European mounts are not nearly as expensive as a taxidermied mount, have more cool factor than a skull cap, and they are not very difficult to do.

As soon as you can after harvesting your animal, you want to skin off the head and remove as much tissue as you can. If you have a skull that has been sitting around a while with fur or tissue dried on it, soak it in a bucket of water for a week or so to soften it up and make it easier to clean.

Use a wire or stick to get as much of the brains out of the skull as you can. For antlered game like deer, wrap the first 4 inches of antler in Saran Wrap and tape it in place with electrical tape. This will keep you from bleaching out the horn color.

After that, toss it in a bucket of boiling water so that the skull is just covered in water for about 45 minutes. Some people like to add dish soap or borax to the water.

After it has boiled awhile, pull it out and hit it with a pressure washer. Making sure to blow out all the holes and crevices. This can be a little messy. Rubber boots, rain pants and eye protection are a good idea.

At this point you need to be careful, especially with predator skulls, because the teeth will come loose and may fall out, so keep track of them. Loose teeth can be glued back in place with a dab of super glue after the cleaning and whitening process.

You can put the skull back in the boiling water again if all of the tissue doesn’t come off on the first try, but don’t boil it too long. It can start to fall apart. You may have to scrape a little stubborn tissue off to get it clean. A pair of surgical forceps is handy to reach small spaces.

After all the tissue has been removed, pour a gallon of 40% by volume hydrogen peroxide (easy to find online) into your bucket along with enough water to just cover your skull and boil it again for about 30 minutes. Take it out and rinse it off. Repeat until you get the bright white skull you are looking for.

Set it in the sun to dry. When it is dry, finish it off with a trick I learned from Whitebone Creations: Paint the whole skull and horns in Mop & Glo. This will seal the pores in the bone and give it a nice, shiny appearance.

— Rod Carpenter