Don't laugh, but black coffee stains the antlers pretty well, too.

Arts,

I've heard about using coffee or tea but never tried it since I already have plenty other stuff around because of my woodworking hobby. I'm in the middle of building the roll-around base for my life-size black bear right now, in fact. -TONY

Javex will clean to the bone. It does make everything white.I have used it on a rag to clean the antlers without turning them white by washing them with water when clean. Trial and error and go slow. I soak all my skulls in Javex as I like the clean white look on a nice pine board.

What is Javex

bobvthunter--are the antlers dark, or the skull? You said antlers, but that seems strange--could be, though. The skull can be whitened.

OK, I've got a bit of a mess on my hands. The buddy that butchered my deer last year removed the antlers so that I could mount them later. I was under the impression that he had removed the antlers with a small piece of the skull that might have a bit of hair left on it. So I was in no hurry. Well I opened up the bag today with the intention of cleaning up the skull only to find that he had left the majority of the skull and all the tissue that goes with it. I won't go into to many details, but whatever went on in the bag darkened the antlers significantly.

Am I stuck with dark antlers or can they be cleaned/treated to be brought back to their natural color? I know that normally the tissue can normally be boiled off, but I have a feeling that that won't cut it this time. I've also been told that if the antlers themselves are submerged in the boiling water that it whitens them, which I don't want either.

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Thanks,
Bob

Should you get too white, there are ways to recolour the antlers...potassium permanganate e.g., walnut gun stock oil and other stuff. Best ask the taxidermy group on this forum.

Frans

Javex is the brand name for a Canadian Bleach.

The bleach will whiten and whiten and whiten forever as the bone will crumble away slowly. Use hydrogen peroxide and maybe some sun shine.

You can boil the meat away - or use my method. I'm lazy so I do it the easy way.

Brent

SOS pads work for me. Be careful, if you scrub too long they will be lighter than usual.

Good Luck!

Reloader

Brent has made agood point--stay away from the bleach. It will break down the bone and make it chalky. Either soak or boil the head (adding some detergent, such as Tide, helps)--not the antlers, keep them above the water--then use hydrogen peroxide. Not the 3% stuff at the grocery store, get the stronger stuff, up to 30+% from a hair dresser. Wrap the skull with cotton cloth or rolled cotton, snugly, then soak it (the cotton) with the peroxide, then wrap the peroxide wet cotton wrapped skull with a trash bag or even Saran wrap. This is to hold the peroxide in. You don't want it to dry, as it quits working. Generally a couple days is all you need, and you may need to unwrap it and apply more peroxide to keep it wet. After working the bone with the peroxide, rinse it with water, then allow the sun to dry and bleach it whiter. Wrap the antlers in a garbage bag to protect them from the sun.

Thanks for the replies so far. I figured that bleach would do the job but wasn't sure what effects (other than whitening) it might have. Even though I was told that boiling the skull, antlers, etc. would whiten everything, I think I might give that a shot. It still seems less likely to whiten than any scheme involving bleach.

My only other thought was to somehow use vinegar. Soak? Boil? Wipe on? Full strength? Diluted? I hadn't gotten too far with this thought but it seems like vinegar would be more benign than bleach.

The antlers themselves have definately been darkened. Especially near the skull. My semi-educated guess is that the ammonia that is released when tissue breaks down is what did the darkening. But I can't prove that for sure.

Any more suggestions? Ideas?

Thanks,
Bob