I believe this is done quite frequently in the States? Can it be done such that when re attached onto a European mount, it would still look good?
Any tips on how to do it? I assume you cut the bone under the coronet with something like a junior hacksaw?

The to re-attach drill the skull and the base of the antler and insert a small length of threaded rod and epoxy in place?

A friend is hoping to go to Europe next year for Red stag and thinks taking the antlers off the skull will make it easier to transport back...


Regards,

Pete

Just cut the top of the skull off and seperate. Cut from the back of the skull forward towards the middle of the eye socket and than down between the antlers and the eye socket. Pop out the brain, peel out the brain membrain, cut off the meat and break them apart at the seem.
Let the taxidermist worry about the rest.

bo-n-aro,

He hopes to end up with a European Skull mount, so I suspect its best to keep the skull whole as far as possible...Hopefully, he won't need to get a taxidermist involved...

In the UK, I believe its quite a common practice for the stalker who guides you to clean and bleech the skull of the trophy so its ready for the guest to take away with him at the end of the hunt..Sometimes theres a small charge for this and if not, you usually tip him for the service anyway...That just leaves you to mount it on a shield when you get home...

Regards,

Pete

Pete,
dont know whether this is useful for european mounts as there is no hair to hide the joint.
All my big antlers: elk,caribou have antlers that come off, 1 at a time.Its a bit more expensive but makes transport etc doable.
The taxidermist uses sort of a peg on the shoulder mount form ,that steel peg then goes into a hole into the antler. The precision without wiggle apparently from the molded plastic that hardens in the antler hole

The same principle should be usable for european mounts

Sheephunter,

Thats what I figured they did...

My worries are how you would neatly cut the bone right along the join where antlers normally "break" when they are shed?? Junior hacksaw seems to be one way or perhaps one of those wire survival saws???

If you could cut at that point, when it was reassembled, the coronet/burr would hide the cut to a degree...I assume any join could be minimised with the appropriately coloured resin...

Regards,

Pete

Pete,

What it is, a steel rod, square, that goes in antler then a square hollow tube goes in the skull, this way the don't turn on you and they always go back together the same way.

It's a job to do it but a good idea for bring a set of stag antlers home, will take up a lot less room for sure.

Pete,
cut it off ,even in the field, as good as you can
then back hoem you can grind both sides down square with a grinder.
That should loose minimal bone height