The European mount is a timeless preservation option for hard-earned big game.
The end goal of hunting is success. That success hopefully leads to freezer fodder for future meals and possibly even a trophy to admire for years to come. HuntStand teams with you the entire way for a hunting app that helps you in land management and landing a trophy. Combine HuntStand with the Command Pro app and your cellular team work in concert with HuntStand for the win.
If you do land an exceptional trophy, the next question you face is … what to do with it? Maybe you tagged a new world record whitetail and deciding what to do with it is a no brainer. For the rest of us, garden variety bucks and bulls have special significance, but maybe not enough to justify a hefty taxidermy bill.
No worries. You can turn that good-looking rack into an attractive European skull mount with a DIY approach. Pressure wash it whistle clean in a matter of minutes. Add whitener and invest in a convenient, classy Skull Hooker hanger to show off your latest hunting prize.
All said, here’s how to do a European mount.
Wear latex gloves when skinning the head of your deer for pressure washing and use a sharp knife.
Methods for Doing European (Skull) Mounts
I’ve cleaned up hundreds of skulls over the years, starting out with the boiling process in my earlier attempts and transitioning to the pressure washing method. Some prefer the Dermestid beetle approach, but that becomes a year-round babysitting job of keeping a colony of meat-eating insects happy.
Instead, pressure washing with the right tools, and a simmering bath in between, is the fastest way to get from a meaty skull to home interior artwork. Yes, boiling, beetles, and even backyard burying your skull for nature to take its course works, but the speediness of cleaning with a pressure washer will amaze you when done correctly.
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Completed deer skulls cleaned by pressure washing. A European (skull) mount is an excellent way to preserve harvested game.
The Gear You Need to Do European (Skull) Mounts
You need to deal with a relatively meat-free skull. This requires you to cape off the hide, remove the eyeballs, remove the lower jaw and slice away as much meat as possible from the sides of the skull. Also, make slices in the membrane of the mouth roof to allow pressurized water to tear away that covering.
For all of this, you need a sharp knife and sharpener. Caping knives tend to work best, such as the SOG Tellus FX fixed-blade knife. Team this with the Cold Steel Double Side Folding Knife Sharpener to keep your blade sharp for ease in skull cleaning.
Always stay safe from bodily fluids, especially the spinal cord and brain tissue, which are known to carry Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD). Multipurpose cleaning gloves ensure your hands are protected. Wearing quality rain gear, jacket, and pants, plus goggles, protects you from flying debris during the pressure washing session. Don’t risk injury, especially to your eyes.
Next, you need a pressure washer. Check with friends or purchase your own, but you need the correct PSI. Pressure washers that exert 3,000 psi or more clean skulls the most efficiently. My Mi-T-M pressure washer blasts at 3,500 PSI for unbelievably clean results.
To boost pressure effectiveness, outfit your pressure washer wand with a rotating nozzle. It slices meat away with its gyrating power effectively reducing the time of the process.
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Simmering your skull can loosen any stubborn meat before your final pressure washing session.
Steps for Pressure Washing a European (Skull) Mount
With most species, you can operate at full power (except for thinner-skulled pronghorns). Too intense of washing can break through the fragile pronghorn skull. Back off or use a standard nozzle with these lightweights, but for the rest, power away.
Next, use plastic wrap and cover the base of the antlers to ensure the natural color stays intact. Secure wrap with duct tape. A pallet or woven wire fence works to hold a skull from blowing away. Jam antlers into pallet slots or woven wire and rotate as needed during the wash.
If for some reason you cannot pressure wash immediately, keep the skull cool and super moist, or better yet, freeze it. Dried out skulls become more difficult to remove meat, even more so with each passing day.
After 10 to 15 minutes of skull pressure washing, you should see a relatively clean skull. Turn your attention to brain removal. Put the nozzle in the rear brain cavity hole and blast to remove the brains in seconds. Lean away from the blast to avoid the splash.
For stubborn cartilage or meat, have a canning pot simmering on a stove (camping stoves or turkey fryers work well) and let the skull simmer for 30 minutes or so. Add a dash of Dawn dish detergent as a degreasing agent into the simmering water. Do not boil. Boiling softens skulls and they can fall apart. Complete this simmering step outside or in a shop in case of cooking odor and fumes, especially with a skull that has sat for a few days.
Take out the skull, and with a second pressure washing session, blast away the stubborn tissue now loosened from the cooking bath. This only takes a minute or two.
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Paint the whitener on a skull to bring vivid whiteness to the skull. Deploy the Salon Basic White for skull whitening. Or use the Bone Brite Skull Whitener to make that skull look great. Final skull cleaning after whitening is to brush off dried whitener product.
Whitening a European (Skull) Mount
Your skull is nearly ready to hang on the wall but hold on. If you really want it to be brilliant white, you can add whitener to the outside to enhance its standout look.
Several methods exist to whiten skulls beyond your original thorough cleaning. An easy path to a white skull is to purchase a kit available through taxidermy outlets. Companies like Bone Brite have products, along with instructions, to whiten skulls. The chemicals required are included along with detailed instructions.
You can also substitute with hair salon products referred to as “basic white.” Mix this with a 40% ratio of hydrogen peroxide and paint the paste on the warm, moist skull. Wrapping the skull in foil or clear plastic wrap also enhances the whiteness, allowing the concoction to soak in. After a day or so, brush away the flaky residue for a snow-white trophy.
After removing the whitener with whisking motions from a paint brush, and then rinsing the skull, you might see some staining that faded on the antler bases. I touch these up with Minwax Wood Finish Stain Marker. Dark Walnut matches most antler colors, and a few blots of stain quickly blend into existing natural color.
European mounts add a classic touch to nooks and major trophy areas, and the Skull Hooker makes hanging easy.
To elegantly display your new trophy, consider one of more than two dozen skull exhibition offerings from Skull Hooker. These display options vary from wall mounts to tabletop mounts and ceiling hangers to the Trophy Tree that allows you to customize a variety of skull displays together. Then sit back and enjoy that classy skull artwork.
