]

Yep, Polycrylic works great - use it all the time. Very nice satin finish, and if the teeth are slightly loose, spray it on extra heavy on the jaw line and it helps glue them in place.

 

[Waterboy]

You spray it out of a can?

 

[CobraChicken]

I've got a few dead heads to clean that have dried hide covering them. The hide is hard enough that a sharp knife can barely cut through it. Anyone have any tips for softening and removing dried hide?

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I'm licensed in wyo and have done a ton of them. Key is hydration. Soak it for a long time. I usually use whatever I got, tidepods, zote soap, dawn, etc. Once you hydrate it the hide should be way easier to remove.

I would hydrate it more after you get the hide off. Change your water. It helps pull some of that dried blood to the surface which can make deadheads hard to do if you are whitening it/full clean

 

[NorCal Mixed bag]

You spray it out of a can?

Yep - Minwax Polycrylic. Satin finish.