First attempt, maceration euro.

[dmcbride]

I have been watching a few YouTube videos and decided to give it a try.

I started one week ago with a skinned out head, I didn’t remove any meat, bottom jaw Ect. I put it in a cooler with a large fish tank heater set at 93f with some dawn dish soap.

I am pretty impressed with the results so far other then the smell. Glad it is winter.

First water change today and the bottom jaw has already fell off and a lot of the meat has fallen off.






I will keep this thread updated.

[DeadEyeGardner]

Great to see you’re doing this on your own! The smell is repulsive, revolting and pretty bad no doubt.

The only advice I can give is to maybe wrap those antler bases with electric tape and/or plastic wrap. Wrap tightly, because in my experience you are going to see discolouration on the dark antler bases for whatever parts are in the water, especially right at the water line.

Hope it all works out!! Great trophy btw.

[dmcbride]

Thanks for the tip, will do.

[220 Swift]

Originally Posted by DeadEyeGardner

Great to see you’re doing this on your own! The smell is repulsive, revolting and pretty bad no doubt.

The only advice I can give is to maybe wrap those antler bases with electric tape and/or plastic wrap. Wrap tightly, because in my experience you are going to see discolouration on the dark antler bases for whatever parts are in the water, especially right at the water line.

Hope it all works out!! Great trophy btw.

yep i have seen the same with the discoloration.

[Bub]

From my personal limited experience, no wrap on the bases worked better. I only did 3 so far though.

The main thing, in my experience, is to keep it out of the sun. The sun will do way more discolouration than water will and it will do it quickly. So either keep it in a shadow, or better yet through some garbage bags on those antlers. Since you are doing it in the winter using an accelerated method, it may be not such a big deal though. I would take a precaution and cover them with garbage bags anyway. I messed up one head pretty badly not thinking ahead. Well, it is not really messed up, but the antlers had some very nice and very rich walnut colour from bases to tips and it gave a lot of character to the deer. Now they are just a set of pale/white fairly large set of antlers with not much going for them (in my opinion, though many disagree). All I can say is that I was very disappointed with myself when all was done with. Lesson learned though.

[shakeyleg02]

The end product of maceration is beautiful but ya the stink can be overwhelming, did a few skulls during the summer, skunk and a couple beavers,haven't got the teeth back in the fox ,coyote and porcupine yet

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[TippyCanoe]

If you do get discoloration at the bases you can use wood stain and a qtip to get it back to looking natural. I used 3 different stains; a very light, medium and dark and the end result looked completely blended and natural.

[jasonL_031]

ive done a few and never thought of using a fish tank heater I normally just use a big pot and a propane turkey cooker. looking good so far cant wait to see the final photos. I still have to do my buck from this year and a decent bull moose dead head.

[walking buffalo]

With the clothes clinging smell, the length of time and effort to do a cold maceration..

It just doesn't make sense to clean skulls this way.

Turn up the heat and get it done with no foul smell in a just a few hours.

[DeadEyeGardner]

Originally Posted by walking buffalo

With the clothes clinging smell, the length of time and effort to do a cold maceration..

It just doesn't make sense to clean skulls this way.

Turn up the heat and get it done with no foul smell in a just a few hours.

I agree 100% Boil couple times for 30 mins, pressure wash then peroxide overnight. Done.

[dmcbride]

I ended up not covering the bases, it was to smelly.

99.9% of all the flesh is gone, I have moved onto degreasing. Other then cutting the bone between the eyes when I was capping the head it is flawless.