How To: Euro Mount

[colberjs]

I took a few pics as I made a European mount out of a a small buck I killed last Friday.

Here is the deer the morning I killed it.



Once I got the head back from the processor, (be sure to tell them you are doing a skull or European mount when you drop it off so they don't cut the horns off) I filled a large pot with water and brought it to a boil. This is something that I don't really recommend doing in the house. I didn't have any other option. I would recommend using a turkey fryer setup and an old pot outside. You will periodically have to add more water to replace what you lose through evaporation.



After a couple hours or so of boiling you will begin to see the meat separating from the bone. At this point you can begin pulling off the meat and the lower jawbone. As you can probably guess it is very hot so be careful!!



After pulling off all the loose meat place back in the boiling water to continue cooking until you can remove the remainder of the loose meat. The hardest parts are the nasal cavity, the brain, and the base of the skull around the ear area. You can use a coat hanger with a small hook on the end to remove most of the sinus tissue from the nasal cavity and a butterknife on other areas. Here is what it will look like.



At this point I took it to the local carwash and used the wand to pressure wash the remainder of the meat and cartilage and also the brain matter and sinus tissue. Here is a picture of my son holding the clean skull.



The final step is bleaching the skull. This can be done with 40 volume peroxide that is available at beauty supply stores such as Sally's. I'll post pictures as I perform this step and post them later.



This is a cheap alternative to traditional taxidermy or when the deer isn't quite big enough to have mounted. This is the second one I have done.

[choupique108]

how the hell did you convince your wife to let you boil that in the house?

[choupique108]

Looks good though. We have done it a few time with cow skulls.

[Milhoss]

sweet, have this yrs bear and deer skulls still and was planning on doing this. from how difficult a few guys here have told me though, i've yet to get to it.
feeling much better about it now though, thanks!

[Austin G]

That looks like some good stew! lol

[powerstroke586]

looks good man! my stepmom did this with my dads buck and a bear skull i hated it cause it stunk the whole house up! she finally started doin it outside haha

[colberjs]

Originally Posted by choupique108

how the hell did you convince your wife to let you boil that in the house?

I waited until she wasn't home.

Originally Posted by Milhoss

sweet, have this yrs bear and deer skulls still and was planning on doing this. from how difficult a few guys here have told me though, i've yet to get to it.
feeling much better about it now though, thanks!

Just jump in and do it. It's not that bad at all.

Originally Posted by powerstroke586

looks good man! my stepmom did this with my dads buck and a bear skull i hated it cause it stunk the whole house up! she finally started doin it outside haha

She must be a good woman if she did it herself.

[powerstroke586]

She must be a good woman if she did it herself.[/QUOTE]

She is pretty handy she has even done some brain tanning a couple deer and one buffalo

[colberjs]

Originally Posted by powerstroke586

She must be a good woman if she did it herself.

She is pretty handy she has even done some brain tanning a couple deer and one buffalo [/QUOTE]

What is brain tanning?

[powerstroke586]

Originally Posted by colberjs

She is pretty handy she has even done some brain tanning a couple deer and one buffalo

What is brain tanning?[/QUOTE]

tanning hides using brains it is how the native americans did it i guess you use brains and a couple other ingredients but you have to scrape the hide and then put the mixture on and stretch it on a frame and dry it outside