woolys "true euro" attempt..

[wooly]

After seeing blackradios euro mount in the taxidermy forum, I thought I had to give this a try today.

I've done full skull mounts in the past with less than desireable results, so I'm hoping this one will be interior wall worthy upon completion.., instead of hanging on the shed outside with the rest of the old skulls I never got around to finishing.

Anyhow, sometimes I have a tendancy to procrastinate with these kind of projects, so I figured a step by step picture tutorial would motivate me to get this done in a timely fashion. Feel free to point out anything that doesn't look right, or other pointers or suggestions that may be relevant. I may be looking for advice or opinions at some stages of the process.

Lets get started shall we..

The tools for this phase:

1) Hacksaw & 2 blades

2) sharp knife for skinning

Time involved to final step of this phase = 1 1/2hrs

First the hard part... you'll need to find a buck willing to offer up his head and lopp it off. Here we have the perfect candidate that wont put up much of a fight! A few whacks with a sharp hatchet and you have your specimen!

The first thing I did to this head was cut the ears off just to get them floppy suckers outta the way.

Next I drew an imaginary line from the corner of the mouth to the back of the skull through my ear holes and began sawing as straight as I could from the back of the skull towards the front. I suppose it doesn't matter which way you go about this, I'm just trying to be as detailed as possible. I'll be re-cutting this line later to remove the upper jaw teeth. For now I'm just getting rid of obsolete matter that gets in the way.

...and a view from the bottom of both halves with teeth still in tact. The line I cut here worked out real nice for opening up the brain cavity and access to pop the eyeballs out through the bottom. This was always a problem area I had in my experience with full skull mounts. This technique has several advantages I like already.

Easy enough so far. A sawzall would have probably made this step a lot quicker and easier but I'm sitting down at the crick right now, and not in much of a hurry.

Speaking of being down at the crick, it's a good location to find myself for the next step.... skinning!

I've skinned a few heads here before, and a couple advantages of this location is #1 the water available, and #2 the sandy shore that sticks to the skin making this slimey slippery stuff easier to grab ahold of and pull as you cut.

I don't know that there's a right or wrong way to go about this, so I attacked it one half at a time. Getting the fur off was my main objective at this point, and it didn't have to look pretty.... but it kinda does,lol

Once that was done I got started on the other side.

I always feel like I'm getting more accomplished than I really am when I break it down into sub-steps like this!

So that's as far as I got today plus a little extra scraping after the final pic I posted. Depending on the weather, I may or may not work on it some more tomorrow. If we don't get any measureable snowfall tonight, I'll likely be looking for antlers instead.

Next installment should be some scraping and trimming, perhaps some slow simmering over an open fire, some more scraping, and a finish cut of the lower section of the upper jaw.

If you've followed along this far, thanks for checking it out and constructive critisism or questions are always appreciated and welcome!

I'll post progress as I make it.

[G-Man]

Close, you should skin before you attempt to cut makes it a lot easier.. I use a sawzall the cut should be just below the nose opening and cut the entire upper pallet of the top of the mouth off. (Approximately 1/4 in below lower bone of eye orbit). This exposes the entire brain cavity and much of the nasal passages . Allowing for very easy cleaning after boiling. I have several true europeans and will try to post a side view pic when i get home.

[wooly]

Close, you should skin before you attempt to cut makes it a lot easier.. I use a sawzall the cut should be just below the nose opening and cut the entire upper pallet of the top of the mouth off. (Approximately 1/4 in below lower bone of eye orbit). This exposes the entire brain cavity and much of the nasal passages . Allowing for very easy cleaning after boiling. I have several true europeans and will try to post a side view pic when i get home.

Haha- learning already!

Maybe I will wait for pics before proceeding on my own,lol

Thanx G-man!

[Water Rat]

Your making fantastic progress on your euro mount . I give you credit because I bet the smell would have gagged a maggot . Did you prop up the deers head in the first photo or was that the way you found it ? The reason I ask is because it appears to have bedded down in thick cover, possibly after being wounded during deer season . Thanks for sharing and continued success in your euro mount .

[G-Man]

Benefits from having an uncle who was an award winning taxidermist. Growing up around that stuff you learn quite a bit. glad to see a true European mount being done.

[wooly]

Your making fantastic progress on your euro mount . I give you credit because I bet the smell would have gagged a maggot . Did you prop up the deers head in the first photo or was that the way you found it ? The reason I ask is because it appears to have bedded down in thick cover, possibly after being wounded during deer season . Thanks for sharing and continued success in your euro mount .

Thanks Water Rat, that buck I found with his rack tangled in the thicket VERY tight. I had to hack my way through and some additional brush cutting to get him free. He was in there much tighter than it appears in the pics. No doubt in my mind he died because he couldn't free himself...whether it was due to predation or exposure is unknown. Too fresh to be a statistic from hunting season by the time I found him. I'm just glad to have rescued him instead of him rotting away in the sticks.

Benefits from having an uncle who was an award winning taxidermist. Growing up around that stuff you learn quite a bit. glad to see a true European mount being done.

Well now you're my "go to" man if and when I get stumped.

Good thing you caught me early enough before I did something I can't do over!

I may still be able to come out of this with a blue ribbon!

[sampotter]

Wooly- I highly recommend the buck boiler. It only took 5 hours after skinning it out to when I was able to hang this guy on the wall.

Edited February 15, 2013 by sampotter

[wooly]

Looks great Sam! Never heard of it, but I'll look it up.

[sampotter]

Wooly- I don't mean to hijack your thread but the buck boiler works really well. My Dad gave one to my brothers and me for Xmas a couple years ago (he keeps it at his house though...). It's a plastic bucket with an element in it. You add powdered Cascade dish detergent and the meat and gunk melts off in a matter of hours. There's no need to cut the back of the skull off either, I just hook the brains out with a piece of wire. Wrap the bases of the antlers with saran wrap to keep the bark in and the grease off. We've done 15-20 heads in the last couple of years, even some that sat around and mummified for a few years. The fresher ones come out a lot whiter. Here's my roadkill from Halloween:

[wooly]

I just watched a few vids on that baby. Pretty darn sweet!

That does seem to get 'em good and clean real quick. I'll have to put it on my wish list for next Christmas.

I'd deffinately get plenty of use from something like that, but I'm afraid this skull gonna have to be done old school kettle and campfire style!

[growalot]

Thanks for the thread Wooly...good job...now I wish I had done this years buck.....Oh well..It will just get me motivated to go after a bigger deer next year...lol

[ny hunter]

Grow that was a nice deer.You did not have it mounted?

[growalot]

No I just take pics ...we do keep the racks...he is hanging in the garage right now...Mr B did buy some very nice blk walnut plaques to mount him... last years bow... and one other I got several years ago....

One day I will shoot and retrieve....... another buck like the one I and deer search lost 2 years ago...... at least I hope...That would be a full shoulder mount..hhmm...... If I had room...it would have been a full body mount actually.......and I wouldn't have blinked twice at the price...even as cheap as I am...lol

[wooly]

I had a little time to spare today, so I decided to correct my skull cut per suggestions.

I think I'm pretty close to where I'm supposed to be, although I may need to straighten it up just a tad before it hits a plaque.

Since I had it opened up, there was a good bit of cleaning up I got done on the interior as well. Not a hint of brains or nasal passages left.

So far, so good... I think?

I'll get him cooking sometime this week when I find time again. I think the hardest part is behind me at this point.

[sampotter]

Man- you had a lot of spare time. The boiling water takes care of those extra details. Bet it smelled wonderful too.

[wooly]

Lol- Just trying to cut down on my cooking time Sam!

I think it smells worse once you start boiling it to tell ya the truth.

Everything was still pretty frozen, so it kept the stink down.

[sampotter]

I like to throw potatoes and carrots in with mine.

[wooly]

LMAO!

Yuck...veggies!

[blackradio]

Looks really good so far. I never even boiled mine. Just put it in hot water with orange cleaner and let it sit for hours and wouldn't scrape it with a scraper/sheetrock knife when I'd think about it. Then after I got all the meat off it, I made sure I got all the brain and nasal passage out of it then soaked rags in peroxide and layed them on the skull, resoaking it every day for 3 days. Not perfect but not bad for my 1st time.

[josephmrtn]

when i did mine at first it smelled bad but by the end i thought it smelled like a meaty soup cooking

[G-Man]

Looks good! Boil n bleach it done!

[wooly]

Finally getting around to finishing this thing up. It went smoother than I expected from start to finish. I'm pretty happy with it and glad I was able to make some use of this buck.

One thing I probably should have done differently was leave the center strip of cartilage that ran up the snout. To late now, and I'm not gonna lose any sleep over it, just something I'll plan on next time.

After getting him good and trimmed up, the boiling part didn't take long at all. I may have cooked him an hour, maybe an hour and a half in a water and Dawn dish soap tub.

After that I wrapped the bases in tin foil and got to whitening. I didn't go out of my way to pick up any salon strength peroxide. Just used some Clorox bleach kitchen spray and a stiff tooth brush. Nuthin' fancy, I wont be entering any competitions with this guy! After a couple good scrubbings, I let it dry and took a light sand paper to some of the deeper stained areas and hit them again with the whitener.

I'm undecided if I'll simply mount him on a plaque or try to come up with something a little more ellaborate eventually. I'll worry about that later, but for the most part, I'm done for now. I'll deffinately be doing more this way in the future.

[ny hunter]

Wooley I think it came out great and looks fine just as it sits.great job....

[Red]

very nice job it looks really nice

[Pav2704]

Wooley I think it came out great and looks fine just as it sits.great job....

I definately agree. I think the simplicity of the skull and antlers is what makes it. Great job... Looks awesome!