Wednesday, December 16, 2015

Do you simmer or boil a skull? Do you do it for money? 


If so you need to understand  why most professional taxidermists, almost every museum, other institutions  and most serious hobbyists do not use this method.

There are many people that do their own euro trophies and the vast majority do them by the simmer/boil method. This process may work well enough to make the skull owner happy, but there should be a higher standard for anyone producing Euros for clients.

These people should educate themselves on actually making a professional mount that has as little bone damage as possible. The problem with the simmer/boil method is it actually destroys the structure of bone by melting collagen which is the structural building block that makes bone hard.  This process will weaken skulls and cause the surface to become rough, flake or shed calcium dust, none of which is a good thing..

Add to the fact these people do not seem to know that bleaching a skull does not remove any grease and the heat process tends to drive fats deeper into the bone not out of it.

Mixing Dawn into water and simmering may remove the surface grease but it will not touch the deep grease. Oils left in the skull often migrates to the surface  producing a yellow or splotchy colored mount.

If you are doing skulls professionally you should provide a quality product and that takes time...there is no such thing as a one day quality Euro mount. There is information available in doing Euros that will stay white and not show damage and it is not hard to find!

One other point I want to make - just because you see something on U-Tube does not make it right. Especially when the do-er has no idea what is being done to their trophy.

Because it looks OK now and it is cheap is no reason to destroy what could be a skull of a lifetime!